Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy, and I strongly identify with the persistence and the eloquence from Chairman Johnson and my friend, Mr. Doggett, to deal with this problem of identity theft. The hearing was a little unnerving. I appreciate the follow-through and, hopefully, something will happen. I identify strongly with the arguments you made on behalf of it. But I would like to focus, if I could, on one other element because it's directly related. And I see my good friend, Mr. Gerlach, is here on the floor, and I anticipate will be speaking to it as well. We should be concerned about maybe learning another lesson from the Department of Defense, which, as the chairman mentioned, is already using this for their purposes. Being able to use an opportunity for a Common Access Card for Medicare will have very important application to the area of rampant Medicare fraud. Sixty billion dollars is the number we have heard in our subcommittee. It could be more, it could be less, but it's a huge sum of money, and it compounds going forward. Our first concern, however, should be about the quality of care for the senior citizens who receive Medicare. And the Common Access Card, being able to digitally track this information, provides security for these transactions, makes it less likely that there will be mistakes, be able to follow up and follow through. Second, it will, in fact, help us stop fraud.…”