[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7877]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  (Mr. YARMUTH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, yesterday on this floor a number of my 
Democratic colleagues took the floor to talk about the Republican plan 
to eliminate Medicare as we know it. Now, in response to that, some of 
my Republican friends stood up and said, well, where is the Democratic 
plan? I don't know whether they were sleeping through the 111th 
Congress or just failed to read the bill that they voted against and 
now want to repeal, but our Democratic principles were very much 
reflected in the Affordable Care Act that we passed in the last 
Congress. We found savings in Medicare, we extended the life of the 
program for at least 10 years, we are closing the doughnut hole, we are 
providing new services for seniors, all of that in addition to saving 
$1 trillion in the second 10 years of the program.
  So the Democrats have a plan for Medicare, and we passed it in the 
last Congress. The Republican response: repeal what we did and end 
Medicare as we know it--a very creative approach to solving one of the 
problems that faces this country and many of our seniors.

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