Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2, Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act of 2015, and Providing for Proceedings During the Period from March 27, 2015, Through April 10, 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. FLEMING. I would like to thank my good friend, Dr. Burgess.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2. As a family physician who has been in private practice since 1982, I have seen a lot of things happen with Medicare, and this idea of sustainable growth rate, SGR, which came up in 1997--a Republican idea--is not only flawed, it is idiotic.

It requires physicians to control throughout the country the entire volume of services provided, something that is absolutely impossible to do. It actually has had the opposite effect that was desired, and it has actually increased the amount of activity because of the loss of the valuable economic foundations that are necessary to make this system work.

What this repeal of SGR will do is, number one, actually show what the cost of this is. We have been hiding it, like a shell game, for years with temporary patches that last, oh, maybe a year and sometimes less.

Not only will this pay for itself in the second decade, but it actually begins to lower that cost even in the first decade, and it does so by using several mechanisms but with two important reforms that my colleagues need to know about.

One, it reforms Medigap policies, which gives patients skin in the game. It makes patients, once again, a part of the decision team so that they, by having some element of price sensitivity, can work with the doctors to decide what is necessary and what is not, what is affordable and what is not; also, it asks higher-income seniors to do their share.

Remember that the current Medicare system is a highly subsidized system for everybody, including for Warren Buffett, a $40 billion billionaire who gets his health care subsidized.

I urge my colleagues to support this. This will increase patient care.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source