Paul Tonko: “The gentleman from California speaks of the Medicare Advantage programs. Obviously, they came about because there were…”

“The gentleman from California speaks of the Medicare Advantage programs. Obviously, they came about because there were those who suggested they could do it cheaper. Give us a special model out there and launch it as a pilot, and we'll show you how we can do this special programming and give us a return. After reviewing now what is the history of all of that, it was deemed that there were overpayments of anywhere from 10 to 14 percent. So the dollars were slid over to programs like filling the doughnut hole and providing for screenings for our seniors, not taking it away from a category of health care consumers--in this case, an age demographic of seniors--but taking those savings, as we sweep those savings, and then reinvesting them in a way that provides balance and more sensitivity for the consumer rather than having record profits developed for an industry. To me, that was progressive policy. And for people to then take those savings and use them in their own budget presentations for other purposes was disingenuous. Now, when you talk about the efforts today of the Affordable Care Act to include an exchange, what I think is oftentimes lost, Representative Garamendi, is people see this as some sort of public exchange that is going to be run by the government.…”