Political Quotes

“Mr. President, my colleague from Arizona is absolutely right. There is a front-page story in USA TODAY. I was reading it as I was coming back from Wyoming yesterday. In Wyoming over the weekend, I visited with a number of seniors on Medicare. I visited with some family physicians who take care of families in Wyoming. I practiced medicine for 25 years in Wyoming taking care of families and have lived under the Medicare rules and regulations. Here it is: ``Doctors limit new Medicare patients. Surveys point to payment concerns.'' Doctors will tell you the biggest deadbeat when it comes to paying for health care is the Federal Government. It is Washington. More and more of my colleagues are opting out, as the Senator from Arizona said, from taking care of Medicare patients because what they get reimbursed is so limited that it does not keep up with the growing cost of liability insurance, the mandates on them in terms of the expenses of running a business, and they try to provide health care for all their employees. Item after item, those costs go up. But what the government continues to pay for taking care of patients on Medicare, which is an expanding group of people, is shrinking. Think about how Washington works and does not get it. Patients around the country on Medicare understand they are having a hard time finding a doctor. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services was quoted in yesterday's USA TODAY saying 97 percent of doctors accept Medicare. What is the reality?…”