Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, we are going to talk about Medicare today and the way the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act cuts into Medicare, destroys Medicare.

Two years ago the President wanted a health care bill in the worst way, and that is exactly what he got, and that is exactly what America got.

Anybody out there on Medicare or about to be on Medicare or young enough that someday they will be on Medicare should be very concerned about what happened under this act. All of you, I am sure, are aware of somebody who is on Medicare who has already been denied a doctor; they are being denied because they are not being paid what they ought to be paid.

To call it the ``patient protection'' and ``affordable'' care act is a major mistake. It neither protects Medicare patients nor makes it more affordable. In fact, one of the things we will bring out today is that there has been a theft of $500 billion from Medicare to fund other parts of the program. There is some fraud in it because it was spent, but it still shows up in the account. That is how they show that this really doesn't add to the debt. To solve the whole thing, they have a whole new board of unelected bureaucrats to make additional cuts to Medicare to make it look as though it is OK. And then there is the accounting sleight of hand. I am one of the two accountants in the Senate now, and you have to pay attention to see it. It goes back to the fraud because if this same sort of thing were being done in the private sector, people would go to jail.

There are a number of ways that we will bring out how that is not just budget gimmicks and sleight of hand but is actually taking advantage of seniors.

The Chief Medicare Actuary said that Medicare will go broke in 2024. That is 5 years earlier than last year's report by the Chief Medicare Actuary. He is the guy who works for Medicare; he doesn't work for us. He has to figure out each year how much in the hole it is and what needs to be done to fix it.

My contention, of course, is that you can't steal $500 billion out of a program that is already going broke and expect it to be fine. We warned about that as we were going through the passage of this Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which, as already mentioned, was passed 2 years ago tomorrow. It could have been fixed. There were three plans on the Republican side that would have done what is claimed to be done by this act. Those ideas were largely rejected.

Today we are going to talk about some thefts, fraud, unelected bureaucrats, and accounting sleight of hand. I have some people here who want to respond to some of the things that have been said.

Senator Coburn has listened to some comments made on the other side celebrating this great day.

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