Christopher Shays: “The collective gross dollars. We are spending $920 billion, or we spent in the last 6 years $920 billion. In the next 6…”

“The collective gross dollars. We are spending $920 billion, or we spent in the last 6 years $920 billion. In the next 6 years, $1,479 billion or $1.4 trillion. This clearly is a significant increase. Now if our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say we should be spending $1.6 trillion, then let us have that debate. But then the question is why? I ask myself why would we want to spend more when we did not increase the copayment, did not increase the deductible, did not increase the premium except for the very wealthy? And if they do not like the choice programs, they do not have to go to the choice programs. They can stay in the traditional fee-for-service. But if they went to a program that had eye care and dental care and did not like the doctor, they can go right back to their traditional fee-for-service Medicare plan. And we saved $240 billion. If we saved $240 billion, what happened it? What happened is it went into the program to make sure it does not go bankrupt for the next 14 years.”