Henry Waxman

I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to our Democratic leader in the energy area, the ranking member of the Energy Subcommittee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush).

To have a mandatory second period means you are building in a delay for no practical benefit.

You raise a number of concerns and caution about the potential inflexibility, burdens, and unintended consequences of this bill.

I am a proponent of strong congressional oversight over the agencies within our jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, it has serious defects. It would make the FCC less efficient and more bureaucratic in my opinion, the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

We need to hear from diverse voices, and Chairman Walden has worked with us Democrats and Republicans together to assemble balanced witness panels.

I sent a letter to Chairman Upton last month asking for hearings on the Republican budget's impact on Medicare & Medicaid

The budget that would replace Medicare for people under 55 with a privatized and underfunded voucher system

The AMA found that Medicare had the highest payment accuracy rate among all providers, 96 percent.

We should renounce efforts to end Medicare as we know it.

Our goal should be to work with CMS and other interested parties to be sure we are appropriately weighing the concerns of beneficiaries and the concerns of taxpayers.

The Medicare Secondary Payer program is complex and arcane. Few people have heard of this program and even fewer understand it, but that does not mean it is insignificant.

As you move forward in developing these new systems for dual-eligible beneficiaries, I think it is critical that you hear from the individuals and their family caregivers and get their input into the process to ensure that any new…

Well, we want to highlight that issue to look at carefully in your design of these proposals.

I want to mention that one of the results of the Affordable Care Act, which some people call Obamacare, was to extend the Medicare trust fund, and in fact, it was extended over 12 years.

We face a lot of challenges in improving care for dual eligibles and reducing costs to the taxpayer but it is important to recognize that we shouldn't rush into new programs for purely a budgetary focus.

This is very expensive but not getting this care is worse, resulting in eroding health, trips to the emergency room, suffering for the patient and his or her family, and astronomical costs for the patient and the taxpayer.

We care about this issue and this is a hearing where we have collaborated in providing panels that will give us the best information

I am concerned that the industry is changing but the safety regulations are not keeping up with the changes.

I look forward to working with the Republican majority on this issue.

That legislation is a mistake. We should understand the unique safety concerns for tar sands pipelines, not accelerate pipeline approval.

We need to understand these risks and address them and we need to do that before approving another tar sands pipeline.

These pipeline incidents are tragic and we must act to prevent more loss of life and property in the future.

It is clear we need to pay serious attention to pipeline safety.

I do believe that it creates, potentially creates a gap in authority.