Political Quotes

“The other thing Medicare recipients should recognize is that under the laws as previously set, the reimbursement for your physician in January is scheduled to decline 27 percent. When I talk to seniors in the State of Oklahoma, one of the No. 1 problems that somebody turning 65 has is now finding that physician who will care for them under the Medicare payment guidelines. What was never spoken of was the fact that there was no fix in the health care bill for the very real need to attract more physicians into caring for seniors. As we have seen, Congress may or may not fix that--it is $300 billion to fix that. That is the cost of it. Whether we fix it or not, the fact is we are playing with the access of Medicare patients to care. Denied access is denied care. If you live in a community much like mine where no new doctors have been coming in because there is a shortage of primary care doctors, and those who do come in will not take the lower reimbursement for Medicare because they cannot afford to, it may mean that you have to drive 70 miles to get that care. That is not access, and it is not health care. It means you don't have available health care because the government runs the program so poorly. Let me finish up, since we don't want to go over our time. The other thing I want to talk about for a minute is this innovation center. In the health care law, we set aside a $10 billion slush fund for innovation in payment and procedures for Medicare patients.…”