WASHINGTON, DC — “I listened carefully to the gentleman from New Jersey and I'm glad he is concerned about the nation going bankrupt which makes me question why would you want to enact a policy that simply stamps on the accelerator towards bankruptcy. I know that earlier today many people on your side of the aisle were waving around a Congressional Budget Office letter talking about we're going to save money. We are somehow going to reduce the deficit through these policies. CBO is made up of great professionals, but they only estimate or as we call it score what’s before them and guess what if you don't put before them the Doc Fix they don't score it.”

“Now already the Speaker of the House has said there will be a Doc Fix -- physicians will not receive a 21% pay cut on Medicare reimbursements. The speaker said the that on the record. So the ranking member of the budget committee Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin asked the CBO, “okay the Speaker said we are not going to have 21% pay cut” and I will read from this letter I trust that it's already been entered into the record but it's a letter dated March 19th from the Congressional Budget Office to the Honorable Paul Ryan, and I will read the operative language. Quote, you ask the total budgetary impact of enacting the reconciliation proposal. The senate passed a health bill and the Medicare physician payment reform act CBO estimates that an enacting all three pieces of legislation would add, I emphasize the word ADD $59 billion to the budget deficits over the 2010, 2019 period. So I have my own a letter from the Congressional Budget Office and frankly this is, as the gentleman from Texas knows, is just one of the many budgetary gimmicks that are being used, and I’m sure people's hearts and minds are pure and clear, but their accounting would make Bernie Madoff blush.”

“We are talking ten years of revenues matched against six years of program. Every single decade is the Democratic majority intent on turning off this program? For four years after this year, then are you going to have a 21%, 22%, 23% pay cut for doctors under the Medicare system? For claiming Medicare savings twice on your revenue side. You're claiming $520 billion in Medicare cuts, $210 billion in Medicare taxes, but this is double the counting. You can't have it both ways. Either the money is used for the solvency of the Medicare system or it is being used for your new entitlement.”

“That brings us to the ‘Class Act,’ the new entitlement that you are putting into this program. Five years of premiums, $70 billion that were taken out of your brand new entitlement to do is to reduce the cost of this. So are you going to pay it back? Even the Democratic head of the Senate Budget Committee said, quote, this is a Ponzi scheme. This is the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee describing this scheme as a Ponzi scheme.”

“Raiding $53 Billion in new Social Security revenue to achieve the appearance of deficit cuts, but they are not really there. Are you saying that you're going to permanently take this money out of the Social Security Trust Fund and not replace it? I mean, what's going to reduce the deficit the most is to own up to the fact 21% of the Medicare system to create a new entitlement that you're not going to fund, yet again raid the Social Security fund a and not replace that revenue. Again, it's just not realistic. And the doughnut hole. Scored until the next decade. It is totally unrealistic. Again, casting no aspersions on the Congressional Budget Office, but they score what’s in front of them.”

“I could go to the Congressional Budget Office and say, ‘I want you to score the Hensarling family health care plan and I want to assume I don't get sick the next ten years and we're putting our children up for adoption. Can you give me a number?’ One assumption is false and the other assumption is totally unrealistic. So CBO will score what’s before them. Now that the Speaker said on the record there will be a doctor fix, you can't count on a 21% pay cut, thus the Congressional Budget Office says that you are making the deficit worse and you are hastening us on the road to bankruptcy.”