Frank Pallone: “I just wanted to point out once again that this budget essentially cuts Medicare and Medicaid in order to provide tax…”

“I just wanted to point out once again that this budget essentially cuts Medicare and Medicaid in order to provide tax breaks for the wealthiest of Americans. It is the same old thing that we had last year in 1995. Once again Medicare and Medicaid are on the chopping block and seniors are going to be given less choices and they will be pushed into managed care, which means they will not have the choice of doctors or in many cases even the choice of hospitals. And once again they are going to have to pay more, because the balanced billing provisions, the protections that exist right now that do not allow doctors to charge more or significantly more than 15 percent to their Medicare patients will be out the window. If you stay in the traditional fee-for-service system where you have your own choice of doctor or your own choice of hospital, you could be charged extra, really unlimited amounts, under the provisions that the Republican leadership have placed into this budget. Also, what they are doing with the medical savings accounts is they are making it so that seniors who opt for a medical savings account, which is a catastrophic policy essentially, will not have the guarantee of most of the Medicare benefits.”