Jack Kingston

Congressman Kingston penned an opinion piece for Roll Call’s policy briefing on the “Health of our Nation.

Here are the first few paragraphs:

Despite the naysayers, there are 22,084,710 reasons why the new Medicare prescription drug program is working for America. As of Feb. 11, that is the exact number of seniors that had already signed up for the new voluntary benefit.

Politicians sometimes forget that there are real folks outside of Washington, D.C. They lose touch with reality and play petty political games by grandstanding and sniping. But this year�s debate about the success of Medicare has been changed by the simple fact that it is working.

In fact, despite the Democratic-coordinated campaign of confusion, seniors who have signed up now are spreading the good news that the program is very real and providing a very real benefit. Whether Democrats like it or not, they can�t stop the good news about this program from spreading.

According to data released by the Health and Human Services Department in February, more than 51 percent of Medicare-eligible seniors already have signed up for the program. And independent analysts predict that nearly 75 percent of Medicare-eligible seniors will sign up in the program�s first year alone.

Read the full piece here.