People like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been very busy educating America about just how much socialism we have, from Social Security to Medicare to public schools to public universities, and how much we love that. The truth is that there is no pure socialist or capitalist economy on earth.

The number of people with HIV receiving Medicare benefits has grown over time, reflecting growth in the size of the of the HIV positive population in the U.S. but also an increased lifespan for people with HIV due to antiretroviral medicines and other treatment advances.

Fraudulent and improper payments have long bedeviled Medicare, a $466 billion program. In particular, payments for durable medical equipment, like power wheelchairs and diabetic test kits, are ripe for fraud.

My mother-in-law, Nanny, spent her working years as a bookkeeper at a medical office in Columbus, Ohio. Like so many Americans, she worked hard and paid into Medicare, knowing that one day she could count on having high-quality health care when she needed it most.

Medicare is a monopoly: a central-planning bureaucracy grafted onto American health care. It exercises a stranglehold on the health care of all Americans over 65, and on the medical practices of almost all physicians. Medicare decides what is legitimate and what is not: which prices may be charged and which services may be rendered.

The Republicans want to turn Medicare into a voucher plan that will end guaranteed coverage of medical bills for the elderly.

The public has lost faith in the ability of Social Security and Medicare to provide for old age. They've lost faith in the banking system and in conventional medical insurance.

It worries me about our unwillingness to really address reforms and modernization in Medicare. This thing was designed 37 years ago. It has not evolved to keep pace with current medical technology.

As a former professional patient advocate, I believe prescription drugs are an essential part of high-quality medical treatment, and I supported enactment of the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act.

A major driver of the cost of healthcare in the United States is a compromise that was reached with the American Medical Association in the 1960s when Medicare was first established.

I was in Independence, Missouri when Johnson signed the Medicare bill, with Truman standing there. Truman had first proposed Medicare, but couldn't get it through.

Health care should be a right; it should never be a privilege. We should have Medicare for all in this country.

When Department of Health and Human Services administrators decided to base 30 percent of hospitals' Medicare reimbursement on patient satisfaction survey scores, they likely figured that transparency and accountability would improve healthcare.

Today, Medicare provides health insurance to about 40 million seniors and disabled individuals each year. The number is only expected to grow as the baby boomers begin retiring.

It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.

On economic policy, Pence has held to the key building block of growth. He is a budget hawk who voted against President George W. Bush's fiscally bloated No Child Left Behind education bill and hyper-expensive Medicare prescription-drug bill. He said he would not support new middle-class entitlements. He was consistent.

We can't get to the $4 trillion in savings that we need by just cutting the 12 percent of the budget that pays for things like medical research and education funding and food inspectors and the weather service. And we can't just do it by making seniors pay more for Medicare.

A Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare for my Mom's generation for my generation and for my kids and yours.

As a former professional patient advocate I believe prescription drugs are an essential part of high-quality medical treatment and I supported enactment of the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act.

It worries me about our unwillingness to really address reforms and modernization in Medicare. This thing was designed 37 years ago. It has not evolved to keep pace with current medical technology.

Part of my training was learning how to refer patients to cardiologists for heart problems gastroenterologists for stomach issues and rheumatologists for joint pain. Given that most physicians were trained this way it's no wonder that the average Medicare patient has six doctors and is on five different medications.

We believe that if you put in place the mechanisms that allow for personal choice as far as Medicare is concerned as well as the programs in Medicaid that we can actually get to a better result and do what most Americans are learning how to do which is to do more with less.

At the end of the day my hope is that when the new Medicare- Prescription Drug Law gets up and fully running a lot more seniors will pay a whole lot less than they do today for their much-needed medications.

More than five million seniors have already saved money on their prescription drugs and almost 33 million have benefited from free preventive services. The president cracked down hard on Medicare and health care fraud recovering a record-breaking $10.7 billion over the last three years protecting our seniors. That's what change looks like.