[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Page 7787]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  Mr. REID. Madam President, for weeks Americans old and young have 
been speaking out against the Republican plan to kill Medicare. It is 
not just Democrats. Republicans have been speaking out against it too.
  Newt Gingrich called it a radical plan and ``right-wing social 
engineering.'' Several Republican Senators have similarly spoken out, 
calling it what it really is, a plan that would shatter a cornerstone 
of our society and break our promise to the elderly and to the sick.
  Last night, though, the most important voices were heard. American 
voters had their first chance to do something about it. They went to 
the polls and resoundingly rejected that plan and the candidate who ran 
on that plan's promise to dismantle Medicare.
  In a special congressional election in upstate New York, the 
Republican plan to kill Medicare was the No. 1 issue. It was the No. 2 
issue. It was the No. 3 issue. It is what the voters most cared about 
and were most scared about, as well they should be.
  Here is what it would do: It would turn over seniors' health to 
profit-hungry insurance companies. It would let bureaucrats decide what 
tests and treatments seniors get. It would ask seniors to pay more for 
their health care in exchange for fewer benefits. That is a bad deal 
all around.
  What is telling is not just that the voters rejected this plan, it is 
that the Republican candidate pushing the Republican plan to kill 
Medicare was rejected in a very Republican district. The district, 
which stretches from Buffalo to Rochester, has been in Republican hands 
for four decades. It produced influential Republicans such as Jack 
Kemp, whom I served in Congress with. He served in the Cabinet. He ran 
on the Presidential ticket as a vice presidential candidate.
  Last night's special election was held to replace a Republican 
Congressman who won that seat by a 3-to-1 margin. John McCain won the 
district in 2008. George W. Bush won the district 4 years earlier. Last 
year's Republican candidate for Governor in New York lost in a 
landslide. But he won big in that district. That is how conservative it 
is.
  Democrats in Congress and even some candid Republicans know the 
Republican plan to kill Medicare is irresponsible and indefensible. 
Last night voters showed the country and the Congress that they know it 
too.

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