Political Quotes

“I appreciate that. In terms of cost, much of my professional life was involved in serving older adults. A particular section that I find very appalling of what I see in both the Democratic House bill and the Democratic Senate bill is what is authorized in terms of increasing the cost of individual insurance premiums for older adults. Older adults rely on Medicare. I will talk a little bit on Medicare in just a second. But they purchase supplemental insurance to fill in the gap, to make sure that they don't exhaust their life savings that they've accumulated over time. They've earned those. They've put those aside so that they can enjoy those retirement years and be able to do the things that they've always hoped and dreamed about doing. So supplemental insurance serves an important purpose there. Well, within the House bill, it authorizes, it allows, it codifies that insurance premiums for older adults are allowed to double. In the Senate bill, it does one step better than that; it allows supplemental insurance costs, individual insurance costs for older adults to triple, and that's a crime. {time} 1815 I want to take the next step. I have talked about the four dimensions of health care. Now I want to talk about accessibility. If we are doing health care reform correctly, we are increasing accessibility. I don't think we are. We are making health care less accessible. Part of that is through Medicare cuts, half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts.…”