Jack Reed: “I join him in my opposition to this provision in the bill. I believe that to raise the eligible age for Medicare is…”

“I join him in my opposition to this provision in the bill. I believe that to raise the eligible age for Medicare is going in exactly the wrong direction. It forgets why we created Medicare in the first place in the mid-1960s. The overwhelming reality was that seniors at that age could not get health care. That is why the Government stepped in. Private insurance companies were unwilling to sell insurance to those people at any reasonable price. Many things have changed since the mid-1960s--the demographics of our population, the efficacy of a health care program, the longevity of our citizens--but one thing has not changed, and that is the unwillingness of private insurance to step in and provide affordable and accessible health insurance to seniors. Today, 13 percent of the 21 million people aged 55 to 64 lack health insurance, and by adopting this provision we will simply add to that number because, now, from age 65 to 66, they will not have access to the Medicare system. Therefore, we have to, I think, maintain a situation where the Medicare system begins at age 65.”