Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 2014 - Motion to Proceed - Continued

Floor Speech

Mr. MERKLEY. I rise today to address a topic that is vital to seniors in Oregon and to seniors across our Nation, and that is our Medicare program.

I know how important Medicare is because I grew up in a blue-collar working family. My dad was a millwright and a mechanic. He believed in hard work. He took a lot of satisfaction from his job. A millwright is the individual who does all the mechanical work to keep the mill running. He said if he did his job right, the mill was open, the workers had a payday, the company made money, and everyone was happy.

Meanwhile, my mother managed the finances, and she stretched a dollar as far as anyone possibly could. She shopped for bargains. She used coupons. She collected Green Stamps, and they were able to save, to buy a home, and to have a foundation for raising their children.

I benefited from that enormously.

But despite the foundation they had, their prospects in retirement were dependent upon two critical programs: Social Security and Medicare. Social Security and Medicare--a basic pension and affordable health care--are simply essential for millions of working families in retirement. They are the difference between poverty and stability.

The way I see it, Medicare is a covenant with our seniors. It is a covenant with the 650,000 Oregonians who are on Medicare now. It is a covenant with the hundreds of thousands who will utilize Medicare in the years to come. It is certainly a covenant with the millions across America who depend on it--families. Those working families across America are families like my parents, who worked hard their whole lives, paid into Medicare, and expect Medicare to be there for them when they retire. We cannot break that covenant.

The first step in keeping faith with our seniors is this: protecting what works. Pretty simple. We would think that is a no-brainer. But in fact, in Washington, a simple proposition like this--a no-brainer--is sometimes enormously controversial.

For several years now, many in Washington here, and including this Chamber, have been pushing to privatize, to voucherize or to just plain weaken Medicare. They don't understand how important this program is for the secure retirement of our seniors. They don't understand how important this covenant is between each working generation and our retirees. In fact, the House of Representatives has repeatedly voted to effectively end the Medicare Program that Americans know and love and to stick our seniors with an enormous financial burden in their retirement years. This is just a simple way to describe that, and that is to say it is simply wrong.

Others have said: Let's raise the Medicare retirement age to 67 or perhaps 70. I think, when I hear that, about my townhalls. In my townhalls--and I hold one in every county in every year--people come and talk about whatever they would like. I recall a woman coming to a townhall and she said: Senator, I am in my early sixties. I have several major health problems. She went on to describe them, and she said: I am just trying to stay alive until I can make it to age 65 and have access to Medicare.

I have heard that theme of just trying to make it until they can reach that Medicare age in townhall after townhall.

Sometimes those who work in offices, in company circumstances, don't realize how much actual physical labor takes a toll on the body. If someone is working in a post office and moving bags of mail day in and day out, as one good friend of mine has done throughout his career, it is very likely one would have a bad back and so on and so forth. Then of course there are the diseases that strike like lightning.

Yes, those who happen to have jobs with corporations that provide a wonderful health care program are in a little better shape. But for our seniors, Medicare is a gem--a gem they have contributed into their entire lives, and it needs to be there for them.

So for some who see the difference between 65 and 67 as some modest administrative change, for working Americans it is a monumental chasm and they fear falling into it.

The good news is there is a very simple action the Senate could take right now to protect our covenant with our seniors. The Medicare Protection Act, which I have cosponsored along with Senator Pryor and others, makes three modest but important changes to our law: It expresses the sense of the Senate that the Medicare eligibility age should not be increased. It expresses the sense of the Senate that the Medicare Program should not be privatized or voucherized. Third, it amends the Congressional Budget Act so that any attempt to reduce or eliminate guaranteed benefits or to restrict eligibility criteria, such as raising the eligibility age, cannot be passed through the budget reconciliation process. This is particularly important since the House has made repeated attempts to end Medicare as we know it, and to do so using the budget process--the Ryan budget--rather than through stand-alone legislation.

It is time to ensure that we keep our covenant with our seniors. It is time to bring this bill to the floor, to debate it, and to pass it.

Tomorrow happens to be the anniversary on which Medicare was signed into law 49 years ago. Maybe a great way to celebrate the 49th birthday of Medicare would be for this Chamber to debate this bill tomorrow and pass it. If not tomorrow, I would like to see it done in this work period. And if not in this work period, let's come back and address this in September.

The days that are left in this 2-year cycle of the Senate are rapidly disappearing, and our seniors are concerned about this constant attack, this constant effort to undermine these programs such as Social Security and Medicare that they have paid into throughout their life and that they expect to be honored when they are retired.

Let's bring this bill to the floor. Let's ensure that American seniors can stop worrying about these assaults on their retirement--retirement security they so much deserve.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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