Jim McDermott

It is not a fascist takeover that's going on here of the healthcare system.

If we really want to root out the causes of this we need to talk about campaign finance laws, and Citizens United decision in 2010, which is when this all started.

The overwhelming majority of applications for tax-free status for political activities were from far right groups.

These days Congress can't seem to agree on whether the sun is shining, but this issue has brought us together in a way unlike anything we have seen here.

I suspect the chairman and I and all the committee have a boatload of questions.

The cost of inaction and more patches will be higher still over time.

How do we make a transition that makes sense in the delivery of health care, as well as fiscal sense?

We need to replace it with a sensible policy that reflects a more modern care delivery system.

We don't have to start over; we can build on what works and what is already working out there in some places.

We want provider accountability.

It is patently unfair to ask physicians or others paid under the fee schedule to live with the sword of Damocles hanging over their head year after year after year.

The Sustainable Growth Rate Formula is fundamentally broken.

This Committee has been wrestling with the need to reform Medicare's physician payment system for more than a decade.

There is one in Seattle named the McDermott Place which has 54 homeless veterans living in it, so I know about how it is done.

I come from Seattle where we spend a lot of effort politically passing initiatives for low-income housing.

We are setting in motion a policy to pay for a reduction in corporate taxes down to 25 percent by taking it away from homeowners

Russell Long, the old Finance Chairman in the Senate, once said that tax policy is 'Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax the guy behind the tree.'

Can you give me any reason why the sequester cuts to the National Institutes of Health would be good for the economy?

We have watched Europe deal with the same economic situation we are dealing with, and they have had such magnificent success with their austerity measures.

I can imagine Albert Gallatin coming in here and explaining why they bought the Louisiana Purchase.

I have sat here and listened to this debate about debt, and cutting and cutting and cutting.

The President's budget really is an effort, in my view, to reinvigorate a search for common ground and the common good.

Implementing the Affordable Care Act on top of managing Medicare and Medicaid will not be easy.

Our Republican colleagues resisted all the President's efforts or almost all the President's efforts in infrastructure creation.

The middle class is being destroyed in this country.