[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7705]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        WE MUST PROTECT MEDICARE

  (Ms. EDWARDS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join with the American 
people to protect Medicare.
  It's pretty simple. The Republicans, if they had their way, it would 
mean a catastrophic end to the program and it would deep-six 
protections for seniors and improvements to Medicare that we made under 
the Affordable Care Act.
  Medicare has long been a reliable source of coverage for seniors, 
ensuring they can afford the care they need. In Maryland, the GOP plan 
would force seniors to pay nearly $6,800 more in out-of-pocket expenses 
for health care in the first year alone. And at a time when seniors are 
economically vulnerable, this proposal would further threaten their 
quality of life.
  While their budget, to date, hasn't produced a single jobs-creating 
bill, what they would do in these next several months is to cut more 
than 2 million private sector jobs across the country.
  So right now the Republicans are heading for the hills, trying to 
distance themselves from what they're trying to do to Medicare, but 
it's clear that the American people want to protect Medicare.
  So I urge my colleagues to join with us and oppose this controversial 
change that would end the decades-old promise to the American people.
  It's a simple question: Whose side are you on? Well, I'm on the side, 
and Democrats are on the side of seniors and not the wealthy health 
insurance industry and Big Oil bandits.

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