Political Quotes

“Mr. President, hopefully this afternoon we will take up a very important piece of legislation coming over from the House of Representatives that received an overwhelming vote of Republicans and Democrats alike--a package negotiated at the highest levels of the House leadership between Speaker Boehner and his staff and Nancy Pelosi and her staff. What could it be that brings the political parties and the leaders of the parties in the House together to try to build a consensus and come up with a solution? Well, it is really to right a wrong or remedy a mistake Congress made back in 1997. Basically, at that time, Congress decided, in order to save money on health care costs, it would begin periodically to cut the amount of money that was reimbursed to health care providers--primarily doctors and hospitals. That is how Congress thought way back then we were going to save money. What has happened in 17 of the 18 times these cuts will have been implemented? Well, Congress has realized it was a mistake. Here is the problem. When you tell doctors in rural parts of Texas ``You are going to earn 20 percent less to treat a Medicare patient tomorrow than you did today,'' well, what they are going to decide is ``Can I afford to keep my doors open? Can I afford to pay the bills? And maybe I can't afford to see any more Medicare patients.'' When doctors simply refuse or are unable to afford to see Medicare patients, then our seniors lack access to health care they need and they deserve.…”