Political Quotes

“Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. I want to talk for about 5 minutes here on an issue that you brought up, Dr. Gingrey, about the $575 billion from the Medicare program that also cuts $135 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, forcing over 7 million seniors out of their current Medicare plan unless they pay more. I wanted to help point out that while the President and others are out there saying we're trying to cut Medicare and what it does, nothing could be further from the truth. What we're trying to do here is show how if Medicare is handled differently--not by IPAB or a board of bureaucrats, but by letting the plans work and letting doctors work, they can drive down cost by improving quality. Let me explain what happened in the Medicare Advantage program that was gutted in the health care bill that was passed out of the House. Well, seniors are able to make choices right now--with Medicare, they can get Medicare part D drug coverage and supplemental Medigap policies with the Medicare Advantage plan. What the Medicare Advantage plan does is allows some management of diseases that are chronic illnesses, which is very different from the current fee-for-service where somebody would get paid based upon the number of procedures they do. Under the regular Medicare fee-for-service plan, hospital readmission rates--that's 30 days post-discharge for the country--in 2007 was over 18 percent, but the average readmission rate across Medicare Advantage was 13.5 percent. Why?…”