SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, using Medicare as a political pawn in their 51st attempt to undermine the Affordable Care Act is a new low, even for House Republicans.

Americans are waiting for Congress to stop wasting time and start passing constructive solutions to the real challenges this country faces. The broken Medicare physician payment system is one such challenge. And there is a bipartisan, bicameral plan to reform Medicare physician payments to promote quality and efficiency.

Unfortunately, today's vote isn't about that plan at all. We know this because the bill includes a poison pill that guarantees it will never become law. This is nothing more than one more tired exercise in Republicans indulging their obsessive hatred of the Affordable Care Act. Rather than working with Democrats to reach agreement on how to advance Medicare payment reform in a fiscally responsible way, Republicans instead attached a five-year delay of the Affordable Care Act's requirement that everyone take responsibility for having health insurance. The White House has indicated the President would veto this bill if it were to reach his desk.

Private health insurers object to today's anti-Obamacare exercise. America's Health Insurance Plans and Blue Cross BlueShield Association wrote:

``we have deep concerns about packaging the Medicare physician payment bill with legislation that would sever the link between the ACA's individual mandate and its market reforms. The experience of states that attempted this in the 1990s demonstrates that removing this important linkage will result in more uninsured Americans, higher costs, and reduced choices for individuals and families. To avoid these outcomes, we are asking Congress to reject efforts to repeal or delay the individual mandate in the debate on Medicare physician payment reform.''

``It is disturbing that work designed to expand access to quality health care would be advanced alongside a policy that deliberately removes access to quality health care coverage. Providing access to health care coverage for millions of Medicare beneficiaries while eliminating access to health care coverage for millions more is simply poor public policy and we urge that such approach be abandoned.''

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