Now, I hope this is the beginning of a constructive bipartisan conversation about how to advance our shared goal of controlling costs and improving the delivery of health care in the country.

When Medicare was put in place some 50 years ago, a critical decision was made by the medical association in order to have them join in the effort, and they demanded that they be paid their usual and customary fees, and we, on this…

Thanks to MACRA, we have set Medicare on a more sustainable course that will allow us to pay for volume in health care--or excuse me, value in health care, rather than volume.

Now, if you want to take away American subsidies, that will mean you are going to have financial hardship for everybody.

Now, if you want to get rid of the individual mandate and keep in place the issue for people with preexisting conditions, you put the insurance industry into a death spiral.

If you want to cover all Americans and secure financial security and control costs, you have limited options.

There is good reason they do not have a plan. There is no place to go.

You cannot have a pool of just sick people in the insurance plan and have the sick ones out here waiting for the day when they can run in and get their insurance.

Now, the truth is we will never get a plan out of the Republicans any different than the ACA.

If Tip O'Neill were here today, he would say, 'Well, this is another smoke and mirrors hearing.'

When the bill passed here in 1983 and they advanced the retirement age from 65 to 67, I am sure there were thousands, millions of people in this country who never thought that was going to ever affect them.