Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. 3630, Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Ms. CASTOR of Florida. I thank our colleague, Representative Capps, for yielding time and for her great leadership on behalf of middle class families across America.

I rise to encourage all of our colleagues to get to work on middle class tax relief and also take this opportunity to strengthen Medicare. We're going to have a lot of debates over Medicare here in the coming year.

This will be an opportunity to address a real shortcoming in Medicare, and that is protecting our parents and grandparents and the ability that they have to see the doctor of their choice. See, what will happen if the Congress does not act is there will be instituted very harsh cuts to the reimbursement rate for doctors who take care of our parents and take care of our grandparents under Medicare. We simply can't let this happen.

Democrats are interested in a permanent fix to these Medicare cuts to doctors. This is vitally important for tens of millions of our parents and grandparents all across America. And you better believe in the State of Florida, where we have 3.4 million seniors who rely on Medicare, we want to ensure that the ability of the doctor that they trust, that they see time and time again, will be there when they make that appointment in the doctor's office. We're interested in a permanent fix. We think working together we can get this done.

Medicare is that promise that has been made to generation after generation of Americans; that it will be there no matter what happens, how hard they work, what happens in their lifetime, Medicare will be there to serve them, and we need to ensure that the doctors are there on the front lines to take care of our parents and grandparents as well.

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