Assessing Impact of Medicare Cuts

Floor Speech

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Mr. BERA. Mr. Speaker, over 30 years ago I graduated from medical school. As you are kind of figuring out what you want to do as a resident, I chose to become a primary care internal medicine doctor.

The rationale for that decision was to take care of our seniors: Our moms, dads, grandparents, and so forth.

I love the job. You put that white coat on, you are there and able to help people immediately. That is the joy of being a doctor.

When I talk to my colleagues today, the practice of medicine has gotten harder and harder: The administrative burdens, the lack of reimbursement, the cost of care, the amount of physician burnout.

That is not why we went to medical school. That is not why we went into this profession.

We went into the profession to take care of folks, but if you can't cover your expenses, if you can't give the necessary care to those individual patients, to our parents and grandparents, then it becomes hard. It becomes challenging. We have to fix this.

We have to at least make sure the cost of care, what we give our providers, our doctors, keeps pace with inflation. You see it in every other aspect of healthcare, yet, physician reimbursement is going in the wrong direction.

Mr. Speaker, all we are asking for is to keep up with the pace of inflation and allow our doctors, America's doctors, to take care of our senior citizens. These are folks that have worked their entire life. They have paid into Medicare. They just want routine care.

So let's do what is right. Let's fix this. Let's do a temporary fix in this Congress.

We can do it. We have a few weeks left to get that done, then let's actually come together as Democrats and Republicans, take a look at it, come up with new ideas so there is predictability so that America's seniors and America's doctors can take care of our patients.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, Dr. Murphy, for his leadership.

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