add to del.icio.us			digg this		print		email

Floor Statement: Medicare and Gas Prices

Medicare and Gas Prices - Friday, June 27, 2008 View video | Can't view the video?

Mr. President, I've been talking to the physicians in my state that take Medicare patients, and, frankly, this is a terrible, terrible way for Congress to do business. We see a six-month patch on the physician reimbursement formula that will expire July 1, and unfortunately, we are looking at what amounts to a partisan proposal here that we're basically being told to take or leave. As all of our colleagues know, the ranking member on the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley, got together with Senator Baucus after cloture was denied previously and pretty well had things worked out until, in a bipartisan way, until the House passed their version. And then, of course, those negotiations broke down leading us to this cloture vote that we're going to have here in just a few minutes.

But I have to say that in 1996, when Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act and contemplated these draconian cuts into physician reimbursement payments, Congress should have known and should have told the truth that it never intended that any of those cuts would ever take place. And for good reason they should never take place. Because even under the current Medicare reimbursement rates, doctors, for example, in Travis county where Austin, Texas, is located, only about 18% of the physicians in that county will take new Medicare patients because reimbursement rates are already so low. And then we have this unbelievable, unbelievably bad about way of doing business. I don't know anybody else that could get away with it other than the United States Congress, of passing temporary patches on the reimbursements that are paid to physicians. They last for a year. They last for six months, like this last one that leads us up to the edge of a cliff here on July 1. And then we're told by the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee, we've got to take it or leave it, or the cuts will occur.

Well, frankly, no one believes that the cuts will actually occur because Congress will act. And I suggest that rather than this terrible way of doing business, that nobody else could ever get by with, and rather than frightening the Medicare beneficiaries who need access to the doctors that are paid using this Medicare reimbursement formula, we ought to scrap the entire method of reimbursing doctors for Medicare and start over again, recognizing that we're not going to allow these draconian cuts to occur, this 10%-plus cut that goes in effect July 1, and the 20%-plus cut that will occur in 18 months from now. I think we ought to acknowledge that we're not going to let those cuts go into effect and scrap the sustainable growth rate formula by which those Medicare reimbursements are calculated, because it's just not honest. It's not honest, and it's scaring not only Medicare beneficiaries, it's impairing access to health care for those to whom we promised the Medicare program would actually work.

So, I don't know what's going to happen on this vote on cloture. I suspect that cloture may not be invoked. My hope is that there would be a bipartisan way to find our way forward. I believe it already exists in the form of a negotiation that Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus have undertaken here in the Senate, and that we shouldn't use this kind of brinksmanship not only to scare the Medicare beneficiaries, the seniors who depend on this health care, but also the physicians who are reimbursed under this formula.

Mr. President, I want to talk just a minute about gasoline prices. I don't know of any subject that I hear more about and more concern about from my constituents in Texas than high gasoline prices, whether it's parents driving their children to school or after school activities or truckers who have to buy diesel which is breaking the bank, which they are finding it harder and harder to pay for, or whether it's the airlines. Continental Airlines and American Airlines and southwest airlines, all three of which are located in the state of Texas, the price of aviation fuel made from petroleum products is making it almost impossible for them to do business under their current model, and prices are going up. And it's becoming harder and harder for consumers to deal with.

There is a way that Congress could act to help bring down prices at the pump on a temporary basis, and it involves exploring for and producing more American energy. Now, that's important from a number of perspectives. First of all, it's important from a national security perspective because right now we depend on 60% of our energy needs, our oil and gas needs from foreign sources. And what would happen if something would occur that were to blockade the tankers that would prevent that oil from being transported? Well, it would mean that, it would mean in Iraq and Afghanistan that the Department of Defense vehicles owned by the Army, Marines, and others wouldn't have the petroleum products they need in order to function. And it would exact a crippling blow against our economy. So why in the world would we continue to allow 60% of our dependency for oil to come from foreign sources when we have here in America enough oil under our own outer continental shelf and the oil shale in the West and in the Arctic that could produce as much as three million additional barrels a day. That's more than 10% of our current use here in the United States.

