[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6047]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1120
             REPUBLICAN BUDGET ENDS MEDICARE AS WE KNOW IT

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, it's sort of ironic that today we're going 
to bring up a budget, the Republican budget, that would end Medicare as 
we know it, but at the same time seek to repeal the health care reform 
legislation, or at least defund it.
  I don't understand how my Republican colleagues keep talking about 
repealing or defunding health care reform and yet have nothing to 
replace it with, and in this case are trying to gut or end as we know 
it the existing health care programs that we have for senior citizens 
and the disabled in the case of Medicare, and in the case of Medicaid 
for low-income people.
  They would tell seniors, in their budget, that they're supposed to go 
out and buy their own health insurance, and somehow they're going to 
give them some help. They call it premium support from the Federal 
Government. But they're now going to have to pay out of pocket to just 
buy their insurance more and more. So they have to pay out of pocket 
for the premium, they have to pay out of pocket for a deductible, and 
they have to pay out of pocket for the copay. Where does it end?

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