We cannot continue to have the same program that we have, ... [Medicare] is now noted more for what it does not do than what it does do.

When people see the budget, they're going to say, 'Oh, my God, I wanted a tax cut, but I didn't know what you were going to do to health care and to Medicare and national defense.'

Last night we passed the most extensive update to the Medicare program since the program's creation in 1965, ... The effort was bipartisan.

He said ... Medicare was the worst federal program ever, ... Howard, you were agreeing with the very plan that Newt Gingrich wanted to pass, which was a $270 billion cut in Medicare.

Significant numbers of seniors are going to wind up being worse off than prior to the (Medicare) program.

a great American tradition of burying the hatchet after an election -- and not burying it in each other, but rather burying it for the sake of the future of this country.