AZ Retirees from Tucson, Phoenix, and Prescott celebrated 47 years of Medicare with local leaders. Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law in 1956 to make sure that working people, seniors, and people with disabilities could get the healthcare they need at critical moments. Both programs have a proven track record of success that is detailed in the report we're releasing today. It is this record of success that we should be building upon and expanding. Instead, however, these programs face attack after attack from conservative lawmakers who want to roll back the clock on these guaranteed benefits and leave our families on their own with the insurance companies haggle for health care for their aging parents, children with disabilities like autism or cerebral palsy, and people with disabilities that require the most complicated care. The Republican budget passed earlier this year dismantles Medicaid and ends Medicare as we know it, undermining the economic security of middle class families all over the country. Medicare is the best way to provide seniors and people with disabilities with affordable health care they can count on. It protects beneficiaries and their families against health expenses that could drive them into bankruptcy or worse—force them to forego medical treatment they need to survive. Because of its concentrated purchasing power, Medicare controls costs better than private insurance companies. While Medicare's costs per person increased by about 4.7 percent a year from 1999 to 2009, comparable benefits under private insurance rose 6.9 percent—nearly 50 percent more.