[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 80 (Monday, June 6, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3508-S3509]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                                MEDICARE

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, for the last couple weeks, I 
traveled to senior centers from Toledo to Youngstown to Columbus to 
talk with seniors and health professionals about the threats facing 
their Medicare benefits. We owe it to our children, we owe it to our 
grandchildren, we owe it to succeeding generations to reduce our 
Nation's deficit. We know almost exactly one decade ago we had the 
largest budget surplus in the history of our country. We know during 
the next 8 years--as Congress and President Bush cut taxes mostly on 
the wealthy in 2001 and 2003, began two wars with Iraq and Afghanistan 
and didn't pay for them, did a prescription drug benefit, a supposed 
benefit that was, in many ways, a bailout for the drug and insurance 
companies and didn't pay for it, and deregulated Wall Street--during 
those 8 years, we had the largest budget deficit in American history. 
We went from the largest budget surplus in American history to the 
largest budget deficit in American history.
  What we see in the Republican budget now, as we talk about Medicare 
and as they talk about Medicare--ending Medicare as we know it, turning 
Medicare over to the insurance companies--what we are seeing is sort of 
the same old game, the same old song from people who do not much like 
Medicare; that is, cut taxes on the wealthy again and pay for those tax 
cuts--you have to find a way to pay for them--I guess, pay for those 
tax cuts by cutting the Medicare benefits seniors have earned. That is 
what is troubling to me about this Republican budget.
  Too many Americans are facing a middle-class squeeze, working hard, 
playing by the rules, finding it still hard to get ahead in this 
economy. Many parents, many Americans in their forties and fifties and 
sixties are part of a sandwich generation. They are helping their 
parents as their medical costs go up and their parents are not earning 
very much. They are maybe getting Social Security, maybe something 
else, and they are trying to pay for their children's college, so this 
is the wrong time, as if there would ever be a right time, to turn 
Medicare over to the insurance industry, Medicare as we know it.

