On the recordJuly 19, 2011
I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I agree with most everything that you have said here, and very well said. The one point I disagree with is the President has no other plan, no doubt. With the PPACA bill, the health care reform bill, he does deal with Medicare, make no mistake. That is the Independent Payment Advisory Board, the IPAB board, that is going to systematically reduce reimbursements for seniors. I think the gentleman said it very well when the President acknowledged that these programs can't sustain themselves on their current course, and so he has addressed it, and my friends across the aisle voted for it. And basically, this is a form of reducing reimbursement, which is a form of reducing access to care for current seniors to reduce the outlays of Medicare. It's a disingenuous, I think, way of basically coming around the corner and saying, You know what? We're going to ration care for our seniors. And I find that to be absolutely unacceptable.
