Phil Gingrey: “I am very familiar with Washington Hospital, although I did not realize it was in the gentleman's district, the great…”

“I am very familiar with Washington Hospital, although I did not realize it was in the gentleman's district, the great work that they did. But there is no question about it, this issue. I mentioned the cost-shifting from Part A and Part B, and I think that will be substantial. But this emphasis, and the gentleman is right, it is part of this bill, not just prescription drugs Part D, but also that entry level physical, that focus on disease management and making sure that people, whether they do it through Medicare Advantage, whether an HMO-type program, or even traditional Medicare, in screening for things like colon and rectal cancer, breast cancer with mammograms, prostate cancer screening, cholesterol screening so that we do not wait until the person has a heart attack and has to have that quadruple bypass that is very expensive. So again, I wanted to make sure, and I appreciate the gentleman from Pennsylvania giving me the opportunity to have time to discuss that, because we are hearing it. We are hearing it on the floor of the House, maybe from both sides of the aisle, and folks back home, naturally they want us to spend what we have to spend, but not a dime more, and I agree with that. But I think this will be clearly the wrong message to send to our seniors. I mean, this President and this Congress were not the first elected folks to promise to deliver a prescription drug benefit for our seniors.…”