Sylvester Turner: “Whether or not you need some help in being able to pay for prescription drugs just does not depend upon your income; it…”

“Whether or not you need some help in being able to pay for prescription drugs just does not depend upon your income; it depends on how sick you are. That is one of the beautiful things about our Medicare program that was established in 1965; everybody over 65 is eligible. I think it has been a program that has received broad public support because it is available to every senior. If we go to a system where we try to take care of prescription drugs by putting together another welfare program, all we are going to do is send money out to the States. They will struggle trying to figure out how to put a program together, and I do not think they can do it nearly as quickly as we could put a prescription drug benefit under Medicare, and it would turn out to be wholly inadequate; and it will turn out to be different all across the country. One of the other fundamental issues that one has to come to grips with in this debate is whether or not you believe that as a senior citizen you should have the same benefit and the same coverage under Medicare, no matter where you live in this country.”