"This proposal was a bad idea on its own terms as a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. It is disastrous."
"Do the regulations of guarantee issue and community rating penalize people that have been responsible and purchased insurance before they were sick?"
"If you would continue, Dr. Parente, would the optimum policy goal be to have a system where consumers have more choice?"
"Georgia recently enacted a law to allow the purchase of health coverage across state lines."
"This will harm the sick, the elderly, and the disabled--all of whom already pay high costs for their medical care."
"Reduced insurance premiums for some people are little consolation for the consumers who, under H.R. 371, would be left without coverage."
"Insurance companies would be empowered to avoid caring for the sick people who cut into their profit margin."
"I hope that today's hearing will be a useful one for my colleagues."
"The system that is currently used to pay physicians for providing services to beneficiaries in the Medicare System is broken and has been for some time."
"According to the most recent Congressional Budget Office estimate if nothing is done physicians will see reimbursement for services provided to Medicare patients cut by 29.4 percent on January 1, 2012..."
"This staggering price tag is just one side of the physician payment reform problem."
"I hope that this hearing will not focus narrowly on options that would shift our problems paying for the SGR onto beneficiaries."