Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to address a very important issue in regard to the health care of our poorest Americans and discus my plan, the Medicaid Accountability and Care Act, or the MAC Act, which is also included in my ObamaCare replacement plan which would address the failings of our current Medicaid system. My colleague from Washington just extolled the virtues of ObamaCare. As she pointed out, Medicaid clearly is a major part of the ObamaCare kind of response so it is apropos I would follow. I wish to first tell you my perspective. I am a physician, and I had been working in a hospital for the uninsured for 25 to 30 years, until they blew it up. I saw prisoners, the uninsured, and Medicaid patients. You might say: Wait a second. Medicaid, it is insurance. Why would somebody with Medicaid insurance be seen at a hospital for the uninsured? It is because in my State, like in most others, Medicaid pays beneath the physician's cost of seeing a patient. To paraphrase Saint Paul, it is the illusion of coverage without the power of access. I will point out, the week ObamaCare passed, there was an article in the New York Times, written by a very respected journalist, Robert Pear, tracking a Medicaid patient in Michigan. The physician, the oncologist seeing her, had so many Medicaid patients, the oncologist was going bankrupt because she could not afford to pay her bills so she had to discharge the Medicaid patients from her practice.…”