Sen. McCaskill: Tom Price ‘Has Made a Career Out of Trying to Dismantle Medicare’

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 -- The office of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., issued the following news release:

Taking a stand for Missouri's seniors, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill will vote against the nomination of Congressman Tom Price to be Secretary of Health and Human Services--following the Congressman's longstanding efforts to dismantle Medicare, and his refusal to answer basic questions at his confirmation hearing.

"Congressman Price has made a career out of trying to dismantle Medicare, endangering the vital benefits that millions of our seniors rely on," McCaskill said. "And he's refused to answer basic questions about his support for extreme proposals for healthcare delivery. I can't support a nominee so out of the mainstream, whose policies would do serious harm to the lives of hundreds of thousands of Missourians."

Congressman Price has a long history of efforts to end Medicare throughout his career--favoring privatizing Medicare and the creation of a voucher system to give seniors a fixed dollar amount to buy health coverage.

At his confirmation hearing, McCaskill directly questioned Congressman Price about his policy of supporting block grants for Medicaid. He repeatedly refused to answer. McCaskill said: "Are you in favor of block-granting Medicaid? It's a really simple question, Congressman. I mean, you're at your confirmation hearing for the most powerful job in health care in the country--I don't know why you won't be willing to answer whether you're in favor of block granting Medicaid? That's not complicated... I don't understand why you won't answer that."

As the former top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Aging Committee, McCaskill has championed efforts to strengthen Medicare and protect against the abuse of taxpayer dollars. She has repeatedly fought efforts to privative Social Security and Medicare--rather than pushing Missouri's seniors into the private health insurance market and turning their retirement over to Wall Street investors.

In 2015 McCaskill embarked on a statewide tour of Missouri during which she heard directly from seniors on issues ranging from Medicare and Medicaid to identity theft. She has led efforts to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse within the Medicare system, and was successful in passing a law to remove Social Security numbers form Medicare cards--protecting more than one million Missourians from identity theft.

As part of McCaskill's fight to combat dramatic increases in prescription drug prices, she backed bipartisan legislation designed to increase competition for off-patent drugs, following a bipartisan report led by McCaskill which showed 20% of generic drugs purchased by Medicare have more than doubled in price.

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