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I think the thing with Medicare - and a lot of this - I should say, with Medicaid - and this is going to depend - states are going to be in a position to have a lot of flexibility.
If Republicans eliminate Medicare, America will become a country in which you can never retire - and once you physically can no longer work, you are desperately poor until you die.
The economist John Maynard Keynes said that in the long run, we are all dead. If he were around today he might say that, in the long run, we are all on Social Security and Medicare.
We are the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have a Medicare for All type of program, and that's an idea whose time has come. It is the morally right thing to do.
The Medicare Part D prescription drug bill, which might be the most corrupt piece of legislation in history, was a huge giveaway of taxpayer funds to the big pharmaceutical companies.
I don't believe there's a red state in America where people believe you should cut Medicare, Social Security and veterans' benefits rather than doing away with corporate tax loopholes.
Democrats are fighting fire with fire. Our principled stance on Medicare and Social Security is absolutely no different than the Republicans' stance on no revenue increases without cuts.
Because of President Obama's failed record on nearly every issue from the economy to the deficit to Medicare, the Obama campaign has become increasingly dirty, despicable, and desperate.
Traditionally, Medicare's assurance has been that for the elderly and persons with disabilities that they will not be alone when confronted with the full burden of their health care costs.
It seems as though there are Members in this body who want to filibuster just about everything we try to do, whether it is stopping judicial nominations, the Energy bill, or this Medicare bill.
I've written and passed laws to give Medicare beneficiaries access to life saving cancer drugs and to ensure that seniors don't have to give up the prospect of a cure when they go into hospice care.
I will never turn Medicare into a voucher. No American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies. They should retire with the care and dignity they have earned.
When Obama gutted Medicare by taking $717 billion out of it, the Romney plan does not do that. The Ryan plan mimicked part of the Obama package there, the Romney plan does not. That's a big difference.
We need a senator who fights for things like affordable health care, college and technical school, not tax cuts for wealthy donors. That doesn't mean free college or Medicare for All, I'm against that.
Bureaucracies tend to perpetuate themselves, whether they are multinational corporations or large government institutions such as Medicare, often at the expense of those that they are supposed to serve.
Medicare is a promise we made to seniors more than four decades ago. When President Johnson signed Medicare into law, one in three seniors lived in poverty. Half of seniors had no health coverage at all.
Truly landmark pieces of legislation - including the Social Security Act, Medicare, and the Kennedy and Reagan tax reductions - historically have garnered strong support from both parties. The ACA did not.
The Republican promise is for policies that create economic growth. Republicans believe lower taxes, less regulation, balanced budgets, a solvent Social Security and Medicare will stimulate economic growth.
The single-payer Medicare for All proposal is not only bad policy, but it's bad politics. It's bad politics for a very simple reason: More than half the country has private insurance and most of them like it.
From the Medicare prescription drug plan to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the passage of No Child Left Behind, President Bush presided over a major expansion of the reach of government.
It is time that we provide clarity for our seniors, informing them of the services available that will lower the costs of their prescription drugs and strengthen the overall integrity of the Medicare entitlement.
I'd never have guessed that, six years after Medicare introduced a drug benefit, it would still be forbidden to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies. Health reform might fix that, but it probably won't.
Medicare has provided healthcare coverage for older Americans and disabled persons for 50 years, and I believe that steps must be taken to ensure that it remains an option for all Americans now and into the future.
In terms of Medicare, I'm in favor of sitting down and having a serious discussion about the likely impact of the Affordable Care Act, health-care reform, on the cost issue and changing the fee-for-service structure.
If every American automatically has health coverage, the age at which Medicare kicks in becomes a less fraught issue. We could gradually raise the age of Medicare eligibility a bit, according to income, and save money.
I am just one of the overwhelming majority of Americans who is responsible and hard-working and at one point in their life benefited greatly from government programs such as student loans, Medicare, and Social Security.
There are very powerful and wealthy special interests who want to privatize or dismember virtually every function that government now performs, whether it is Social Security, Medicare, public education or the Postal Service.
If you take a look at Medicare, there are things we could do, not just tort reform but truly reform the whole reimbursement system which will help in terms of reducing costs and creating the right kind of incentives for savings.
