Today is the 45th anniversary of Medicare. Don't take Medicare for granted, there are forces in this country determined to destroy it.
Now glance at your mother or your aging father or your grandmother or grandfather and imagine a world without Medicare.
If you're lucky, you too will get old . . .
On July 30 1965, with Harry Truman by his side, Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation creating Medicare.
Johnson told the nation that it had "all started with the man from Independence." Harry S. Truman, Johnson said, had "planted the seeds of compassion and duty" that led to the enactment of Medicare, a national health insurance for the aged through an expanded Social Security system.
Medicare, provides low-cost hospitalization and medical insurance for the nation's elderly. The legislation remains a a landmark legacy of LBJ’s "Great Society" initiative.
We're a better people and a better nation because Medicare provides America's seniors, our most vulnerable citizens, some measure of protection. Imagine if we didn't have Medicare. Imagine an 80 or 90 year old fighting, as we do, the predatory insurance industry.
But, as you might expect in the era of Bush, Medicare is under assault.
Recently, despite being gravely ill, Senator Kennedy, the warrior for the American people, returned to Washington to cast a critical vote protecting doctors from cuts in their Medicare payments.
Indeed, Mr. Bush opposed the bill largely because it would have reduced federal payments to private Medicare Advantage plans, offered by insurers like Humana, UnitedHealth and Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Just thirty years after LBJ signed Medicare into law, in August, 1995, my beloved father was diagnosed with lung cancer. He had been a fifty year smoker, so the diagnosis was, I suppose, something we should have expected.
He was 70 or 71 at the time,a young man given the longevity many of us now come to expect. He was strong as a bull, but he just couldn't kick the damn habit.
But the diagnosis hit us like a ton of bricks. Mercifully, I now recognize, he died quickly and even more mercifully, he didn't suffer.
My father was a flaming liberal. His grandfather was a proud communist. During the final month of his life, he remarked endlessly about how he didn't have a financial worry in the world because Medicare would take care of everything.
He was correct. In those days, Bill Clinton was president and Medicare wasn't under siege the way it is today.
He remained hospitalized for about a month, then he died.
His hospital bill was something over $100,000, in 1995 dollars this was a lot. He owed, in total, about $35.00 for phone calls.
This is how our healthcare system should fucntion for all Americans.
Though battling brain cancer, Senator Kennedy, as you undoubtedly remember, returned to the floor of the Senate to cast a pivotal vote for the American people and against the murderous Bush regime and its insurance industry partners.
HYANNIS PORT, MA— Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, today released the following statement on Congress’s vote to override the President’s veto of a Medicare bill to avoid a 10.6 percent physician payment cut that would undermine access by seniors to Medicare. Kennedy returned to the Senate last Wednesday to vote to cut off a Republican filibuster against the bill. A previous attempt to end the filibuster had failed by one vote. After Kennedy’s vote, the Senate ended the filibuster 69-30, and the bill was passed and sent to the President.
Kennedy’s statement is below:
"Last week, by a veto proof majority, the Senate demonstrated its intent to keep Medicare strong and effective for years to come. I was proud to return to Washington and cast that important vote for our seniors. Today, Congress rightly overrode President Bush’s misguided veto and renewed the promise of Medicare. It’s a great vote and a great day for America’s seniors."
http://kennedy.senate.gov/...
No greater champion of Medicare. No greater fighter for the American people.
A true American hero, Senator Edward Kennedy!