Jeff Miller: “In some years it has been going down. That is how successful they have been to help control costs. Under the Medicare…”

“In some years it has been going down. That is how successful they have been to help control costs. Under the Medicare plan that we are proposing, this is a bipartisan issue as the gentleman said. This is something that we have got to work together with the Democrats and Republicans, because the Democrats, despite what they said during the campaign last year, are just as committed as we are to save this program. We have got to save it. We have got to work together. Actually I have to commend the President. He has moved in our direction since the election, despite all the rhetoric last fall. Hopefully we are going to be able to work out something together. It is something that is absolutely essential to this country and we need to work together. But the gentleman is right. Big companies have actually had their costs go down for some years. What they have done is give people choices, instead of having one size fits all as we have in Medicare. Medicare is not a great program. My mother is on Medicare. She is 87 years old, in a nursing home. It is very important obviously to my mother. But it is very complicated. She has to have a part A program, she has to have a part B program and she has to have a supplemental and it still does not pay that much. It does not pay any drug coverage.”