Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for yielding. The gentleman is absolutely correct. We made a promise to our seniors. To the people who've worked all their lives, we made a promise that we're going to take care of you, but we have to be honest with how long we can do that. What are we going to do for my children? for people who are in their twenties or thirties? How are we going to preserve that system and preserve their ability to choose their physicians and allow their physicians to choose what's best for them? Because that's really what's critical, that we preserve that in the system. The gentleman is right. For the seniors who are watching this afternoon, they know that, in many parts of this country, if their primary care providers, their internists, their family doctors retire or move to other States, it's going to be hard to find someone, not because doctors don't want to take care of Medicare patients. We all do--we've taken care of thousands of them in our lives, in our professional careers--but the fact of the matter is that, every year, the government threatens to cut the reimbursement, the payment for services, by 25 percent, and it hasn't had an increase for inflation in 10 years.…”