  That is why Senators Cardin from Maryland, McCaskill of Missouri, and 
Tester of Montana wrote a letter to the Vice President calling for the 
Republican plan to end Medicare as we know it to be taken off the table 
during the deficit reduction negotiations.
  I want to see our deficit reduced. I want to see us have a long-term 
plan to get our budget deficit under control the way we did in the 
1990s and turned budget problems inherited by President Clinton--
bequeathed by Presidents Reagan and Bush, inherited by President 
Clinton--how we got from a budget deficit to a budget surplus.
  The statistics behind Medicare are clear. The number of seniors 
lifted out of poverty in these 45 years, the number of families who 
have the help to care for a parent or grandparent--we can't reverse 
those gains for the ultimate form of rationing health care for seniors. 
Make no mistake, this is rationing health care. When you shift the 
cost, you give a senior citizen a voucher--you give them an $8,000 
check, and that check goes to insurance companies to pay for health 
insurance. If it runs short, what happens--and it likely will--they pay 
out-of-pocket. That really is rationing. If you are not a fairly 
wealthy senior and you run out of this privatized Medicare voucher, you 
will reach into your pockets and pay for it. That is rationing because 
many seniors won't be able to pay for it.
  When I hear the terms ``death panels'' and ``rationing'' and all 
these things that conservative politicians usually enthralled in the 
insurance industry are telling this Chamber and down the hall in the 
House of Representatives--real rationing is when seniors can not afford 
to pay out-of-pocket for their health insurance costs because of what 
this Republican budget plan does. Their plan calls for vouchers for 
private health coverage, doubling their out-of-pocket costs in the 
first year alone. The average senior would receive an $8,000 voucher; 
however, in the first year of the voucher program, out-of-pocket 
expenses would, according to the Congressional Budget Office--not a 
Democratic group, not a Republican group, a down-the-middle group--the 
Congressional Budget Office said seniors' out-of-pocket expenses would 
double to more than $12,500 annually. As I said, at the same time, 
Republicans are going to take these savings to the budget, these cuts 
to senior care, to Medicare, and finance tax cuts for those people who 
earn 10 times or more than the average retirement income of a Medicare 
recipient.
  Seniors would see their prescription drug costs explode. In the 
health care bill, we cut the costs of prescription drugs to those 
seniors who are in the coverage gap, the so-called doughnut hole, cut 
them in half. That would go away. In other words, the Republican budget 
plan in my State across the river from the Presiding Officer's State 
would hand an $89 million prescription drug bill tab to split among 
139,000 Ohio seniors. Tens of thousands of Ohio seniors, thousands of 
West Virginia seniors, tens of thousands of seniors in the assistant 
majority leader's State of Illinois would be paying tens of millions of 
dollars in higher drug costs as a result of the Republican budget bill. 
The Senate voted that bill down, largely along party lines.
  Republicans continue to want to privatize Medicare, to turn Medicare 
over to the insurance industry. It simply would put insurance companies 
in charge of Medicare. It would put insurance companies in charge of 
the health of our seniors.
  Is that what we want? That is why we had Medicare in 1965, because 
insurance companies were in charge of health care for seniors, meaning 
half of the seniors had no health insurance--people over 65 in the year 
1965. Now roughly 99 percent of seniors have health insurance, and that 
is because of this program that most of us dearly love and the huge 
majority of our constituents in West Virginia, Illinois, and Ohio love, 
and that is called Medicare.
  Now, Mr. President, put aside all I have said for a moment. Forget 
about vouchers, forget about privatization, forget about insurance 
companies even, and think in a personal way about what Medicare has 
done in this country.
  Medicare was created in 1965, passed mostly by Democrats in the House 
and Senate, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in July of 1965. We have 
had Medicare for 45 years. Think about what it has done. Forget all the 
academic and policy questions. What Medicare has done is helped people 
in this country live longer, healthier lives. What that means is people 
have been able to get to know their grandchildren. Somebody who is 65 
or 70 or 75 or 80, and enjoys generally good health, has had years--
maybe decades--of helping to raise a grandchild, getting to know their 
granddaughter, getting to play with their grandson, all the things 
grandparents want to do. Senior citizens have had a greater quality of 
life because of what we call Medicare, and they have gotten to know 
their grandchildren better.

  Think what that means to children. They have gotten to know their 
grandparents better and have gotten the kind of guidance only 
grandparents can give. Margaret Mead, the great anthropologist, a few 
decades ago said ``wisdom and knowledge are passed from grandparent to 
grandchild.'' Wisdom and knowledge are passed from grandparent to 
grandchild, because we all know if we have children, our kids don't 
always listen to us but our grandchildren do.
  I have a 3-year-old grandson named Clayton who lives in Columbus, OH. 
When I am in Washington, my wife picks him up a lot of days after 
school. We don't live in Columbus, but she goes down there and picks 
him up after school. Every day Clayton gets to spend with his 
grandmother and, when I am home, every weekend with his grandfather. I 
get to see Clayton not as often as I want but fairly often.
  What Margaret Mead said is right. Grandparents impart a special 
wisdom and knowledge to grandchildren. Think of the benefit 
grandchildren have because of their grandparents. I wouldn't have 
looked at it quite the same way until I had my first grandson 3 years 
ago, but I understand that now.
  That, to me, is the real beauty of Medicare. It has helped this 
country's seniors live longer healthier lives and has helped this 
country's children be raised in a moral way, in a practical way, in an 
educational way, better than they would have if their grandparents 
hadn't been around.

[[Page S3509]]

  When I hear Republicans say they want to get rid of Medicare as we 
know it, they want to turn Medicare and senior health care over to the 
insurance industry, we know what will happen. Seniors won't live longer 
healthier lives because they will have lost Medicare as we know it.
  That is why we sent a letter to Vice President Biden--Senator Tester, 
Senator McCaskill, Senator Cardin, and I did--to say, take Medicare off 
the table. We need to deal with this budget deficit, but don't mess 
with Medicare while we are doing it. It is that simple.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 
minutes in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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