Political Quotes

“I come to the floor coming from the Budget Committee, where my Republican colleagues are busy at work breaking the commitment that we all made to one another establishing a path forward on deficit reduction. It wasn't just a commitment that was made amongst legislative leaders; we wrote it into law. Now they're breaking that commitment. They are involved with the budgets that are going to actually reduce health care in this country, and yet they would come to the floor and ask us to get exorcised about something that may happen 10 years from now. I find the language curious. You could just as easily say, instead of the Supreme Court, you could talk about nine unelected judicial hacks meeting in secret that have no judicial review. They're a power unto themselves. Get a grip, people. IPAB comes into play only if we are unable to deal with controlling costs. Remember, our Republican friends--I voted against it--set up the SGR so that we have to have a doc fix every year, putting cost control on automatic pilot, because they didn't have the gumption year after year to deal with the policy changes to make a difference. We have MedPAC for Medicare that gives us recommendations, but Congress blinks.…”