Protecting Social Security and Medicare: A Fundamental Democratic Value

I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you. Today, I'd like to talk frankly about an issue that, God willing, we'll all have to face at one time or another and that is the experience of growing older in America. From a political and public policy perspective, this is, of course, usually seen through the prism of Social Security and Medicare and for anyone who follows the political discourse in this country; these issues are obviously not new.

There is not a federal campaign that does not address, to one degree or another, the fate of Social Security and Medicare. And that's as it should be. We can best judge the priorities of others by their compassion for the frailties of others.

This is not to say that growing older is a form of weakness. I believe quite the opposite. Gaining wisdom and experience and knowledge, as well as a strength of spirit, usually comes with age. But the arc of a human life inevitably leads to years when our physical strength is not what it used to be and our stamina for the working world is diminished.

These are the years of one's life that are, in my opinion, most deserving of honor. Just as we respect the potential of our children so should we honor the life's work of our elders. And understanding the very real importance of Social Security and Medicare is but the first step for any public servant who wishes to do right by our citizens.

Together, Social Security and Medicare are often referred to as the 'safety net' for an ever-increasing number of older Americans. But to me, they've always been more than a safety net. For far too many of our fellow citizens, Social Security and Medicare are a lifeline especially at times of great economic upheaval and uncertainty.

You don't have to look into the distant past to see their vital necessity. Most of us in this room can remember 1950, the midpoint of the last century - a time when Medicare was still just an idea. And you might remember that folks seemed to grow old at an earlier age back then. There's a reason for that. In 1950, life expectancy for men was 62 and for women it was 67.

Today, through the grace of modern medicine, improvements in diet and quality of life, and hard-earned safety standards in the workplace, our life expectancy has increased by twelve years. We're living twenty percent longer than we did in 1950 and Medicare and Social Security have a lot to do with it.

In 1950, only one in eight seniors had health insurance and two-thirds of seniors had incomes of less than $1,000 per year. Before Social Security, fifty percent of seniors lived in poverty. By 1950, that number was still over thirty-five percent.

There is another significance to 1950. This is when health care costs began to rapidly escalate much faster than the annual increases in the cost of living. To support these rising costs, health insurance companies repeatedly raised premium rates or reduced benefits and most seniors couldn't afford the health care they needed on a fixed income.

Which is why the creation of Medicare in 1965 by Lyndon Johnson and a Democratic Congress was such a pivotal moment in the health and well-being of America's seniors. To anyone who doubts the value or importance of Medicare, I say this: quit your job and cancel your health insurance. See how secure you feel especially after you've drained your savings. Now you know how it felt to be a senior citizen before Medicare.

Some would argue that the defense of Social Security and Medicare often resorts to scare tactics. Well, I'll tell you this: America without Social Security and Medicare was, at times, a scary place indeed. And we all know about slippery slopes and how the least compassionate among us speak in code words like 'reduction of growth' and 'privatization.'

Having a legitimate debate about the real issues surrounding Medicare and Social Security is not politics or scare tactics, but an act of moral obligation. And that's something I won't shy away from during this campaign.

Like most of my beliefs, my efforts to protect our seniors are rooted in my own life experience. My mother passed away a few months ago at the age of 95. In her final years, I wrote the few checks she had to write each month and I got her checks coming in. She collected Social Security and a $42 a month pension from one of her five secretarial jobs. She didn't work at her other jobs long enough to qualify for a pension.

The reality is we live in a world where many people change their job five times. It's why I'm the only candidate proposing a single pension system that follows you from job to job, no matter how often you change employers. And it's why I'll never turn my back on Social Security and Medicare. I've seen with my own eyes, as have many of you, the life-saving difference and life-extending difference they can make.

I've also seen, up close, the self-centered motivations of George W. Bush and the Republican Party. Their ongoing assault upon Social Security and Medicare is driven by a cynical belief that these vital programs are nothing more than some form of expendable charity.

My mother was more fortunate than most. She lived a long life and we were grateful for every day. How would it reflect on my mother's 95 years if her son did not do all that he could to protect the lifelines that she relied upon? Those 95 years were the reason I've led the fight for nearly a decade against privatizing Social Security and against this president's efforts to privatize Medicare. We're better than that.

Those 95 years were the reason I worked so hard to rescue Social Security from insolvency in 1983 and they're why I fought Newt Gingrich's plan to cut Medicare by $270 billion dollars. Remember how he wanted it to quote 'wither on the vine?' Well, we were better than that, too.

Those 95 years were the reason I fought to provide tax incentives for retirement savings to expand IRAs and to end the disparity in Medicare reimbursements that are unfair to doctors and patients in rural states.

And those 95 years were an inspiration when I led the fight as Democratic Leader and passed the Clinton Economic Plan in 1993 leading to budget surpluses that ended the government's raid of the Social Security Trust Fund for the first time in a generation.

