Political Quotes

“Mr. Courtney of the great State of Connecticut, thank you very much for bringing this information to us. Your chart is a dramatic one, when you consider the period of time and the extraordinary reduction in the inflation rate in Medicare. If you had another line on that showing the general inflation in health care for the general population, it would actually be above Medicare, that entire slope all the way down. {time} 1500 And it's significantly above it. So what's happened--in part, I think, you're correct; there may be other forces involved here, but certainly you can see the effect of the Affordable Health Care Act. And you identified very well some of the critical cost savings that are in that. And it's well worth repeating it, which I will do with you. And we ought to go back so the public comes to understand what was in the Affordable Health Care Act. For those over 65 that are in Medicare, those changes are critically important. First of all, stay healthy. If you want to save money on hospitals and doctors, stay healthy. And so you have an annual wellness visit. I think something like 50, 60 million Americans have been able to take advantage of that free annual visit. You've got high blood pressure? Well, let's take some blood pressure medicine. You're headed for diabetes? Here's a dietary program or exercise program. We can deal with those. You keep people out of the hospitals. The hospital infection rate, the other one you talked about, very powerful.…”