Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008--Veto Message from the President of the United States

MEDICARE IMPROVEMENTS FOR PATIENTS AND PROVIDERS ACT OF 2008--VETO MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (H. DOC. NO. 110-131) -- (House of Representatives - July 15, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DOGGETT. I thank the gentleman for his leadership.

``Pay more, get less,'' that's the Bush Medicare plan. The President's veto
means that taxpayers get an opportunity to pay more unnecessarily to subsidize private insurers, while seniors and the disabled get less.

Each person in privatized Medicare costs American taxpayers $1,000 more each year than the cost for one relying on the traditional, more efficient Medicare system. Without change, $150 billion will be wasted on unnecessary subsidies to highly profitable private insurers. Even Medicare's only actuary reports absolutely zero quantifiable savings have occurred through private Medicare, and that savings will never occur through private Medicare as currently set up, a waste of $150 billion bestowed on the insurers. That's the waste that President Bush is so intent on protecting through his veto. We take some of that unnecessary waste and we use it to pay physicians who are working hard and ought not to have a cut in their reimbursement rates, and more importantly, for the many people around this country who rely on those physicians to care for them.

The Administration has refused time and again to offer us any legislative fix on this waste in the so-called Medicare Advantage plan, which is nothing but a disadvantage to American taxpayers and Medicare recipients.

Today, we must overcome this continued obstructionism of the Administration and its allies here in the Congress. We should reject wasteful corporate welfare, protect our physicians, and override this veto.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source