Gus Bilirakis: “I too rise today in support of patients. The legislation before us is good for patients. By reducing regulatory burdens…”

“I too rise today in support of patients. The legislation before us is good for patients. By reducing regulatory burdens and easing paperwork requirements, this legislation allows doctors to spend more of their time providing health care and less of their time wading through pages over rules and regulations. At the beginning of this session, the Committee on Energy and Commerce launched an ambitious bipartisan initiative to reform the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and to put patients first. This initiative became known as the ``patients first'' project. Much of the legislation before us today stems from the committee's work on this project, which was led by my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood). Foundational to this work was the prior work of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) and the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley). The bill we will vote on today includes many of the provisions of the Medicare RACER Act, which was favorably reported out of my Subcommittee on Health as well as the full Committee on Energy and Commerce last month.”