You cannot measure the worth of 95 years. You cannot measure the unconditional love of family or the pain at their passing. But a son can resolve to never give up.

The battle never ends. We already know that George Bush wants to privatize Social Security and risk trust fund dollars in the stock market. But the lengths that he'll go to in hiding his privatization plan are both comical and insidious. He established the 'President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security.' And, it's a great name for a commission. But, the true goal was to privatize Social Security.

Despite all the rhetoric about controlling your own Social Security investments, the hard reality is that such a plan will reduce guaranteed benefits. And after the last few years in the stock market, why would any thinking person still believe this is a good idea? A retiree doesn't have ten or fifteen years to wait for the market to rebound.

Privatizing Social Security isn't smart. It's just Republican. This president thinks he can hide his right-wing policies by standing in front of a snappy banner with a phony slogan that sounds good. Like 'compassionate conservatism,' the 'Healthy Forests Initiative,' the 'Clear Skies Initiative,' or his 'Leave No Child Behind' education bill.

This is the same president who's clear-cutting our forests, thumbing his nose at air quality treaties, and setting school standards so high and funding so low, the schools that need the most help have no prayer of meeting the standards. It's a back door scam to pass private school vouchers.

Now he wants us to believe his commission will quote 'strengthen' Social Security? We need a president who does good things for people not sells them a bill of goods.

Now he's trying to pass legislation that would turn Medicare over to private insurance companies. His phony prescription drug benefit would leave significant gaps in coverage and actually prohibit Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. Entrusting Medicare to the whims of private industry is an insult. And forbidding Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices is immoral.

This president is determined to privatize both Social Security and Medicare and he's more than willing to wait until his second term to do it, when he can't be held accountable. George Bush talks about smoking out the terrorists. Well, we shouldn't have to smoke out our president on Medicare and Social Security. He should stand up and tell the truth.

Like most Democrats, I believe the imperative is to pass an affordable prescription drug benefit that can fit under the umbrella of Medicare. The benefits must be uniform, consistent, and should leverage the buying power of all of America's seniors in order to get the lowest possible prescription drug prices. But President Bush couldn't disagree more.

Read the fine print in his Medicare plan. Seniors and the disabled would have no coverage for drug costs that fall between $2,000 and $4,900 per year. If no private insurance company wishes to cover a particular treatment, then those unfortunate enough to suffer from the wrong illness would have no coverage. 'Tough luck,' George Bush is telling them. 'That's your problem and not mine.' And most disturbing of all, the length of coverage would be determined by the private insurance companies and they could change the terms or drop coverage after only two years.

This will affect rural seniors more than anyone else. Recent studies have shown how rural seniors are older, sicker, and poorer on average than those who live in urban areas. But because of that illness and age, rural seniors would be forced to pay 25 percent more for insurance coverage the very people who cannot afford it.

By relying on private insurance companies to administer his drug benefit, under the Bush plan, rural seniors will receive disproportionately less relief from out-of-pocket costs and no guarantee of stable coverage. These are the very kind of gaps in private health insurance coverage that led this country to create Medicare in the first place.

George Bush's assault on the ideals of Medicare is turning back the clock to before 1965. I say the sooner we can turn the clock ahead to November, 2004, the better. So we can vote him out of office and give seniors the respect they deserve again.

George Bush's record leaves no stone un-cast. He's cut funding for caregivers, for meals-on-wheels, for research into aging - even the senior employment program. This president's record on senior issues is a miserable failure and he has to be held accountable for that.

Next year, when our party has chosen its nominee for president, there needs to be a clear choice on issues like retiree health care and protecting Social Security and Medicare. We as Democrats cannot afford any ambiguity on the question of who will better protect our seniors.

The differences begin with our health care plans. Unlike the Kerry plan, the Dean plan, the Edwards plan, or the Lieberman plan, my healthcare plan is the only plan that helps retirees retain their Medicare supplementary policies paid for by their former employers. In this foundering economy, companies across the country are cutting costs and shedding workers and worst of all, they're abandoning their retirees. Whether it be a company bankrupt of funds or bankrupt of values, thousands of retirees have lost their supplementary health insurance and they have nowhere to turn but their life savings.

By helping employers cover sixty percent of the cost of a retiree's supplementary health insurance, my health care plan not only helps companies compete in the global marketplace - it helps keep retirees insured. There's no point in offering a health care plan if it doesn't include retirees. Those other Democrats should know better than that.

But the differences between all of us on health care are not confined to how we supplement Medicare. Those differences also extend to the very heart of the matter - the future of Medicare itself. On the issues of protecting Medicare from cuts, turning Medicare into a managed care program, or whether we even think Medicare is worthwhile, you'll find that there are very real differences between my position and that of Howard Dean.

Here are his own words: In 1995, Howard Dean said Medicare is quote 'one of the worst things that ever happened.' In 1993, he said about Medicare, quote 'I think it's one of the worst federal programs ever.'

