Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, today is, in a sense, an historic event. We are finally putting to rest a problem that has festered around here for as long as I have been here.

Every year, as the deadline approached, providers faced draconian cuts, and Congress passed an eleventh hour patch that delayed the implementation of SGR. Doctors, patients, Congress--nobody--liked it. Nevertheless, 17 times, we have made temporary fixes. We have spent $174 billion in inadequate ways in dealing with the real problem that SGR was all about, which is cost control.

This is a first step today. We can celebrate, but we have to go on because cost control is still a question, and we have replaced SGR with a system that we hope will make Medicare pay for value rather than for volume. That is not an issue that is for sure. We know that we are trying it.

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That is really where we are today, looking at the future of cost control in health care.

The most important thing today, though, is that we have gotten back to regular order. The Republicans put this in 16 years ago. Some of us voted ``no'' because we knew it wouldn't work, but we had all of our 17 years. Now, we come together to fix it together, and we have to fix things together in this House. Compromise is the essence of what we have here.

For my friends on the other side, just so you understand, I have already had a phone call from a group in Washington State who told me they are going to take me off the board if I vote for this.

It isn't as though this is a nice thing for one side or the other side. It is a compromise, where some people get what they want and where some people don't get what they want. Some people think it is not enough, and some think it is too much.

That is the essence of compromise, and that is how the Congress has to work. It is what is going to have to work with the ACA, the Affordable Care Act. It is going to have to work on transportation. It is going to have to work on a whole series of issues if we, as a Congress, are going to function on behalf of the American people.

This is a great day. This ought to be a unanimous vote today. When you look at all of the things that are in it and at all of the things we have dealt with, it ought to be unanimous. My view is that, when you reach a compromise, that is the kind of thing you can expect because nobody in this House ever gets all he wants. Nobody has the right to say: it is my way or the highway.

When we do that, we damage the American people. We have been damaging the healthcare system with these patches, spending all of that money, and not getting what we want. We hope this is the start of a better day for cost control in health care. Everyone should vote for this.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meehan), who is a champion in health care and whose district has a large number of seniors.

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