Senate Proceeding on Oct 7th, 2009 :: 0:51:00 to 0:58:30
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0:50:57 to 0:51:17( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: cost, all of that before we have our i thank the president. i yield the th senator from texas is recognized. mr. cornyn: thank you, mr. president. i'd like to thank my colleague from tennessee for speaking so eloquently and raising the issues that are on the minds not just of senators who areoing

0:51:00 to 0:58:30( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: John Cornyn

0:51:18 to 0:51:39( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: to have to vote on this legislation but o all across america, people who will be directly affected by what we do here on health care reform. yesterday i -- i came to the floor and i asked a question will we have a transpant debate? and this morning when i

0:51:40 to 0:52:00( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: and checked my email, i was delighted to see that senators, eight democratic senators had written to the majority leader, senator reid, and said that they wanted to have bill language posted on internet and a score or cost by the congressional budget o ateast 72 hours before we

0:52:01 to 0:52:23( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: required to vote on the bill. that's exactly what we had requested in the finance committee and which we lost strictly on party-line vote, an amendm that part so i consider that progress, and i'm delighted that our -- these eight democratic senators have asked the majority leader for that.

0:52:24 to 0:52:45( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: i think that is mi terms of transparency. but today i have a new question, and that is whether seniors will get to keep the medicare benefits that they currently have. will seniors be able to keep the medicare benefits that they currently the president has made this coistent theme that if you like what you have, you're going

0:52:46 to 0:53:06( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: to be able to keep it. he said in august that if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. it seems pretty extraordinary and unambiguous. last month, he was more specific about he said people currently signed up for medicare advantage are going to have medicare and the

0:53:07 to 0:53:30( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: same level of benefits. he said these folks will be able to get medicare just as good and provide the same benefits. well a little confusing, but let me just explain that medicare advantage is a private sector competitor to medicare fee for service where you just -- basically provides people with

0:53:31 to 0:53:51( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: an array of think senator alexander mentioned vision and dental care and prescription drug coverage and the like. i believe allowing seniors to keep the benefits they currently have under medicare advantage -- and there are some 11 million of them -- is a goal that republicans share president. so if the president is sincere

0:53:52 to 0:54:12( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: when he says that medicare and particularly medicare advantage beneficiaries can keep what they have, we'd like to help him keep that promise. medicare aantage is working for about give them a choice with their health benefits and half a million of those are in texas. a half a million medicare

0:54:13 to 0:54:34( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: advantage beneficiaries in texas. as we've heard, medicare fee for service, which is the government-run plan,, doctors about 20% less than employer-sponsored insurance for reimbursements for services, and that's why in my state about 42% of doctors will not see a new

0:54:35 to 0:54:58( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: medicare patient service arrangement because the fees are so low tha the doctors can't provide the service at that price business. so what happens is that 89% of seniors have supplemental coverage. my mother, who passed away last spring, she bought supplemental coverage to try to

0:54:59 to 0:55:20( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: make up for the difference where medicare fee for service left that gap. and, of course, many low-income americans depend advantage as coverage. now, some have claimed that medicare advantage provides extra payments, and they want to cut medicare advantage because they say it will reduce

0:55:21 to 0:55:43( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: insurance company profits and not harm c but under federal law, that's simply not the case. under federal law, the fact is that 75% of those payments to medicare advantage over and above what medicare fee for service pays goes directly to under current law. that's,

0:55:44 to 0:56:05( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: they get vision coverage, dental coverage, prescription drug coverage. they get better benefits because we as a congress said 75% of those so-called extra payments go to provide better benefits. unfortunately, the finance committee bill will take those benefits away from seniors enrolled in medicare advantage. in other words, if we were to call up this finance committee

0:56:06 to 0:56:27( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: bill today and to pass it, it would violate the president's promise that the 11 million people on medicare advantage benefits. there's various numbers floating around, but -- and that's why we need what senator alexander said is the numbers from the congressional budget office, but the finance committee proposal

0:56:28 to 0:56:49( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: cuts nearly the medicare advantage program. now, common sense tells us you can't do that without having a negative impact on medicare advantage for those 11 million seniors, 500,000 of them in texas, as i said. the congressional budget agrees with that sort of intuitive or commonsense conclusion.

0:56:50 to 0:57:10( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: they estimate that the finance commit by more than half to medicare advantage seniors. during the finance committee markup, the office director, dr. doug elmandorf, told us that prl half of the medicare advantage benefits will be cut for those

0:57:11 to 0:57:31( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: seniors enrolled in medicare advantage. so my question for today, just like yesterday, will this debate be transparent? my question for today is will seniors get to keep the medicare benefits they current have? i think that should be a focus focus -- i know it will be a focus for the 11 milln who are

0:57:32 to 0:57:53( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: on medicare advantage, but all seniors who are seeing a proposed cut of ha a trillion dollars in medicare in order to pay for a new government program , while medicare itself is on the brink of bankruptcy and has tens o trillions of dollars of unfunded liabi this is a question that a lot of my constituents in texas, a lot of seniors across the country are asking.

0:57:54 to 0:58:14( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: will seniors get to keep the medicare benefits they currently have? that's what the president promised, and we need to make sure that this bill keeps that pr in the coming days, i'm going to come back to the floor and ask more questions about this extraordinarily complex proposal that we have seen.

0:58:15 to 0:58:30( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: these bills that have come out of the health committee and the finance committee and out of the house of representatives, because i think we need to it down into smaller pieces and ask these discrete questions so that the american people can judge for themselves whether these bills do what the