Repealing Mandatory Funding for Graduate Medical Education
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Chairman, I have seen shameless acts on this floor before, and we are watching another one with the last few speakers that we have seen here today.
The facts of the case are--and people know this--we passed a budget resolution which is a construct to ask this House of Representatives to consider a plan so that we do not bankrupt Medicare--which is exactly what anyone who voted for the health care plan on March 21 or 22 1 year ago did. The plan which President Obama and Speaker Pelosi at that time supported took $500 billion out of Medicare to support a plan--which could not be sustained either--which cost $2 trillion for health care. So this year, Republicans have a plan to sustain Medicare that is a market-based plan. It's not a voucher program. Not one person who is presently on Medicare today nor anybody that is 55 years old or older today would be impacted by this plan. It is a plan that says we should challenge the Congress of the United States--including the administration also--to come up with a plan about how we can sustain Medicare, as we do see a doubling over the next 15 years of people who will be expected to participate in that plan.
So that we get this right for once, let me say this: It is not a voucher program. It does not impact anyone that is presently on Medicare. So the shameless things we've heard today about everyone's grandmother and everybody's grandfather and all these people that will be thrown off Medicare, they will be unaffected.
Here's what the plan calls for: It calls for the United States Congress to begin a process with hearings that would allow people who would be on Medicare, instead of a one-size-fits-all plan of Medicare, to have a plan that looks just like what government employees would have, a realistic opportunity for them to choose among several plans, whether they want a basic plan all the way up to a plan in which they could fully participate themselves.
Today, Medicare is a closed, one-size-fits-all process, just like we heard Mr. Miller, ``We're going to treat everybody the same way.'' It does not work, because not everybody has the same needs as each other. We will have a plan which is market-based, which does not bankrupt this country nor the system, which will allow the individual an opportunity to come into a process and have their own health care just like somebody who works for the Federal Government. It would allow people who were in that program to take money out of their own pocket, to choose their own doctor if they chose to, and to be allowed to supplement those payments. We would probably set a mark, a bar, that said if you make above a certain amount of money, that's not determined yet, but if you had the ability to pay for yourself, you shouldn't rely upon the government. That is another way to make sure that we support the system, because if people have the ability to pay for their own health care, we should allow them to do that and encourage them to do that.
Then we look at how doctors are paid. Doctors today have not only been mistreated by both sides, but in particular as we see doctors not being compensated, they are not available, and it means seniors are being denied coverage because physicians are not being reimbursed properly. It allows us to have a great system, where doctors would want to serve seniors, a great and better system that is market-based whereby the ability that a person has to pay, if they do, then they would pay their own physician and their own way with the minimum support from the government.
The bottom line is, the gentleman from North Carolina asked a relevant question, and the answer that came back was, when he said, what is your plan, the answer that came back was, what about the war and what about oil companies? Well, the facts of the case are, we're talking about Medicare here today, a system that is draining this country from not only its ability to provide outstanding and excellent health care but also a system that takes away choices from seniors.
I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source