Jay Rockefeller: “as I look at the situation, we have a whole lot of meetings going on around this Capitol--conference committees on…”

“as I look at the situation, we have a whole lot of meetings going on around this Capitol--conference committees on trade, conference committees on prescription drugs. We have a generic drug bill. That is the underlying bill here with a prescription drug amendment attached to it. We have a Federal matching Medicaid amendment which I am offering. There is so much going on on health but there is so little that is going on on health, and it perturbs me. Senator Durbin, when he was talking, pointed out the importance of Medicaid to hospitals, nursing homes, and others. It makes it extremely important for me to note that in the State I represent, 80 percent of our hospitals are losing money. They are mostly rural hospitals, and most of them depend upon Medicaid and Medicare in combination, usually at 85, 80, sometimes 75 percent of their total reimbursement of everything that they do. That is the nature of the State I represent. So many others are like that. It is the nature of part of the State that the Presiding Officer represents. So the question of are we doing Medicaid and reimbursing States so they can keep their health facilities open and Medicaid available to their people is a profoundly important matter. But we treat it as if it were not. We are trying our best to come to an agreement on prescription drugs. There is no particular compromise in sight at the moment. We had two votes yesterday. Both failed.”