Political Quotes

“The MedPAC report, since I am the only idiot who came here to the floor with the MedPAC, but that is partially my responsibility being on the Committee on Ways and Means. The MedPAC report was all highlighted, and we showed the MedPAC report says: Medicare Advantage, part C, is coming in at 120 percent of fee for service. Just that delta from where it was supposed to be at 95 percent--I know that is a lot of numbers--when we designed Medicare Advantage, long before you and I got here, it was supposed to come at 95 percent of fee for service. That 25 percent delta is $100 billion a year. If you do the curve because of the growth of the program that is expected, that is $1.5 trillion over 10 years just putting it back to what it was supposed to be. It is equal to everything we are talking about trying to reform in our reconciliation packages. How many conversations have we been willing to have saying: You do realize we could modernize Medicare Advantage so that the incentive for the providers is to have populations be healthier than running around and scoring them as sicker? Just align the incentives. I just found you $1 trillion. Why can't we have conversations like this where we are trying to preserve the programs and the future at the same time?”