Alcee Hastings: “I do ask a question, if this bill is supposed to be the end all, be all, then will someone please explain to me what…”

“I do ask a question, if this bill is supposed to be the end all, be all, then will someone please explain to me what would have been wrong with accepting the amendments that were very thoughtful, that were offered by Members of the House of Representatives, most of whom were Democrats? No, they did not get that opportunity. I do not know whether the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) cares to indulge in this particular colloquy or any other Republican or any Member of the House of Representatives. I ask my colleague from New York when he closes to point to the place in this legislation where savings are going to be passed to physicians. Let me give my colleagues what may not appear to be an exacting analogy. We pass a significant number of subsidies for farmers in the United States of America and I support those. We supported subsidies, for example, for the sugar industry and for wheat, but nowhere after those subsidies where sugar went down or wheat went down did we see Corn Flakes or candy go down. The consumer gets slapped every time, it does appear.”