Political Quotes

“America's home health agencies provide invaluable services that have enabled a growing number of our most frail and vulnerable senior citizens to avoid hospitals and nursing homes and stay just where they want to be--in their own homes. Today, home health is the fastest growing component of Medicare spending, and the program grew at an astounding average annual rate of more than 25 percent from 1990 to 1997. As a consequence, the number of Medicare home health beneficiaries has more than doubled, and Medicare home health spending has soared from $2.7 billion in 1989 to $17.1 billion in 1996. This rapid growth in home health spending understandably prompted Congress and the Health Care Financing Administration, as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, to initiate changes that were intended to make the program more cost-effective and efficient and protect it from fraud and abuse. However, in trying to get a handle on costs, we in Congress and the administration have unintentionally created problems that may restrict some elderly citizens' access to vitally needed home health care.”