Political Quotes

“Thank you. I truly appreciate my colleague from Maryland taking a little time to be with us tonight and give us his insight as a physician here on the floor. I would like to say a few words about IPAB. This is the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This is the mechanism that Mr. Obama's health care plan has for controlling costs. And really, what it is, it's 15 appointed bureaucrats, each making $165,000 a year, with no congressional oversight, whose only purpose is to reduce Medicare spending. So if the Medicare budget goes up too much and is over the limit, these guys in Washington are going to decide what to cut. They're going to decide if you deserve a PSA prostate test or deserve a mammogram or you deserve a colonoscopy. They're going to decide that they may not pay for that. If we don't act, this board could being making these kind of decisions as soon as 2015. Denial of payment for care is going to really lead to denial of care for our seniors. I don't think it's fair for these Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about the patient to be making these decisions. I'm used to taking care of patients, and sometimes we have to make some really difficult decisions. But those decisions have been made between the physician, the patient, and the family, not some bureaucrat in Washington who doesn't know the patient and can't decide if this patient really qualifies for care and should not be denied.…”