Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROGERS of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, the SGR fix is incredibly important, but this approach is disingenuous at best. Let's go back quickly.

In 2008 the Medicare Improvement for Patient and Providers Act, sponsored by my friends on the other side of the aisle, had a 21 percent cut to go into effect for doctors this year. Your bill, your issue, your 21 percent. And you come here today knowing full well this bill will go nowhere.

Why this is disingenuous is because 2 weeks ago, you added about 16 million people to Medicaid that shorts doctors hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursement every single year. And, oh, by the way, you tax doctors, and everything in their operation; their costs go up. And here's the thing: you cut a half trillion dollars out of Medicare, hospitals, home health services, nursing homes, hospice care. You cut Medicare a half trillion dollars. You know this bill will go nowhere.

This is an easy fix. Let's work together. Let's find some offsets. Let's fix it for doctors. And, by the way, let's go back and take back that money that you have cut, a half trillion dollars, out of Medicare for the lives and betterment of seniors.

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