Political Quotes

“I thank my friend from California for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition, not to the policy before us, but to the poison pill pay-for attached to this much-needed SGR repeal-and-replace legislation. I support the bipartisan, bicameral agreement contained in H.R. 4015 for numerous reasons. There is almost universal agreement that the sustainable growth rate is a flawed formula and, therefore, Congress has been left to temporarily patch physician reimbursement for far too long. This bill permanently repeals the SGR and provides physicians with a small increase in pay for the first 5 years. I want to see our physician workforce fairly compensated for providing high-quality care to our constituents. The SGR fails to adequately do this. This legislation incentivizes physicians to focus on providing quality care instead of a high quantity of care. Finally, while it has always been extremely expensive to permanently repeal and replace the SGR, it is now estimated to cost less than $140 billion. This is less than half the cost of what it would have been a few years ago. While the costs remain significant, I believe that it is imperative we permanently fix physician payment now. That is why I am so furious Republicans are wasting valuable time by pairing this much-needed legislation with yet another ridiculous Affordable Care Act repeal vote.…”