Senate Proceeding on Oct 22nd, 2009 :: 0:34:55 to 0:45:15
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0:34:51 to 0:35:12( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: to act quickly and pass this legislation. thank you, mr. president. and i yie ms. m the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: we in morning business. ms. mikulski: thank you very much, mr. president. mr. president, i'm here today to

0:34:55 to 0:45:15( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Barbara Mikulski

0:35:13 to 0:35:36( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: speak voted for cloture on last night, the medicare physicians fairness act. i'm here to really express my disappointment and frustration that we did not vote through a parliamentary procedure so we could debate the issue of what

0:35:37 to 0:35:57( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: is facing physicians who provide medicare -- treatment to medicare patients. under the current situation, american doctors will face a 21.5% payment reduction, what they get from medicare when they treat medicare patients.

0:35:58 to 0:36:18( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: i think this is really outrageous. you know, right now we've got people who took tarp money, and they're acting like twerps. what they did is they take the money. they don't lend the money, but they sure give themselves money with lavish compensation and bonuses.

0:36:19 to 0:36:39( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: at the same time every single day, 24/7, there are doctors on the front line saving lives, improving lives and having people count on them. i'm very sorry tha they chose over a budget debate to vote to take it out on doctors. we've got to treat our doctors

0:36:40 to 0:37:01( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: fairly for what they do and the sacrifices they make to do the job they do. this 21.5% payment reduction -- imagine that. imagine if we had to take a 21% pay cut. do you think we would have voted for cloture? i don't think so. we're now forci doctors maybe to close their doors to seniors,

0:37:02 to 0:37:26( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: deny people access to the doctors that they need and the doctors that they should have. we cannot let this happen. every day we ask the doctors treating our medicare population to be unstinting in what they do. but then when it turns around, the government is stingy.

0:37:27 to 0:37:47( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: i think that's a double standard. we ask the people who provide the hands-on service to be unstinting. yet when it comes to paying them for what they do, we're pretty stingy. this is unacceptable. we ask so much of our doctors. what is it? they need to be skilled. they need to be smart. they need to be empathetic. they need to be available 24/7.

0:37:48 to 0:38:08( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: we ask them to have the scientific understanding of a nobel prize winnerer -- winner and patience and compassion of mother teresa. our doctors assume tremendous responsibility for life, the risk and accountability for making the right diagnosis, the right treatment tailored for

0:38:09 to 0:38:30( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: each unique patient. they follow us all the way through when something happens to us or comes up in our lives. our doctors look out for the aging population in our country, people who get older have multiple problems, and sometimes the treatments contradict each other, requiring tremendous scientific skill and collaboration.

0:38:31 to 0:38:51( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: when you treat older people, they need to take time to tell their story, to tell the narrative. they don't go in just with a list of comaints. i've heard my medicare constituents say time and time and time again, "i don't know what i would do without my doctor."

0:38:52 to 0:39:14( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: our doctors are always there for us, but are we there for our doctors? look at what they face. fi they are the first responders. they are there when we have -- when they're dealing with disease, trauma and even death. for all the work they do, while they're trying with their patients, they have

0:39:15 to 0:39:35( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: to face a health care bureaucracy, public and private. what is the one thing the public program and the private programs have in common? they have a bureaucracy. doctors tell me that when they came in medicine, it was to make a difference in patients' lives. what do they run into? hassle factors, complicated

0:39:36 to 0:39:56( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: administrative forms, preapprovals and then skimpy and spartan reimbursements whether it's from private insurance or medicare. we need to face up to this country, and we need to start focusing on value care, not volume care. patients are grateful to their doctors, but medicare reimbursement is not.

0:39:57 to 0:40:17( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: for all this work and this training, it is not rewarding for what doctors have to do. they have to work with a whole?? team: nurses, social workers, pharmacists, integrative health professionals. one of the things we should do is to make sure they're paid, paid fairly.

0:40:18 to 0:40:39( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: for health professionals -- for health entire team i talked about, their career is their calling. mr. president, i want to share a personal anecdote with you and why i feel so strongly about this, not only because i chair the subcommittee on aging, not only because i've tried to be a champion for the older

0:40:40 to 0:41:00( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: population throughout my public career, but in july i took a fall coming down a church after mass. i broke my ankle in three places on a sunday afternoon. i was in absolute and as i triedo figure out what i would do, and some of the

0:41:01 to 0:41:22( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: people from church came to my rescue and sat down, i was able to contact m doctor, and i had an ambulance pretty quick, and i was taken to a downtown urban hospital. mercy hospital. and it is truly in every way

0:41:23 to 0:41:44( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: exemplifies the quality of mercy that dropeth like a gentle -- that comes like a gentle drop. now, on my way there and what happened to me as i went into the e.r. -- that's emergency room -- was like what you see in tv, only this was no mini series.

0:41:45 to 0:42:07( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: this was real life. the doctors at the hospital, the doctors talked to me, and i spent time working with them as they treated me, got me through what i needed i was met by the e.r. doc. they had to take x-rays. there was the radiologist. there was my primary care doctor

0:42:08 to 0:42:28( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: on the phone because mercy is my medical home. a gifted and talted surgeon left his family at a cookout because the call of duty came, and he raced to be there. was it for senator barb? no. because the other people in the e.r., they were doing the same thing for everybody. the e.r. doc, the roe v. wade

0:42:29 to 0:42:54( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: kwrol gist doc. then as i waited a few days for the swelling to go down, they had surgery. that involved the anesthesiologist. i could go on and on. when i look at all the doctors who cared for the subsequent weeks -- the e.r. doc, anesthesiologist, my mayor

0:42:56 to 0:43:17( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: care -- my primary care doctor, who were these? wonderful people at my side, people who graduated from college, people going to medical school at considerable stress and cost. they had gone through sophisticated residency programs and some even postdoc fellowships. and they also participate? continual medical education that's required, and they do it

0:43:18 to 0:43:38( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: not because it's required but because they want to be tops at the field. well, for all of that work and then the responsibility that they assume, we have to be able to reimburse them. you know, mr. president, i've seen the health care system from the wheelchair up. i've seen people who

0:43:39 to 0:43:59( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: health care and i've been in rooms getting physical therapy with the others who -- with the others who also need care. and one of the things that they're absolutely clear about is that we need to look out for the people who take care of us as they look out for us. so today i'm asking that we recognize the doctors for all

0:44:00 to 0:44:20( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: that we ask for them, the knowledge they need, the risks they undertake, the high cost of their education and spending 12 years of traing, being on call 24/7, often rushed from their families when they want to spend time with them. i ask that we recognize those doctors by compeating them justly and fairly, and not

0:44:21 to 0:44:44( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: treating them like a commodity. we also need to do that for the nurses, the social workers, the physical and occupational therapists, the integrative health people, all those on the team. so today i say if we don't pass this medicare physicians fairness act, we've got real problems. failing to pass this bill is not

0:44:45 to 0:45:08( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: an option. mr. president, i really think we need to do the right thing by the doctors, and ihink we need to do the right thing by the people who need the doctors. let's just do the right thing and pass the medicare payment fairness act. i yield the floor and ne the absence of a quo

0:45:09 to 0:45:14( Edit History Discussion )

Barbara Mikulski: clerk will call the roll.