I'm telling you, as a doctor who spent about half of his time in the office taking care of our seniors on Medicare, it is a program that intentions to work are much better than the way it's working today in terms of practicality.
It took a little over a decade to build a coalition strong enough to beat the insurance companies, but in 1990, then Senator Tom Daschle and I passed a law regulating the private market for supplemental Medicare insurance policies.
We're saying no changes for Medicare for people above the age of 55. And in order to keep the promise to current seniors who've already retired and organized their lives around this program, you have to reform it for the next generation.
Before Medicare, nearly half of American seniors were forced to go without coverage because insurance companies were reluctant to insure them - making the chances of having health insurance as a senior the same as getting tails on a coin flip.
At the beginning of his administration, Obama homed right in on Medicare, which he wanted to fix by reducing the overall cost of health care in this country. He risked everything - some would claim he lost everything - by being so single-minded.
We not only heard it before 20 years ago, before George Bush in 2001 passed his tax relief, before in 2003 the tax relief were past, we were told they were dead. Before we provided prescription drugs for Medicare, we were told it wasn't going to happen.
I don't think Donald Trump is a conservative. I think his line on China for example, that he's going to talk tough to China. China didn't create Social Security, Medicare. China isn't spending a fifth of a billion dollars every hour that it doesn't have.
Like my colleagues, I did about 10 to 15 town hall meetings on this issue; and what I found is people came with a sincere interest to learn, a sincere interest to cut through the rhetoric and understand how this Medicare bill impacts them in their daily lives.
But, also, before I even go on the Medicare prescription drug debate, I always tell the folks in rural Illinois, and I represent 30 counties south of Springfield down to Indiana and Kentucky, that in this bill is the best rural package for hospitals ever passed.
The curious thing is Americans don't mind individual mandates when they come in the form of payroll taxes to buy mandatory public insurance. In fact, that's the system we call Social Security and Medicare, and both are so popular politicians dare not touch them.
Before we even consider expanding Medicare, or another program based on its rates, we must reform our Medicare payment system so that it rewards value, not volume, and doesn't disadvantage states like Minnesota that provide high-quality care in an efficient way.
We have got to cut the spending. We have got to fix Medicare and Social Security. And actually, if we don't cut spending, this country is already broke. We are going off the financial cliff: the big cliff that is going to cause a total economic collapse of America.
However, the Medicare prescription drug benefit has changed, and if the nearly 3,000 seniors I have met through 12 town halls can represent a sample of opinion, many seniors do not yet understand the prescription drug program and do not plan to sign up for coverage.
When I talk about democratic socialist, I am talking about Medicare, a single payer health care system for the elderly. And in my view, we should expand that concept to all people. I believe that everybody in this country should be entitled to health care as a right.
The most popular health care plan in the country is Medicare. It delivers the best care at the lowest cost - it's better than any other part of our health care system. But most people can only get it when they're over 65. I don't think you should have to wait that long.
The number of people with HIV receiving Medicare benefits has grown over time, reflecting growth in the size of the of the HIV positive population in the U.S. but also an increased lifespan for people with HIV due to antiretroviral medicines and other treatment advances.
It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent allied with Democrats, has championed Medicare for All, which would give every American coverage through the federal health insurance program for seniors. Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow wants Medicare coverage for anyone over the age of 55.
You're going to hear a lot from President Obama and yes, from Joe Biden, you're hearing a little bit about Medicare these days. What they will not tell you is they turned Medicare into a piggybank to fund 'Obamacare.' They took $716 billion dollars to pay for the 'Obamacare' program.
The nominee is Mitt Romney. Paul Ryan joins Mitt Romney. The budget plan, the approach on Medicare and all of that is going to be the Romney plan. What he has is a man as his number two who understands the details of budgets, who has demonstrated a willingness to take on tough issues.
The real problem with big issues like Medicare is that both parties have to be brave at the same time. Every pollster will tell you not to do that to get partisan advantage. Too many people here are willing to deliberately harm the country for partisan gain. That is borderline treason.
It's critical - that the people that are benefiting today from Medicare and Social Security that they not see benefit reductions. It's awfully hard to tell someone who might be 82, that they've gotta go back to work, because their benefits are gonna be chopped. That's not gonna happen.