Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I'll vote for this bill, but I do so with reservations. We should have done better in meeting our responsibilities to the American people. There are important provisions in this legislation that will do a lot of good for families and our economy. We are extending the payroll tax reduction for millions of families, extending unemployment insurance, and ensuring that doctors serving seniors will be paid for their services through the end of year, and we are making spectrum available for new innovations in wireless communications. While these are provisions I support in the conference report, there are significant missed opportunities and poor choices that affect Federal workers and preventive health programs. Nowhere is this lost opportunity more apparent than our failure to end the Medicare physician payment formula, known as the SGR, and set us on a path to a fair and reasonable physician reimbursement system. Having to settle for another temporary solution, which leaves us at the end of the year even deeper in the hole in terms of a permanent solution, is a real failure and one that fails Medicare beneficiaries and doctors alike. I did not agree with the cuts in reimbursement for hospitals and nursing homes and, unbelievably, in prevention services in order to pay for the physician reimbursement levels at a reasonable rate. I'm deeply concerned about the Federal employees' provisions. I think that is very unfair.…”