Political Quotes

“I rise as well--as the senior Senator from Michigan just told us--to highlight and celebrate this anniversary, 50 years for both Medicare and Medicaid. I am going to focus my remarks on Medicaid and to say, first, that contrary to what we often hear about an important program such as this, Medicaid is working. Medicaid is helping tens of millions of Americans. We can all come up with ways to make changes, and we probably will over the next couple of years, but Medicaid is maybe one of the most underrated health care programs in recent American history, for sure, and it is not simply millions who are benefiting from Medicaid but tens of millions. There are 68 million Americans who are Medicaid beneficiaries nationally and 36 million of them are children. When folks talk about families and children and the priority we place on helping our families, I hope that means strengthening Medicaid, not slashing it, not destroying it, and not taking some of the steps that have been proposed in Washington over the last couple years. It is interesting, about 45 percent of all births in the country are paid for by Medicaid. So 45 percent of the babies born in America are on this Earth because they have the Medicaid Program to pay for the cost of the birth, which is not inexpensive. On the other end of the age spectrum, about 60 percent of nursing home placements in the country come through Medicaid. This isn't a program for someone else far away.…”