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Medicare
 
Access to quality, affordable health care is critical to the well-being of every American. It is simply unacceptable that there are over 43 million Americans with no health insurance and that millions of seniors, and working families cannot afford the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs.
 
In addition to expanding the number of Americans with health insurance, bringing down the cost of prescription drugs and improving Medicare, we must also make health insurance more affordable, increase patients' rights to keep their medical information private and increase funding for medical research into diseases like diabetes, cancer, and HIV/AIDS.
 
Medicare was created in 1965 at a time when half of America's seniors had no health insurance coverage. Medicare now provides almost all seniors guaranteed, affordable health care coverage.
 
Medicare and Social Security are the two most important social policy initiatives of the last 70 years. As we move further into this new century we must make sure that the advances of these critical programs are not lost. Some of the Medicare changes approved by the 108 th Congress benefited special interests, not seniors. We can do better. We need to repeal and replace parts of the bill to ensure that all seniors are provided an affordable, guaranteed drug benefit and that makes drug costs more affordable for everyone.