If Medicare is now paying less than Texas Medicaid, what will that do for access to services for those who have Medicare?

Under current law Medicare will be paying providers less than Medicaid.

It may be access on paper but it is not access in power.

I have to say, with Obamacare, it is like deja vu all over again. Medicare is going bankrupt.

We put them back into Medicare as opposed to spending them on another entitlement, and I think that is the difference between the two of us.

I actually see that what we are really doing is effectively denying access.

If the gentleman would yield, I think you point exactly to what the problem is: that rather than our seniors facing their older age with some degree of certainty about being able to meet their health care needs, instead we throw them out…

I thank the gentleman. It is Maryland's Fourth Congressional District, which is just outside of the Nation's Capital. But I can tell you that in the Fourth Congressional District in Maryland, just like across the country, people in my…

That we would end them, that we would shift costs on things like Medicaid to our States, that we would reduce benefits for Social Security, all of this in the context of a conversation about lifting a debt ceiling and making cost cuts to…

Right. And I think that you were right to correct me. I mean, I think sometimes even I would like to think that perhaps what we're talking about with the Ryan budget that we've heard so much about and with these other ideas is about…

They are saying it with good reason. It's because it's worked. It's because our seniors are no longer wondering in their golden years whether they will be able to meet their health care needs. It's because our seniors and their families…

Thank you for yielding, and it's wonderful to be able to join my colleague from New York and my colleague from Texas in this discussion. It's so important for the American people, and I just want to remind my colleagues that 46 million to…

I thank the gentleman from New York and the gentlewoman from Texas for pointing out the fallacy of this argument that somehow in this discussion of lifting the debt ceiling, which I believe each of us voted to lift that debt ceiling in a…

Well, I thank you, and I thank the gentleman for bringing us together. I hope what the American people understand is that the Democrats in this House are prepared to protect Medicare benefits and Social Security benefits for our seniors…

Madam Speaker, the ongoing stubbornness by my Republican colleagues to even entertain the idea of increasing revenues is putting our country at risk. Over the past decade, the top 2 percent of Americans making over $250,000 have done…

I think we ought to show the same zero tolerance.

why wouldn't we fire the firm who hired the employee and show the same zero tolerance for protecting our Federal employees

people without the ability to arrest don't get the same respect as police officers