On the recordMarch 1, 2011
I would like to expand on some of the points that you're making there. We're basically talking about the same issues, and we can see what an increase in costs this is going to be and how incredibly difficult it would be to put this in place. And, you know, this isn't yet another situation where the good intentions and well-meaning intentions that are put forward to help this situation are just truly not the answer. You know, basically, how do we increase the access to health care coverage? Medicaid is not the route to take. There again, it passes too much cost on to our States and it is not--it is an imperfect situation. And I'll expand a little bit on the Congressional Budget Office numbers. Very conservative estimates indicate Federal spending for Medicaid is expected to reach $427 billion by 2019. And the Congressional Budget Office notes the program will consume more than 4 percent of GDP by 2050. You know, one of the unintended consequences to this--you know, we were talking about some of these bad situations, poor outcomes. One of the things that we're seeing right now, unfortunately, in health care as we move into this transition into ObamaCare is the decrease in Medicaid reimbursements to physicians.
