Bill Nelson: “I wanted to call to the attention of the Senate the aftermath of having passed the health care reform bill. There was a…”

“I wanted to call to the attention of the Senate the aftermath of having passed the health care reform bill. There was a great deal of consternation at the time, while we were deliberating, that Medicare was going to be cut. We will recall that $500 billion was cut out of Medicare over the course of a 10-year period, and the amount that was being cut was considered to be a threat to Medicare. As a matter of fact, when we passed it, the Medicare cuts came from providers--often providers that stepped up and offered to have greater efficiencies and therefore Medicare savings over the decade. For example, the hospitals of America came forth and said that we will save $150 billion. So one of the considerations in Medicare was that we were going to have to lean out the Medicare HMO Program called Medicare Advantage. If we will recall, back in 2003 when we passed the prescription drug bill, Medicare Advantage--the Medicare HMO--was actually given a bump up in Medicare reimbursement, some 14 percent over and above Medicare fee for service. As a result, people had the great incentive to go into a Medicare HMO because the insurance companies--the HMOs--were getting so much more per Medicare beneficiary. But the fact is, we saw, on a long, projected basis over time that it was going to be unsustainable financially for the U.S.…”