When viewed in isolation, these words seem unbelievable. Howard Dean will say he's being taken out of context. Well, let me give you the context, and you can decide for yourself. You'll see that Howard Dean's beliefs about Medicare extend beyond merely disliking it. He's actually advocated cutting it and turning it into a wholly managed care program. And that's something I'll never agree with.

The story begins in 1993. As I mentioned earlier, that was the year I led the fight as Democratic Leader to pass the Clinton Economic Plan and balance the budget. It brought back fiscal discipline, asked the wealthy to pay their fair share, and cut wasteful spending - not Social Security and Medicare. Not a single Republican voted for that plan but we passed it by one vote. It went on to create 22 million new jobs and led to the longest period of economic growth in our country's history. In fact, that great economy led to gigantic budget surpluses that allowed us, for the first time in decades, to begin paying down the national debt. The debt was to be erased by 2012 and the saved interest would extend the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund for fifty years.

But one year later, before the benefits of that economic plan could yet be seen, we lost the Congress in no small part because a lot of Democrats made that courageous vote. That's when the Gingrich Republicans took over and began advocating plans to push seniors out of Medicare and into managed care plans. This has been the Republican position on Medicare since its inception. In 1965, Republicans advocated a privatized Medicare program and voted against the Medicare program that eventually passed that year.

Thirty years later, in the midst of the so-called Republican Revolution, Howard Dean actually agreed with the Gingrich Republicans. His home state newspaper reported time and again how Howard Dean supported turning Medicare into a managed care program.

I don't know about the other candidates, but I think making Medicare a wholly managed care program, whether it's run by the government or private companies, is the wrong thing to do and I'd never agree to that as President of the United States.

But in 1995, the Republicans were looking to do even more. That same year, the Gingrich Republicans confronted President Clinton and the Democrats and demanded a $270 billion dollar cut in Medicare. In fact, Gingrich shut the government down in an attempt to force President Clinton to accept those Medicare cuts which they needed to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Sound familiar? It was in this period when Gingrich said Republicans wouldn't immediately kill Medicare, instead, they'd let it 'wither on the vine.'

And it was also during this time that Howard Dean, as Chairman of the National Governor's Association, was supporting Republican efforts to scale back Medicare. Howard Dean told a gathering of reporters that the way to balance the budget was to cut Social Security, move the retirement age to 70, and cut defense, Medicare, and veterans' pensions. Well, I couldn't disagree more with Howard Dean. This is not what we stand for as Democrats.

In the end, I was proud of that moment in history. 1995 was the time for the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party to stand up and be counted. I led House Democrats as we joined with President Clinton and we stopped the Medicare cuts and forced the Republicans to abandon the government shutdown.

In 1995, we won the fight to protect Social Security and Medicare and I'll never abandon that fight as president.

Both sides in any battle will speak the gospel of perseverance. It can be, at once, the greatest virtue and the greatest threat. Today, Republicans are still pushing their rejected policies from the past which is why we must be ever-vigilant. Today it's their inadequate prescription drug program that shoves seniors into a privatized Medicare system. Tomorrow it will again be privatizing Social Security.

It's like the movie Groundhog Day, we keep waking up and reliving the same Republican nightmares: irresponsible tax cuts, huge deficits, a national debt that's growing again, and plans to privatize Social Security and Medicare. We can change that in 2004.

When I'm president, we'll get this economy moving again the right way with health care for all, a strong aggressive trade policy that creates jobs, and a focus on raising up the middle class. It's what I helped Bill Clinton do in the 1990s. And by beating George Bush, it's what you can help me do in 2004.

This is an economic plan that can not only re-energize our country it can help preserve Social Security for decades to come. It's a far superior plan to President Bush's dangerous scheme of privatizing Social Security. Like we did in 1993, and again in 1995, we have to do the right thing; we have to be straight with the American people and, as Democrats, we have to stand for something.

Elections are about differences. As Democrats, we need a nominee who is clearly different from George Bush on protecting our seniors from deep cuts to Medicare, and on privatizing Medicare. These are the issues where we know we can beat this president. I, for one, am not willing to cede the moral high ground to George Bush. We can beat this president on the issues but we have to fight on our issues, and not his.

I believe deeply in the effectiveness and success of Medicare and Social Security. I believe we can improve these lifelines by raising them up, and not tearing them down. And I believe in the sanctity of a social compact that says we will not balance our budgets by placing our elders in peril.

We can win this election, but we have to stay true to our shared principles of protecting one another and of protecting our country. One cannot be sacrificed at the expense of the other. This is a critical time in our country's history, a time when choices must be made that will affect the direction of our party for generations to come.

I am a Democrat and I know why I'm a Democrat. And that's not something I could ever forget. Thank you very much and may God bless you and your families.