Political Quotes

“I am pleased to join with several of my colleagues, including Senators Bond, Hutchinson, Mikulski, Ensign, Snowe, Cochran, Gordon Smith, and Santorum, in introducing this amendment to eliminate the automatic 15-percent reduction in Medicare payments to home health agencies now scheduled to take effect on October 1 of next year. Our amendment will create a reserve fund of $13.7 billion that can be used solely to eliminate the 15-percent reduction in payments to home health agencies now scheduled to go into effect on October 1, 2002. Our amendment contains a safety mechanism that protects the Medicare HI trust fund for each year covered by the budget resolution. In other words--I want this to be clear--the Medicare trust fund will not be used to pay for the elimination of the scheduled reduction in home health payments. Health care has gone full circle. Patients are spending less time in the hospital, more and more procedures are being done on an outpatient basis, and recovery and care for patients with chronic diseases and conditions have increasingly been taking place in the home. Moreover, the number of older Americans who are chronically ill or disabled in some way continues to grow with each passing year as our population grows older. As a consequence, home health care has become an increasingly important part of our health care system.”