Political Quotes

“before Chairman Baucus became Ambassador to China, the Finance Committee, under his auspices, negotiated a bipartisan, bicameral bill with the House to repeal the flawed Medicare physician payment system. He worked on that for more than a year. But the committees didn't come to an agreement on the really hard part--how to pay for it. Senator Wyden, the new chairman of the Finance Committee, has come up with a way to pay for it. I support repealing the payment system--the SGR--permanently. I have been in favor of that for a long time, and I appreciate the work done on that in the past period of time Senator Wyden has been chairman of that committee. I repeat, the work done on it for a year didn't have a way to pay for it. So I support repealing this permanently. I believe we should repeal it without pay-fors or by using reductions in the overseas contingency fund, called OCO. The deadline is here. I spoke on the floor this morning, and I say it again. Everyone is saying, Well, why are you helping the doctors? Madam President, I am helping my Medicare recipients in Nevada. They need physicians. And for us to play around with this bill, as we do continually, isn't fair to the patients. Because doctors are unhappy that they do not have some degree of certainty, and that is what they need. So that is why I am for getting rid of this totally. We don't have that now. The House passed a short time ago a patch of 12 or 13 months, which is good.…”