Health Care

Floor Speech

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Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I listened very intently to the first two speakers this morning. As somebody who has now been a physician for almost 30 years--I practiced full time for over 25 years--I heard the Senator from Iowa and what his desire would be on the chart he showed. He said that 100 percent screening is occurring now in three areas. That isn't true. We are not screening. We hope to screen, and we hope to screen 100 percent, but the facts on

screening that are available are that it is only used 5 percent by Medicare patients on the screening that was already available with no cost to Medicare patients. So we have to distinguish between what we desire and what is actually going to happen.

Let's take the example of colon screening. I am a colon cancer survivor. I was diagnosed, through colonoscopy, with colon cancer. Let's take that example, and then let's take the example of the other aspect of the affordable care act, called the Independent Payment Advisory Board. What is the purpose of that Independent Payment Advisory Board? Its purpose is to cut the cost of Medicare through the decreasing of reimbursements--first, for the first 8 years, physicians and outside providers, and then, starting in 2019, hospitals. What do you think the first thing to be cut will be? It is the reimbursement rate for a colonoscopy. So when the reimbursement rate for a colonoscopy goes below the cost--and it is very close right now, by the way, the cost to perform a colonoscopy versus what Medicare reimburses--when that is cut, what do you think will happen on screening?

The goal of changing health care is an admirable goal. We know that $1 in $3 doesn't help anybody get well or prevent them from getting sick today. But what the American people need to understand is that what is coming about is a group of 15 unelected bureaucrats, who cannot be challenged in court, who cannot be challenged on the floor of the Senate or the House, mandating price reductions to control the cost of Medicare. What does that ultimately mean? They will do their job. We won't be able to do anything about it. But what it means is that they will reimburse at levels less than the cost to do services, and so, consequently, what will happen is the services won't be there.

They also are going to do what is called comparative effectiveness research. We know about comparative effectiveness research. If you are a practicing physician today, you have to do continuing medical education. Part of that medical education is knowing the latest comparative effectiveness research. It is as if they are reinventing something that already exists. But the point is that they are going to use that to deny or change payments for procedures that patients need.

What is wrong with all of this? It is that we are inserting a government board and government bureaucrat between the patient and the doctor.

Think about that for a minute. When I go to my doctor, I don't want him concentrating about anything except me. If he is looking over his shoulder about whether he met the IPAB's comparative effectiveness study on what he is doing for me, when, in fact, the art of medicine as well as the science may say they are wrong, and he is going to do what the government says rather than what he thinks is best for me, what am I getting for that?

I will be on Medicare next year, much to my regret, because my choices will now be limited in terms of who I can see. The greatest threat to the quality of care--it wasn't intended to be this way, it was intended to be helpful, and I don't doubt the motives of anybody who set this board up--but the greatest threat to quality of care for seniors in this country is the Independent Payment Advisory Board and their noncaring position. Because they are going to be looking at numbers and words. They are never going to lay their hands on the patient, they are never going to impact a patient directly, they are never going to listen to a patient, but they are going to make the ultimate decisions based on what that patient is going to get.

With that, I yield back to my colleague.

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