Barack Obama Quotes

I told them I would work to strengthen and secure Medicare for generations to come, and I told them I would fight for a new prescription drug benefit under Medicare.

If I decide to run I am gonna cherish senior citizens. Living in New York that's what I see is Democrats all over the place - are going to do is say it's attack on Medicare. And Medicare to a lot of people means seniors. And I honestly think you have to go down the line in a bipartisan way. You have to go down with the Democrats. I don't think they should be too far out in front.

I was in Independence, Missouri when Johnson signed the Medicare bill, with Truman standing there. Truman had first proposed Medicare, but couldn't get it through.

If every American automatically has health coverage, the age at which Medicare kicks in becomes a less fraught issue. We could gradually raise the age of Medicare eligibility a bit, according to income, and save money.

We're saying no changes for Medicare for people above the age of 55. And in order to keep the promise to current seniors who've already retired and organized their lives around this program, you have to reform it for the next generation.

We need to save and strengthen and fix Medicare. Seniors realize Medicare is broken.

More than 70 percent of seniors are asking for more time. It is long overdue for Congress to listen and make sure that seniors have a prescription drug plan that works for them.

In Pennsylvania, 38 percent of Pennsylvania seniors chose to get their Medicare from a plan called Medicare Advantage. It's their choice. Forty-seven percent of them are going to lose it under 'Obamacare' according to Medicare by 2017.

America as we know it will end unless we end Medicare as we know it.

A Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare, for my Mom's generation, for my generation, and for my kids and yours.

We do not need to end Medicare. We don't need to throw people who are younger than 55 years old to the wolves which is what we do.

Seniors vote, and that is why we have, you know, Medicare since the 1960s for seniors, and we didn't have a national healthcare program for children, even though it's a lot more cost-effective to deal with children than with seniors.

President Obama is closing the prescription drug doughnut hole. He strengthened Medicare! He extended the life of the program by eight years. And what Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan won't admit is that their plan would require current seniors to pay, on average, $600 more each year for prescription drugs.

We know that Medicare's going broke in seven years, but we need to start over. That's what the American people want us to do.

I believe we must protect Medicare's guaranteed benefit, and I will oppose any effort to dismantle Medicare and turn it into a voucher system.

The Republicans want to turn Medicare into a voucher plan that will end guaranteed coverage of medical bills for the elderly.

We ought to have a platform to plan to save Medicare from bankruptcy.

Republicans' focus on defunding or scaling back Obamacare - an unpopular entitlement program - rather than entitlements generally, namely Social Security and Medicare, has raised questions about their true objective. But critics forget that spending is fungible.

Today, all across this country there are going to be rallies led by Democrats and others to fight against the devastating impact of repeal of the Affordable Care Act. 20 million people thrown off of health insurance, prescription drug prices raising for seniors, privatization of Medicare: devastation. And we've got to fight back against that.

There you go again. When I opposed Medicare, there was another piece of legislation meeting the same problem before the Congress. I happened to favor the other piece of legislation and thought that it would be better for the senior citizens to provide better care than the one that was finally passed.

20 million people thrown off of health insurance, prescription drug prices raising for seniors, privatization of Medicare: devastation. And we've got to fight back against that.

And if you like socialized medicine, you will love this government bureaucracy under [then-Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee] Al Gore that will actually cost seniors who get $500 a year in prescription drugs right now - it will end up costing seniors more money and take away control from those seniors.

President-elect Trump has made very clear he wants to make good on the promises that we as a nation have made to the seniors who rely upon Medicare and certainly the lower-income Americans who rely upon Medicaid and other entitlements like Social Security, frankly, for those who receive that.

[Several candidates talked of problems with the federal Medicare system, particularly concerns about whether it would cover prescription drug costs in the future.] We're asking senior citizens to make a choice between their health and their income, ... Medicare is probably the most difficult challenge we face in the next century, because it has a lot to do with other things besides money.

Donald Trump has said he wants to keep Medicare and Social Security the way they are. Congressman Price along with most Republicans are on record supporting voucherizing Medicare. So there are going to be some conflicts to resolve there.