Political Quotes

“I am hopeful--and most of us are--that soon we will be able to consider Medicare legislation that has passed the House of Representatives. It is probably best known as the SGR permanent fix. The SGR, which is a payment system that affects physicians under the Medicare system, is badly broken. On 17 previous occasions we have extended the current policy in order to make sure that physicians don't get an automatic cut that would deny many Medicare beneficiaries access to their physicians. These are pretty extreme measures. We all understand that it is time to permanently fix this--not just to eliminate the problem but to substitute a payment system that encourages physicians to provide high quality care and to deal with incentives that reduce the volume of care. And that is what the legislation that passed the House of Representatives does. It fixes the problem on a permanent basis. I am certainly hopeful we can get that enacted shortly because it already passed the deadline in regard to when the current patch expired. The bill also provides for an extension for the Children's Health Insurance Program. I do hope we can provide a longer extension than the 2 years that is provided in the House bill. I know there will be amendments offered to deal with that. I want to talk about an amendment I will be offering. I am not sure how much time will be available when a consent arrangement is entered into--which I hope will be soon--to consider this.…”