Jim McDermott

On the home health care issue, the ACA gave you the ability to put a moratorium on any more organizations in an area. Have you used that anyplace in the United States? If not, why not?

So you have not used it.

Now, tell me the difference, if two patients are standing here before us...

I have never understood what the clinical basis for the 3-day rule was.

One of the issues--we have made reforms since 1997. It was called the Affordable Care Act. And that has made real changes in what is going on, I think. And we shouldn't ignore the law of the land, as the Supreme Court has now described it.

I appreciate your willingness to approach this topic on a bipartisan basis because I suspect there is quite a bit we agree on.

The Affordable Care Act put us on a path towards reforming post-acute care and many promising ideas are being developed and tested. As the Medicare Trustees' Report illustrates, the Medicare program is stable and strong, however, we should…

So with our own economy, we haven't done anything about poverty in this country. Poverty is about where it was.

Now, I am trying to figure out, when you tell me that Apple and my local company, Starbucks, ... who is it that benefits from this untrapping?

They avoided $92 billion worth of taxes. Fifty-eight companies accounted for 70 percent of that.

I have been sitting on this committee listening to the fact that we need to reduce the tax rate to 25 percent on corporations, that that would make them competitive worldwide.

I would not recommend enacting a provision that is targeted towards job creation.

So you would suggest maybe that we should put in provisions that would require them to invest it in things that produce jobs in this country, would you?

It is the responsibility of the IRS to determine which groups are choosing the correct exempt status and which are trying to manipulate the system.

The IRS has unequivocally made a mistake here.

It is unacceptable in every way for a government agency to unfairly scrutinize any organization because of their political affiliations.

You are taxing somebody to get more revenue into the system.

So then you are going to put it all on the richer people, that is the idea.

We are going to call it a premium increase, but it is a tax. It is a tax on the seniors that we are putting on here.

Today, as Ranking Member McDermott said, half of all people with Medicare, 25 million older adults and people with disabilities, are living on annual incomes of $22,500 or less and spending about 15 percent of their household income on…

The notion that beneficiaries have to have more skin in the game to encourage smart healthcare shopping is ridiculous.

Fifty percent of the Medicare beneficiaries in this country have annual incomes at or below $22,500.

High earners pay more in payroll taxes, as Mr. McDermott pointed out, and income taxes throughout their work lives.

We are long overdue on fixing the physician payment system and I sincerely hope we can work in a bipartisan way to do it.

There was a time in the Congress when the procedure was that the President proposed and the Congress disposed.