KENNEDY JOINS HOUSE AND SENATE DEMOCRATS TO RALLY FOR REAL HEALTHCARE REFORM KENNEDY’S MEDICARE FOR ALL BILL WOULD SAVE BILLIONS AND GIVE ALL AMERICANS THE CARE THEY DESERVE

Washington, DC—Today, Senator Kennedy joined Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and House and Senate Democrats to rally for real reforms that will benefit ordinary Americans. Last night, as he attempted to do last year with his Social Security privatization fiasco, President Bush will try to make the American people believe that the solution to rising health costs is to shift more and more of those costs to ordinary Americans, or to deny care to those in need. Kennedy believes that’s the wrong prescription for health care. On Tuesday, Senator Kennedy introduced his plan to fix our fractured system of care, by extending Medicare to all Americans, from birth to the end of life, while allowing any American who wishes to stay in their current employer-sponsored plan to do so. Under Kennedy’s bill, employers can tailor their health plans to provide additional services to their employees that wrap around Medicare coverage. “America’s failure to guarantee the basic right to health care for all its citizens was one of the great public policy failures of the 20th century, and we must not allow that failure to continue in this new century,” Senator Kennedy said. “Like his Social Security privatization fiasco, President Bush’s health savings accounts are a gimmick that will only make a bad situation worse. Our goal should be an America where no citizen of any age fears the cost of health care, and no employer stops creating jobs because of the high cost of providing health insurance.” ###