Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I listened very intently to the first two speakers this morning. As somebody who has now been a physician for almost 30 years--I practiced full time for over 25 years--I heard the Senator from Iowa and what his desire would be on the chart he showed. He said that 100 percent screening is occurring now in three areas. That isn't true. We are not screening. We hope to screen, and we hope to screen 100 percent, but the facts on screening that are available are that it is only used 5 percent by Medicare patients on the screening that was already available with no cost to Medicare patients. So we have to distinguish between what we desire and what is actually going to happen. Let's take the example of colon screening. I am a colon cancer survivor. I was diagnosed, through colonoscopy, with colon cancer. Let's take that example, and then let's take the example of the other aspect of the affordable care act, called the Independent Payment Advisory Board. What is the purpose of that Independent Payment Advisory Board? Its purpose is to cut the cost of Medicare through the decreasing of reimbursements--first, for the first 8 years, physicians and outside providers, and then, starting in 2019, hospitals. What do you think the first thing to be cut will be? It is the reimbursement rate for a colonoscopy.…”