On the recordMarch 3, 2010
The answer is that yes, you can keep your plan if you like it for maybe a year, then you lose it. Maybe 2 if you are lucky. On the other part, if you like your doctor--and the gentleman from Utah has quoted it exactly. I have the text of the President's speech here. He said, ``If you like your plan you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.'' The thing is nobody, not even my dear friends here on the floor with me, can promise you that if you like your doctor you get to keep your doctor. I will give you one good reason why. I have talked to numerous doctors that are my age and older who have told me, many of them, that I have not accumulated what I had hoped to by this time. But they are very sincere, and they say, But it has gotten so frustrating dealing with the government over Medicare and Medicaid, and even dealing with insurance companies, they've had enough. And I have been told, I am sure my friends have been, too, that if this bill passes they are walking away from the practice of medicine. They are walking away. It will not be worth it. I have heard that from so many people. So for somebody to say if we pass this bill, and I don't care who it is, any Democrat or any Republican that were to say if we pass this bill and you like your doctor you can keep him, it is wrong. You can't make that promise because many of the doctors you like the best have already said we are walking away.
