Medicare Quotes

On January 1, 2006, Medicare will begin to offer a prescription drug benefit, and for the first time, it will place an emphasis on preventive care and early treatment of disease.

Medicare provided guaranteed equal coverage, something that the private sector could not.

The President's budget pays for only six months of the war in Iraq and completely overlooks the transition costs of Social Security reform. The Administration always lied about the cost of the Medicare drug bill.

In Pennsylvania, 38 percent of Pennsylvania seniors chose to get their Medicare from a plan called Medicare Advantage. It's their choice. Forty-seven percent of them are going to lose it under 'Obamacare' according to Medicare by 2017.

I opposed Clinton's budget deal in 1997 because he brought in $115 billion cut in Medicare that created greater pressure for providers not to participate.

We do not need to end Medicare. We don't need to throw people who are younger than 55 years old to the wolves which is what we do.

My votes against the education bill and my votes against the Medicare bill got huge play at home.

If we do nothing, as the Republicans suggest, we're going to see health care costs reach a point where small businesses can't afford it and families can't afford it. We're going to see people turned down from pre-existing conditions. We're going to find the Medicare doughnut hole - a gap in coverage that's going to hurt a lot of seniors.

The Congressional Budget Office tells us that Medicare spending has increased fivefold in the past 42 years, dramatically more than all other categories of federal spending.

Under Medicare right now, I get paid to put a pacemaker in you, but I don't get paid to counsel you about end-of-life care.

Medicare and Social Security have created the healthiest and most financially secure generation of senior citizens in American history.

But here's what I would tell people of my generation. I turn 40 this year. There isn't going to be a Social Security. There isn't going to be a Medicare when you retire. Forget about what your benefit is going to look like. There isn't going to be one if we don't make some reforms to save that program now.

We added Medicare Part D to a system facing bankruptcy and gave no thought to means testing it.

Do you know what the overhead is of the Medicare system? One-point-zero-five percent. Do you know what - private insurance is 30 percent in overhead and profits? Given a choice how I'm going to improve health care, I'm going to take it away from private insurance profits and overhead. Wouldn't you?

Medicare debates in Congress should result in better Medicare benefits for all our nation's seniors. We're not asking for special treatment for rural America, just a fair deal.

For all their scare tactics, President Obama and Democrats have no plan whatsoever to preserve Medicare for future generations - or protect it for today's seniors and those nearing retirement. They did, however, cut Medicare by $700 billion to bankroll Obamacare.

When Medicare was first enacted in 1965, it provided coverage for hospitalization, doctor visits and surgeries, but there was no coverage for prescription medications.

The first year of the Bush administration we used up all of the surplus and ended up just with the Social Security and Medicare surplus, and each year worse than the year before.

And in terms of entitlement reforms, we have to save them from themselves, because if we don't reform social security and we don't reform Medicare, they're going to actually implode.

You know, for most seniors Medicare is their only form of health care.

There's an issue with the Medicare doctor reimbursement rates where at the end of the year every doctor that folks in this country use that provide Medicare services is going to get a 30 percent salary cut.

I'm too young for Medicare and too old for broads to care.

It worries me about our unwillingness to really address reforms and modernization in Medicare. This thing was designed 37 years ago. It has not evolved to keep pace with current medical technology.

Al Gore may think Medicare is at a crossroads, but his plan puts it on a highway to bankruptcy.

I believe keeping our promises should be our highest priority and that means saving Social Security and Medicare while preserving the American dream for our children and grandchildren.

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.

But, if you don't like your current Rx coverage or don't have any coverage to begin with, you'll now have the choice to add this new affordable option to your current Medicare plan.

Obama has demonstrated no desire to make tough choices. Americans demand a more efficient, effective government, but his budget calls for more taxes and more spending. It employs deceptive accounting gimmicks but does nothing to tackle long-term entitlement problems, nothing to save Medicare or fix Social Security.

The American people I talk to don't spend every moment thinking, 'How can I tax my neighbor more than they're being taxed?' They say, 'How can I get a good job? How can my kids get good jobs? How can seniors have a confidence in their future when they know that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt?'

We know that Medicare's going broke in seven years, but we need to start over.That's what the American people want us to do.