McDermott Opening Statement at Health Subcommittee Hearing on Medicare

(Remarks as prepared)

This is the first Health Subcommittee hearing of the year, and it could have been an opportunity to have a fresh, constructive conversation about Medicare.

Unfortunately, this won’t be the case.

It looks like we should expect more of the same from my Republican colleagues this morning – bad ideas repeated incessantly in the hope that the American people eventually fall for them.

The core proposal that my Republican colleagues have offered – to end Medicare as we know it – will have devastating effects on seniors.

It will shift costs onto beneficiaries, create more losers than winners, and lead to a death spiral in traditional Medicare.

We all know this.

But here we are this morning, preparing to listen to the same tired arguments that this is somehow good policy and that we need to destroy Medicare to save it.

The American people know the truth – Republican proposals fail spectacularly at meeting the needs of seniors.

And by putting forth these terrible ideas over and over again, the majority is showing just how out of step they are with the American people.

Where the American people want a defined benefit that provides peace of mind and health security to beneficiaries, my Republican colleagues have proposed a radical voucher scheme that ends the program as we know it.

Where the American people want a stronger benefit – one with a limit on out-of-pocket costs and access to dental, vision, and hearing coverage – my Republican colleagues have proposed benefit cuts and more costs for beneficiaries.

Where the American people want to preserve coverage for all seniors, my Republican colleagues have proposed to raise the eligibility age.

If we are serious about making sure the Medicare program remains on strong financial footing, we should be looking for ways to reduce greed, waste, and inefficiency in the system – not shifting costs onto beneficiaries and expanding the grip of industry over patients.

Prescription drug costs are out of control, and the pharmaceutical industry is reaping the benefits.

Medicare spends $120 billion on prescription drugs annually, yet we are prohibited from negotiating prices.

It has been 13 years since Congress sold out to the drug companies by creating the Part D program, and in the years since then drug prices have reached crisis levels.

But this Committee has not held a single a hearing on this issue during the current Congress.

We also continue to overpay the insurance industry through the Medicare Advantage program.

Although the ACA reduced these overpayments by $156 billion, we have a lot of work to do to crack down on widespread upcoding and cherry-picking of beneficiaries.

And this Committee still has put no effort into scrutinizing recent insurance industry consolidation, which is unprecedented in scale and threatens to eliminate competition in the Medicare Advantage market.

In addition, we need to change how we pay for care.

Our health system is quickly evolving, and – thanks to the ACA – Medicare is central to this transformation.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has been testing quality measures and payment models that are the future of the delivery system.

And the Administration’s recent initiative to ensure that 50 percent of payments are made through alternative payment models by 2020 is a huge leap forward in this direction.

These are the issues this Committee should be discussing when we can talk about how to make Medicare stronger, more efficient, and more comprehensive.

We’re all getting tired of hearing the same bad ideas.

I hope that in the future this Committee can move forward toward a more productive conversation that results in real improvements to Medicare.

But in the meantime, I look forward to continuing to highlight the disastrous consequences of my Republican colleagues’ plans to cut, dismantle and privatize the program.

###