Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from California for his leadership on these issues and for his continued leadership in bringing these discussions to the American people. I also look forward to hearing my friend from New York in what he has to say. We have talked time and again about the importance of what we are trying to accomplish in this House with regard to protecting the Medicare program. I represent a district, as the gentleman well knows, that has 135,000 Medicare beneficiaries. It has, actually, the fourth- most Medicare beneficiaries of any congressional district in the country. So the people I represent have a very strong interest, as does every Member of this House, in making sure that Medicare is preserved, that it's protected, that it's strengthened, and that it is always going to be there, not just for those 135,000 beneficiaries who participate in the Medicare program today but for generations to come. We are not going to stand here as Democrats or Republicans or as any political affiliation and say that everything is working perfectly and that nothing needs to be altered. The fact is, with regard to Medicare, one-third of the people who qualify for Medicare today use every penny that they have paid into the system over the course of their entire lifetimes within the first year of qualifying for Medicare because they have extremely high health care costs.…”