Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Maryland, my good friend, who is an anesthesiologist, a practicing anesthesiologist for a number of years and very experienced. Before I recognize my friend from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), I did want to point out a couple of things. Remember I said a moment ago the CMS actuary in this case projects the Medicare program could be bankrupt as early as 2016. This is 2012. That's 4 years, Mr. Speaker. Where is the Democrat plan to save Medicare? Republicans, on the other hand, we've already passed a budget last year. We're working on another one this year that would do that. We just could not get Harry Reid to even salute it, much less have a vote on it. Also, Medicare costs are projected to grow substantially from approximately 3.6 percent of GDP in 2010 to 5.5 percent by 2035. The physician payment formula in Medicare needs to be fixed or seniors may lose their doctor as it costs $316 billion. And that's what Dr. Harris was referring to, that it's already very difficult for doctors to make it on what they're paid, and they're looking at a cliff of a 30 percent reduction in their pay. If that goes into effect, Mr. Speaker, a lot of seniors out there will not have access to health care. So I want to show you, before I recognize my good friend, what this means in graphic form. And as you can see, the purple aspect of this is Social Security. The green is Medicaid and other health care. You see it rising very fairly steadily, but plateauing.…”