Madam President, often very good ideas, no matter how important, take time to ripen. Even when they are ripe they need dedicated advocates to make them a reality. Let me give one example. President Harry Truman once said: Millions of our…
Madam President, often very good ideas, no matter how important, take time to ripen. Even when they are ripe they need dedicated advocates to make them a reality. Let me give one example.
President Harry Truman once said:
Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of
opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Millions do not
now have protection or security against the economic effects
of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help
them attain that opportunity and help them get that
protection.
But in 1945 when he spoke those words to Congress, the time had not yet truly arrived. In fact, it would be another 20 years before Truman's good idea was realized. It would be 20 years before Truman became the first of 19 million Americans to receive a Medicare card.
President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law in the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, MO. The law took effect almost a year later, 45 years ago this week, on July 1, 1966.
At the time Medicare took effect, only half of Americans 65 and older had access to health care coverage. A third of American seniors lived in poverty. ``Poverty was so common that we did not know it had a name,'' President Johnson said, describing a time before Medicare.
Today, virtually every American over 65 has access to health care and the number of seniors who live below the poverty line has dropped by 75 percent. That is no accident. Medicare provides 47 million Americans with the
access to care and protection from poverty that President Truman envisioned 65 years ago, and Medicare and Medicaid do not only protect seniors from poverty, they also protect those seniors' children. Forty- six years ago, middle-class families often spent themselves into the poorhouse honoring their commitment to their moms and dads. Today's seniors and their children have the security that Medicare and Medicaid will be there to honor that commitment--to providing health care and nursing home care when they need it.
But Medicare doesn't only save American seniors money, it saves their lives. In 1964, just before Medicare was signed into law, seniors lived an average of not quite 70 years. Today the national average is more than 78 years. There is, perhaps, no achievement greater than that. This law literally extended Americans' life expectancy. Forty-six years ago, before signing Medicare into law, President Johnson made this vow:
No longer will this Nation refuse the hand of justice to
those who have given a lifetime of service and wisdom and
labor to the progress of this progressive country.
Democrats intend to honor that solemn vow of President Johnson. But today Medicare is under siege. Republicans would trade away the health and safety of today's seniors for the sake of tax breaks for billionaires, wealthy oil companies, and corporations that ship jobs overseas. They would trade that sense of security, that ``hand of justice'' Johnson described, for the sake of tax breaks on their corporate jets and their yachts. Their ideological budget would end Medicare as we know it, once again subjecting seniors to the rising costs of health care. Democrats refuse to let that happen.
A lot has changed since 1966 and that law. New technologies and medicines are there for diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's. We now have hip replacements and chemotherapy, all pioneered in the late 1960s, and they are now performed in the United States every single day. Medicine has changed for the better.
But one thing has not changed. Seniors need Medicare. In fact, the rising cost of health care today means seniors need Medicare's protection more now than ever. That is why we will never stop fighting to preserve this successful program. As long as I am in the Senate, I will oppose Republican plans to weaken or undermine it, because the Republicans' plan to weaken Medicare is an idea whose time will never come.
Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.