Political Quotes

“It puts the government between you and your patient, which is what you never want to have happen. As Dr. Coburn said, that is the wrong approach. It is not the way medicine has ever been practiced in America. It is not the way patients want it; it is not the way doctors want it. We don't want bureaucrats, whether government or insurance company bureaucrats, between doctors and patients. As we saw at the health care summit on Thursday of last week, the President kept talking about covering people, health coverage, but he wants to put 15 million more people on Medicaid--a program where half the doctors don't see them because the government pays so little; a program where the Mayo Clinic, which the President has held up as a model for health care in America, says: We can't continue to see Medicaid patients from a number of States because we lose too much money. And now they have said the same with regard to Medicare. So when they are talking about $500 billion of cuts to Medicare, the Mayo Clinic, on January 1, said they can't handle additional Medicare patients because last year they lost, they said, $800 million by taking care of Medicare patients because the government pays so little. Mr. McCAIN. On the issue of coming between the doctor and the patient, this legislation, the 2,733 pages, has 159 new boards, bureaucracies, and programs created--159.”