Kent Conrad: “first of all, the chart by the Senator is factually wrong. When he puts up a zero, he is not talking about my budget…”

“first of all, the chart by the Senator is factually wrong. When he puts up a zero, he is not talking about my budget because my budget has $15 billion in savings out of Medicare. So that chart, as colorful as it is, is just factually inaccurate. No. 2, if we look at what the Senator is proposing, the majority of the Medicare savings that are in the President's budget that Senator Cornyn is picking up in his proposal are generated by either freezing or cutting market basket updates for hospitals, for nursing homes, for rehabilitation facilities, for hospice, for home health, and ambulance services in every year over the next 10 years. MedPAC, which makes recommendations on market basket updates 1 year at a time, does not concur with many of the proposed cuts in 2008, much less the cuts over the next 10 years. For example, given the negative margins many hospitals are facing, MedPAC which is bipartisan, nonpartisan--has recommended a full market basket update in 2008 for inpatient and outpatient hospitals. In many cases, over time, these across-the-board cuts proposed by Senator Cornyn will hurt seniors' access to health care. There is no question about us having a serious problem with respect to the long-term entitlement challenges and what is the right way to deal with it. Frankly, I don't think any budget resolution is the place to deal with the long-term entitlement challenge. The budget resolution is only for 5 years.”