Political Quotes

“The bottom line is the House Republican budget would cause the cost of health insurance to rise and then would make seniors pay a greater share of that higher cost. It is a cut in benefits plans, plain and simple. If we are serious about reining in Medicare spending, there is a far better starting place than the Ryan budget. It is the health care law passed by Congress last year. Republicans are patting themselves on the back lately for leading on entitlement reform. When it comes to reining in the runaway costs of Medicare, the truth is the President did it first, and he did it better. In the health care law, we certainly did not complete the job, but we made a good start on reducing waste and inefficiency and duplication in the system. We started down the path of making delivery system reforms. We set up a system for studying the effectiveness of different methods and treatments so that care could be delivered more efficiently. We made a downpayment on shifting the larger health care system away from a fee-for-service model toward a system that pays providers for episodes of care. The Ryan proposal adopts none of these cost-saving approaches. In fact, his budget calls for the repeal of the health care law altogether. Left unsaid is that this would have the side effect of reopening the doughnut hole, another hit to Medicare beneficiaries.…”