Political Quotes

“I have been a strong advocate and a believer that it is time for us to fix the physicians' payment method for Medicare and Medicaid--for the providing of health care by doctors--and put it on a permanent basis right now. We have 17 times passed last-minute legislation to avoid what now would be a 21-percent cut in doctors' reimbursement rates for doing Medicare work. That is not acceptable. We need to end that. They do not need to be worried every year whether or not Congress is going to cut their pay. In fact, they cannot do the work with a 20-percent cut. They will not do it, they can't do it financially, and it would be devastating to Medicare. I believe that, and I think all of us believe in that. The 17 different times when this issue has come up since 2003 we have paid for it. Republicans in particular have insisted that we will find the money through some sort of other reduction in government spending and move that over to pay for this critical need, without which Medicare would collapse. I thought now that we want to do it permanently, it should be done in a way that is financially sound and does not add to the debt and has good policy in it. Some of my colleagues have already talked about the policy that would be in this legislation. I am not prepared to be a big critic of that. I am sure it could be done in different ways.…”