Political Quotes

“the agreement we are voting on today extends the Medicare select demonstration program to all 50 States for a 7\1/2\-year period beginning in 1992. It does so with no appreciation of the consequences of this. Although many support this program, I believe that because Medicare cuts required by the Republican budget in the amount of some $270 billion are so drastic, and will require such fundamental reductions in the Medicare program, it is impossible to pass any Medicare legislation, including Medicare select without taking those reductions into account. In addition, Mr. Speaker, as many of my colleagues know, we argued in the committee that we should await the results of the State evaluations before expanding this program to all 50 States. It has come to my attention that the preliminary results of this evaluation are now in, but they have not been made available by the handlers of the legislation. Those results indicate that Medicare select is significantly associated with Medicare cost increases in 8 of 12 select States. Let me repeat that. Medicare select is associated with cost increases in 8 of 12 States. Furthermore, the cost increase is 17.5 percent. The cost increase is 17.5 percent. That is not fiscal responsibility. Now, while I know these results will not be final until next month, we should clearly examine the results before passing an expansion to all 50 States.”