Christopher Shays: “there are a lot of factors here. First, let me say when we said how are we going to save Medicare, we have four basic…”

“there are a lot of factors here. First, let me say when we said how are we going to save Medicare, we have four basic choices. We can increase taxes, and that is the payroll tax of 1.45 percent, and if you are self-employed, it is 2.9 percent. That is a no. We can affect the beneficiaries, we can affect the providers, or we can change the system. We are looking to change the system and allow choice and still allow people to keep the same plan if they want. Now, how is the private sector going to step in? Well, all you need to do is just think about how the Government is running things. The FAA, for instance, knew 10 years ago that we were going to have double the increase in traffic. Yet the FAA has not planned for that. So what do we have right now? We have a system that is basically shutting down. But that is the Government running it. Medicare and Medicaid cannot tell you what hospitals have sent money, even a year later. They do not even know why it sent money. If we want to come back and find, out, they have to reconstruct it. But Home Depot can tell you at 9:30 in the morning what they sold the 2 hours before and they have already ordered----”