Discussion · Senate
Ron Wyden Democrat
“I want the Senate to vote for this plan. The current rule does not stop waste or fraud. It just forces patients to make repeated, unnecessary visits to get care.”
“Madam President, we don’t take a back seat to anybody in terms of fighting inefficiency, fighting fraud. We have been working on those issues, as the chair of the Finance Committee knows, together wherever possible. Unfortunately, what we have seen in this experiment is that we are not dealing with inefficiency and fraud. We are forcing patients to come back again and again and again. That just defies common sense. And on the issues like skin substitutes, that has been addressed through a payment process, payment policy reform, to get at the incentives and wasteful utilization. So on the points that the minority is making, the reality is patients are not going to get care, and we are not going to make sensible changes as we have in other areas to deal with fraud and inefficiency. That is why we ought to be voting for what we are trying to do today on the Democratic side. I yield back and hope we will have a bipartisan vote.”
Madam President, we don’t take a back seat to anybody in terms of fighting inefficiency, fighting fraud. We have been working on those issues, as the chair of the Finance Committee knows, together wherever possible. Unfortunately, what we have seen in this experiment is that we are not dealing with inefficiency and fraud. We are forcing patients to come back again and again and again. That just defies common sense. And on the issues like skin substitutes, that has been addressed through a payment process, payment policy reform, to get at the incentives and wasteful utilization. So on the points that the minority is making, the reality is patients are not going to get care, and we are not going to make sensible changes as we have in other areas to deal with fraud and inefficiency. That is why we ought to be voting for what we are trying to do today on the Democratic side. I yield back and hope we will have a bipartisan vote.