John Garamendi: “Thank you, Representative Watson, for making it so personal to your district. The same savings are to be found in every…”

“Thank you, Representative Watson, for making it so personal to your district. The same savings are to be found in every one of our districts. We have different percentages of seniors in our districts, but the fact is that there are very, very significant savings in this. I want to take up one other issue that has been raised over and over again by the Republicans in the most disingenuous and I think rather dishonest way. And that is the reduction of some $500 billion over the 10 years in Medicare expenses. Now, where do those reductions come from? They would let us believe that those savings are from the reduction of benefits. That is not true. There is explicit language here that benefits will not be reduced. I will tell you where the money is going to come from. It is going to come out of the pockets of the insurance companies that have ripped the Federal Government off to a fare-thee-well for the last 6 years, ever since the George W. Bush administration created the Medicare Advantage program, which they did, incidentally, in reconciliation. It is abominable that this government has had to pay a bonus to the insurance companies to provide Medicare Advantage programs when in fact they said they could do it cheaper than the fee-for-service Medicare program. Sixteen percent bonus over and above the average cost of Medicare for seniors is given to the insurance company for no good reason. Those days, that bonus, that unintended and unnecessary profit is going to be over.…”