Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. The claim we just heard, that only Democrats want to prevent these cuts to our local doctors and hospitals, is just nonsense. Democrats and Republicans have worked hard together to extend the moratorium on the sequester cuts on our providers, our doctors and hospitals; to provide a 3 percent payment increase for our physicians; to make sure, in the administration's proposals, to help increase reimbursement for primary care physicians. You don't cut the payment for specialty doctors, many of whom were hurt so hard during COVID. We also worked with our Democrat colleagues to delay for a year the proposed cuts by this administration on our labs and our oncologists, and we worked together to make sure other cuts didn't occur. All that bipartisanship was all on track up until a few hours ago when my Democrat colleagues decided they would hold this hostage, hold the healthcare reimbursements for doctors and hospitals hostage for their debt ceiling crisis that they created. It really is, I think, in a day and age where we have seen this one- party rule for an entire year, the arrogance of this power going to their heads. It is unfortunate that they couldn't continue to work just a few hours longer together with Republicans to provide help to our physicians, hospitals, and providers. This bill ought to be a stand-alone bill. We should never hold them hostage for our colleagues' spending spree and socialist agenda.…”