On the recordMarch 10, 2010
This is exactly what I am hearing at home in Nebraska, Mr. President. As a former Governor, as the Senator from Wyoming points out, you deal with these programs every day. You are trying to figure out how to fashion a State budget that deals with Medicaid. I said a few weeks ago that I don't know whom the folks who wrote this bill were talking to because if you look at the expansion of health care to people in this bill, really what they are doing is expanding Medicaid by about 15 to 18 million individuals. The Senator from Wyoming hit the nail on the head. You already have serious access problems with Medicaid. What do I mean by that? As the doctor, Senator Barrasso, said, doctors cannot practice on the Medicaid reimbursement. They would literally go broke. Our little hospitals in all of our States, our critical access hospitals, would say: We cannot keep our doors open on Medicaid reimbursement. They can't do it on Medicaid or Medicare reimbursement. So what is the solution? Well, the solution certainly isn't adding 15 to 18 million more people who will walk into a hospital or a doctor's office and who will hear: Sorry, we don't take Medicaid patients because we can't afford to do that.
