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Edited on Fri Jan-16-04 08:46 AM by in_cog_ni_to
Dean said that. Here's a bunch of quotes...directly from the horses mouth.
"As chairman of the National Governors Association in 1995, Dean supported reduced Medicare spending to keep the program solvent. President Clinton vindicated the position when he signed a budget resolution with the same reforms in 1997, Dean said. 'I believe I'm a farsighted person in terms of public policy,' Dean told reporters."
Dean called Medicare "one of the worst federal programs ever;" a "disaster" and "nightmare."
"I think it's one of the worst federal programs ever..."
" one of the worst things that ever happened... a bureaucratic disaster... You'd destroy the health care system in this country if you had Medicare for everybody."
"Medicare is the best argument I know why the federal government should never be allowed to run a national health care system."
"Medicare, which I don't like, does have one virtue: Its administrative cost is only about 2 percent of total budget outlays."
"I can tell you that the bureaucracy associated with capitated care is far less that it is, for example, associated with Medicare, which is, from my point of view, a bureaucratic nightmare."
In 1995, Dean agreed with Republican plans to cut Medicare by $270 billion and require seniors to pay more.
On May 17, 1995, one day before the Republican Congress voted to cut Medicare, Howard Dean delivered a speech praising the cuts.
"He applauded the efforts of Senate Budget Committee chairman Pete Domenici, R-Nev., who presented his own balanced budget plan last week... Dean also said he could defend Domenici's approach to reducing Medicare costs. He said he supported more managed care for Medicare recipients and requiring some Medicare recipients to pay a greater share of the cost of their medical services...
'I fully subscribe to the notion that we should reduce the Medicare growth rate from 10 percent to 7 percent, or less if possible,' Dean said."
The cuts Dean described - reducing the rate of growth to 7 percent - was exactly what Congressional Republicans proposed: "Republicans want to save $256 billion to $282 billion by cutting the rate of growth of Medicare over seven years, from about 10% to 7%."
While Dick Gephardt fought the Medicare cuts, Dean became conservatives' "poster child" for justifying the Medicare cuts.
Washington Times conservative columnist Donald Lambro said, "...the White House and its allies in Congress think they can make some political hay if they can make taxpayers believe the GOP budget cuts will destroy needed government programs... Even Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the Democratic chairman of the National Governors Association and one of the GOP's severest critics, said, 'I fully subscribe to the notion that we should reduce the Medicare growth rate from 10 percent to 7 percent, or less if possible.'"
Dean said the way to balance the budget was to cut Medicare.
"The Governor complains...that while federal spending restraint is clearly needed, it is unfair to place Social Security, Medicare, and defense spending off the table when it comes time for budget cuts."
"The way to balance the budget, Dean said, is for Congress to cut Social Security, move the retirement age to 70, cut defense, Medicare and veterans pensions, while the states cut almost everything else. "It would be tough but we could do it," he said."
During a January 1995 visit to Washington, Dean said that if Congress passed a balanced budget amendment, "states and poor people would suffer disproportionately unless Congress agreed to find savings from Social Security and defense spending as well...Congress should be willing to cut or slow growth in those programs, he said... 'We just would like to see some similar kind of backbone by the new leadership in Congress when it comes to Medicare, when it comes to Social Security and when it comes to defense.' Without Social Security and defense on the table, Dean says, cuts in what's left of the budget would harm states..."
Dean said Medicare should be turned into a 100% managed care program.
"Laying out what he believes the party's agenda should be for the next four years, Dean said the federal government should follow a nonpartisan commission's recommendations to reduce the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment. Dean advocated making Medicare a wholly managed care program."
"He said he supported more managed care for Medicare recipients and requiring some Medicare recipients to pay a greater share of the cost of their medical services."
Dean has long been a vocal critic of Medicare... he even criticized it in his first "State of the State" speech as Governor of Vermont.
"Finally, our health care system must be administered by the states. We already have a national health care system in this country for those over 65. It's called Medicare, and it is one of the worst run programs in this country, both for the patients and the doctors. Medicare is a potent example of why the federal government must not be allowed to run national health insurance."
"Dean, an ardent Medicare critic who also is a physician, says the bill would be a disaster for states. "A central bureaucracy run out of Washington cannot deliver care," he says." "
"I agree with Carroll Campbell when he says the federal government ought not to be allowed to administer a national health care program. They've already provide that they can't do that in a national health care program for those over 65, which is Medicare."
"You'd destroy the health care system in this country if you had Medicare for everybody."
Dean has been called "a liberal Democrat who sounds like an arch conservative when it comes to talking about Medicare."
"He is also a liberal Democrat who sounds like an arch conservative when it comes to talking about Medicare…"
Dean said Medicare turns its recipients into "second class citizens," is "the best advertisement" for why the federal government should not be allowed to draw up the plan for national health insurance.
According to a May 1992 article in The Rutland Herald, "As he has in the past, Dean stressed that the states must move ahead of the federal government in reforming health care. Medicare, which turns its recipients into 'second class citizens’ and has been a fiasco for health care providers, is 'the best advertisement' for why the federal government must not be allowed to draw up the blueprint for national health insurance, Dean said."
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