Idaho Home Health And Hospice

Senator Lamar Alexander today made the following remarks on the Senate floor of the United States:

ยท "What Senator McCain is to say with his amendment, not to cut Medicare grandmother to pay for someone else's insurance."

ยท "If you find savings by cutting waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare grandmother spend those savings on grandmother. Medicare trustees have said it is $ 38000000000000 in unfunded liabilities for the Medicare program, and the program will start bankruptcy between 2015 and 2017. According to the trustees of Medicare, "We need prompt and effective action to address the Medicare . I do not think the Medicare trustees have been to think that the prompt and effective action we can take to keep Medicare from the brink of bankruptcy was to take 465 billion dollars out of him and the focus on a new program. "
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ยท "Rather than take my word for it, let's go for a headline in The Wall Street Journal:" Some health care premiums rising. "This means that the cost of your insurance is rising. So my question is, why should we spend 2.5 billion dollars over ten years, cut Medicare, raise taxes and run debt to raise some Americans' health care premiums? "I thought the whole exercise is to lower the premium costs of health care."

ยท "This bill is historic in the thought that we could take a system that affects almost all Americans and change everything at once. Why not go step by step to re-earn the trust of the American people? Republicans will be the adoption of such proposals on the Senate floor this month and next month and as long as necessary to achieve real reform of health care. Cutting Medicare grandmother half a trillion dollars and expenditures on a new program at a time when Medicare is going broke, not a real health care reform. "

Alexander Full Remarks:

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that during the 30 minutes controlled by the Republicans, we are allowed to participate in a symposium.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will start by making some comments regarding the amendment of Senator McCain, my colleague from Arizona, has filed. This is an amendment that, according to the minority leader just said, will protect the elderly in America. He will refuse Medicare cuts this bill includes.

The economist Milton Friedman said, "There is no such thing as a free lunch" and that applies to health care as well. There is no such thing as free health care. Someone must pay. Because this bill is $ 2.5 trillion, the first question, who pays? The first answer is who pays, what are the seniors of America, because about half the cost of the bill that would have been paid by cuts in Medicare.

Allow me to break a little more precisely as the Republican leader, has done exactly what it means. This is about $ 500 billion in cuts to Medicare as follows: 137.5 billion dollars to hospitals that treat the elderly $ 120 billion from Medicare Advantage, which is the insurance program that provides benefits to seniors who will cut more than half as a result of this $ 120,000,000,000 reduction, 14.6 billion in nursing homes who treat seniors, $ 42.1 billion of care home health care for seniors and $ 7.7 billion of palliative care, one of the cruelest cut of all. Obviously, with this dramatic cut there is no way to avoid compromising the elderly now receive care, and seniors know. That's why they were writing our office and attend meetings for open discussion and let us know that they disapprove. I cited two letters from my constituents in Arizona sent a request to please not cut their Medicare Advantage. What has been called the jewel of the Medicare system, and many of them rely on Medicare Advantage for dental care.