Jim Nussle: “I rise today to support a long overdue, welcome victory for Iowa's seniors and health care providers. Medicare's…”

“I rise today to support a long overdue, welcome victory for Iowa's seniors and health care providers. Medicare's policies have penalized health care providers in Iowa and other rural areas since the 1960s. While Medicare's primary purpose is to provide health care for seniors, its policies affect both our health care system and our economy. The flawed policies have had an impact not only on seniors, but on all Iowans. As many of my House colleagues know, I have worked long and hard to address the problems affecting health care providers in rural states such as Iowa. In fact, I wrote this year's budget to reserve significant resources for rural health care as part of a $400 billion Medicare Reserve Fund. Later, in the Ways and Means Committee, I successfully amended the Medicare legislation to ensure that sufficient rural health care funds were included in the bill that was reported from committee. And I continued fighting on the House floor to ensure that these funds--the most generous rural package ever considered by the House--remained in the Medicare legislation as it worked its way through the House. Today, we are considering a conference report that carries this rural health care package to the end of the process. The benefits for Iowa will be multiplied for years to come. This conference report contains an unprecedented $25 billion rural package including benefits of over $400 million for Iowa alone.”