As a matter of fact, it's close to -- it's a substantial amount, more than 10%, closer to 12% of what we use right here in the United States. And we know that the money that we're paying -- $135 a barrel -- is enriching people like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and he's using that money to buy weapons from Russia and to arm himself as he continues to take in and protect the FARC, the narco-terrorist organization, to the detriment of our friends in Colombia and stability in South America. But it is absolutely crazy for this Congress to have in place as it does and it has since 1981 or 1982 a moratorium or ban on developing more of our own natural resources and becoming more self-reliant rather than more dependent on foreign sources of oil. And it is up to Congress to get out of the way and allow America to become more energy self-sufficient. We can do it, and only Congress can get that done. It is completely inexcusable when gasoline is at $4 a gallon on average to do that, to be the impediment, to be the blockade, to be the cause for so much pain at the pump and so much sacrifice and hardship among hard-working American families.

But we understand it's more than just a matter of producing oil, but that is a first and necessary step, because we know that when it comes to transportation fuel, that we depend upon petroleum products right now to get that job done. But we also know that we need to be more fuel efficient, and we need to conserve. Indeed, that's one area where Congress has acted by passing corporate fuel efficiency standards for our cars. But we know that's a long-term effort, because the average age of a car in America of the 250 million cars in America is about nine years, so let's assume that in 2010 everyone started buying a long time, well, it would take a long time, an average of nine years, before that entire fleet of cars would be replaced with these new, more fuel-efficient cars. So that's a long-term solution, but a necessary one. An important one for us to take.

We also need to make sure that we use good old-fashioned ingenuity and technology as we transition from the petroleum dependence that we have now. It's not going to happen overnight but for our friends who say if we started pumping water out of ANWR or the outer continental shelf or from the oil in the West today, it would be years before that oil would get online. Well, unfortunately that's where we put ourselves as a result of the irrational moratorium on the development of natural resources. It's going to take time to transition into greater energy independence. But for those of us who are concerned about environment, we know we're going to have to continue to look for cleaner ways to drive and to fly and in terms of other energy needs. And that's why it's so important that we use good old-fashioned ingenuity and technology to help us find a way. To develop things like plug-in hybrid cars that you could plug in and charge a battery and drive 30 or 40 miles before you need to recharge it. It wouldn't help everybody, but it would help a lot of people who need such a vehicle who need a plug-in who would avoid petroleum products all together.

Then we need to worry about the electricity, which is another story all together. Now there are some who have said that abuse of speculation on the commodities futures market is the cause of the problem. And that's something we need to look very closely at. And, as a matter of fact, today a number of us, 43 Senators, have introduced legislation which we believe will create greater transparency and help finance more cops on beat, so to speak, when it comes to the commodities future market to make sure that doesn't contribute to the reason for prices going through the roof.

So we need to produce more energy right here at home so we don't have to depend so much on those who wish us harm or those who would use the money for oil to buy weapons to kill us or our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan and elsewhere in the case of Iran which we know is supplying troops and training to special forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and who threatened and in some cases is responsible for killing troops. We find ourselves dependent, in part, on countries like Iran for the very oil that we use to refine into gasoline to drive our cars. Does that make sense to anybody? Well, that doesn't make any sense to me. So I think what need to do is we need to produce more and use less oil as we transition into a cleaner, more independent energy economy. It would be better for our national security, it would be better for our economy, and it will actually help us control prices so that hard-working American families won't be spending all of their money that they may have that they would like to spend on other things or which they need to spend on other things, but can't because of the increase in the high prices of gasoline and oil that they have to spend on those.

I have to just say in conclusion, because I see the distinguished Senator from Utah is here, my friend, Senator Hatch, to speak. But I just want to say if we don't do this when gasoline is $4, will we do this when gasoline is $5 gallon? If we don't do it when oil is $135 a barrel, will we do it when oil is $150 a barrel or even higher? The solution is not to sue OPEC to get them to open the spigot even wider to increase our dependency on foriegn oil, the solution is not to raise taxes which we know will reduce American production while allowing foreign oil sources like Venezuela and Iran to continue without those taxes, the solution is not to increase taxes and costs on the consumer that is already paying too much. We have it within our power to do something that will actually help the American people when it comes to the thing that most of them care a lot about today, and that's the high price of gasoline. Congress is the problem. And it's high time that our friends on the other side of the aisle that control the agenda because they're in the majority to work with us to bring realistic solutions to this problem. We can do it, but not if people play partisan games and refuse to cooperate on something that really causes a lot of hardship to the average American family.