Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act Of 2009

Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act Of 2009

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Mr. ROSKAM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Can you imagine what it would be like if this House at this time took President Obama's admonition seriously? A couple days ago he said this on his trip to China:

It's important, though, to recognize that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double dip recession.

Can you imagine what would happen if this House came together and said, No, no, no, no, no. We're actually going to take this seriously. We're going to deal with this debt question, and we're going to lean into it in such a way that gives, what, a buoyancy to the American economy as opposed to continuing to drag down.

With all due respect to the majority leader when he was on the House floor a bit ago, he argued, in essence, don't worry about it because it's in the President's budget. Well, think about where that takes you. The President's budget is the problem. The President's budget doubled our national debt in 5 years and will triple that debt in 10 years, which is one of the reasons why Americans are so increasingly concerned.

Look, we all come together and we know the physicians need to be compensated fairly. We know that seniors ought not bear this burden. But why not work together to take the President's admonition seriously to take the debt question seriously and come up with a real fix?

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