On the recordMarch 21, 2012
I have to agree with my good friend from Florida on one issue, and that's in regard to rationing. You're right, it's not in the act. But if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it's a duck, because this board, this unelected board, is going to make decisions that Congress can't even touch. This board is going to say, this is the amount of money we will pay for this procedure. It doesn't matter if that's what the procedure costs. It doesn't matter that this doesn't cover the cost of the physician. It doesn't matter that what's going to happen is our physicians are going to refuse to see those patients. Madam Speaker, that is rationing. Call it what you want. That is rationing when you have an independent board that can make decisions in regard to the cost of services that you're going to make or decisions for you to have services by a particular doctor. We see it already today. In my physician's office it already says, ``We do not take new Medicare patients.'' It's going to get worse. And this board, while it may not call it ``rationing''--I give them great credit for not putting that in the terminology of the Affordable Care Act--it is rationing no matter what you call it. I reserve the balance of my time.
