David Thomas: “Mr. Speaker, at some point, somebody needs to talk about reality. What we have heard from the other side of the aisle is…”

“Mr. Speaker, at some point, somebody needs to talk about reality. What we have heard from the other side of the aisle is that they want to operate under democracy, that democracy does not operate here. There is a difference between democracy and chaos. Democracy means majority rules, but it also means rights of the minority. What are some of those rights? The rights are the minority gets to participate if they play by the rules. What are the rules? That under the budget, and they want democracy, under the budget they have the right to offer a plan which costs no more than the amount the budget provides: $350 billion. What they presented was a plan that costs $974 billion. Guess what? They do not play by the rules; they do not get to offer their substitute. What they want to do is do whatever they want to do without following the rules. That is not democracy. Secondly, what I heard from the gentleman from Florida while we were arguing the rules was, our bill does not do a pay-back to the providers. What does that mean? They are going to spend $1 trillion, and they do not take any of it to address the fact that our physicians serving seniors have a payment system that is broken. Why is it broken? Because it is not automatic. If it were automatic, it would adjust to the market. Instead, it is an arbitrary, fixed price. But they do not even want to fix that in their bill.”