David Thomas: “And what we get out of that, as we repeated over and over, is the flexibility of choosing, but also the advantage…”

“And what we get out of that, as we repeated over and over, is the flexibility of choosing, but also the advantage through the competition of a lower price to the seniors, and, of course, given that the Medicare program is taxpayer financed, a lower cost to the taxpayers. We have to be concerned about the Medicare program, because it is not financially sound as we make these improvements, things like adding prescription drugs, we have to keep an eye on the bottom line costs 10 years out, 15 years out. The intensive more than 1 year study that was undertaken by the bipartisan Medicare commission wound up unanimous in terms of the experts, whether they were professional, academia, in saying the one thing Medicare needs to preserve itself over the long run is a degree of competition and negotiation for the price of the services. The plan we are talking about, the plan as indicated that the State of Nevada has put into place, provides the structure for that competition, which will produce, bend those growth curves a little, it will produce a plan that will save us money in the long haul. We are preserving Medicare by making sure that we can get the job done at the cheapest possible cost. We are protecting seniors. We are, in fact, strengthening and simplifying the program.”