[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 15, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S415-S416]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Medicare

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, a leading philosopher of the last 
century--his name was Jean-Paul Sartre--famously once said that 
``existence precedes essence.'' In other words, Sartre's words, not 
mine: To be is to act.
  In other words, my words, not Mr. Sartre's. In other words: What you 
do is what you believe. What you do is what you believe, not what you 
say. What you do is what you believe, and everything else is just 
cottage cheese.
  I think that is particularly relevant to our government in 
Washington, DC, and indeed to probably all forms of government in 
America. We are what we do, not what we say.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, we are in negotiations with respect 
to the debt limit. I, for one--and I think almost all, if not all, of 
my colleagues in the Senate will agree with me on this. We will not 
default on America's debt. We will not. But in conjunction with 
addressing that issue of the debt limit, many of our colleagues in the 
House and many of our colleagues here in the Senate would like to talk 
to President Biden about what we can do as a Congress and as a 
President to keep us from getting in this situation again, where we 
have to so radically raise the debt limit.
  In other words, the request to the President is: Mr. President, let's 
sit down and talk about how we can slow the rate of growth in our 
spending and slow the rate of growth in our debt accumulation, for a 
variety of reasons, not only pertaining to the debt limit but also 
pertaining to trying to get control of the budget. And I hope the 
President will accept that invitation.
  In those negotiations, the President has said--incorrectly, in my 
judgment--but he has said repeatedly, as have some of my Democratic 
friends, that, well, all the Republicans want to do--all the 
Republicans want to do in these negotiations is hurt Medicare and hurt 
Social Security.
  Now, I understand politics. We both do. We have been doing this for a 
long time, and politically I understand why the President and some of 
my colleagues are saying that. It is not true,

[[Page S416]]

of course. And I don't think it is beneficial to these negotiations. 
But the fact that the President is saying this and saying, well, you 
Republicans want to hurt Medicare, for example, I find to be quite 
ironic--extraordinarily ironic--maybe even a tad hypocritical.
  In Washington, DC, you have to watch what people do, not what they 
say.
  In the waning days of the last Congress--once again, watching what 
people do, not what they say--President Biden, who has accused Members 
of my party of wanting to hurt Medicare, tried to cut Medicare himself.
  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services--CMS, as we call it, 
as you know--every year proposes what is called a physician's fee 
schedule for doctors who treat Medicare patients. If you are a doctor 
and you have a Medicare patient, you don't get to send the Federal 
Government a bill for whatever you think your services are worth. That 
is not the way it works.
  Medicare, every year, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid 
Services--CMS--every year proposes a physician fee schedule. They tell 
the physicians that this is what you can charge and not a penny more.
  President Biden's CMS, last year, proposed to cut all physician 
payments, all provider payments by 4.5 percent. He didn't want to lift 
up Medicare; he wanted to cut it--not Republicans, the President.
  Now, why is that important?
  Well, a lot of physicians won't take Medicare anymore because they 
say--and they won't take Medicaid either, for that matter. They say: We 
just can't. We can't turn a profit. We are not looking to make, say the 
physicians, obscene profits, but we are in the middle of 
inflation. Healthcare inflation is as real as anything else. We are 
paying more in rent. We are paying more for our nurses. We are paying 
more for supplies. And the Medicare fees that we are paying to treat 
folks on Medicaid and Medicare, they are not keeping up. They are just 
not.

  And so here comes President Biden, through his Centers for Medicare 
and Medicaid Services, CMS--here comes President Biden, the champion of 
Medicare, he proposed a 4.5-percent across-the-board cut for every 
physician treating Medicare in America. That is 900,000 people in my 
State.
  So I am sitting there listening to this, hearing the President say: 
All the Republicans want to do is hurt Medicare, on the left hand, but 
on the right hand he is trying to cut all the physicians and other 
providers in the program--we have 900,000 people in my State in the 
program--by 4.5 percent in the middle of rising inflation. I just found 
that extraordinary. Watch what people do, not what they say.
  So I introduced a bill. The name of my bill was Protecting Medicare 
Patients and Physicians Act. It would have eliminated--it would have 
eliminated that 4- to 4.5-percent cut that President Biden wanted to 
impose on Medicare doctors. I came to the body of this Senate to 
present that bill. And I didn't come to my colleagues with a problem; I 
came with a solution. I wasn't going to say: Well, let's just don't cut 
Medicare doctors and eliminate the cut. I said let's do eliminate the 
cut, but I have a way to pay for it. I am not suggesting that we reject 
President Biden's attempt to cut Medicare and fill the hole by 
borrowing the money. I said, I have got a solution.
  I found $9.8 billion sitting in a fund at the Department of Health 
and Human Services. It was $9.8 billion when I was able to get the 
data. I suspect at one point it got as high as $15 billion. It was 
called the Provider Relief Fund. As the President knows, this Congress 
appropriated lots of money to our healthcare providers to help them 
deal with COVID, and not all of the money, thankfully, was needed. Many 
of the healthcare providers returned some of the money. And at the time 
I presented the bill, there was $9.8 billion that had been returned and 
was sitting in an account at the Department of Health and Human 
Services--way more than enough--way more than enough to prevent a 4-
percent and, in some cases, a 4-percent-plus cut to Medicare that 
President Biden proposed.
  I went to every one of my Republican colleagues in the Senate. They 
all said: We are with you, Kennedy. Let's do it.
  So I came to this floor. I came to this floor to ask for unanimous 
consent, and that, as you know, is where you present a bill, and if 
nobody objects, it is passed.
  But there was an objection, and it came from a good friend and a good 
man, Senator Ron Wyden, who is chairman of our Finance Committee.
  There aren't words in English to express how much I respect Ron 
Wyden. But Senator Wyden came to the floor and said: Kennedy, I am 
going to object to your bill. He said: I don't want you to worry about 
this. We are aware that President Biden has proposed to cut every 
Medicare physician in America, but we are not going to let him do 
that. We are putting together a budget bill right now. We call it the 
omnibus. We are putting together a budget bill right now that is going 
to address that problem, and that is why I am objecting to your bill. 
Your bill, Kennedy, is unnecessary.

  Now, I am not blaming this on Chairman Wyden. I am not. The omnibus 
passed with a vote of, I think, virtually all, if not all, of my 
Democratic colleagues and with some Republican colleagues. So I am not 
saying it is Senator Wyden's fault. But, after the omnibus passed--I 
didn't vote for it, in part, because I didn't know what was in it. But, 
after the omnibus passed, I went back and looked, and lo and behold, 
the omnibus bill, which passed at the encouragement of President Biden 
and with a lot more votes from my Democratic friends than my Republican 
colleagues, had a 2-percent cut for every provider, every physician, 
who treats a Medicare patient in America--a 2-percent cut. That is 
better than a 4-percent cut, but it is still a cut at a time of raging 
inflation.
  Now, I don't know yet what that impact is going to be on healthcare 
and the healthcare delivery system in my State. I don't know how many 
more physicians--after President Biden has cut their fees, I don't know 
how many more physicians are going to stand up and say: I can't take 
Medicare patients anymore.
  I hope none, but I suspect some.
  Oh, and let me mention this. I talked about that pool of money, the 
provider relief fund, that had $9.8 billion in it--maybe $15 billion--
sitting there in an account, unspent, unappropriated. What happened to 
it? I don't know. It got spent on something, but it didn't get spent on 
helping Medicare doctors and patients. They got cut 2 percent.
  So I am going to end like I began. In this town, you have to watch 
what people do, not what they say. The President can try to blame the 
Republicans and say: Well, they don't want to seriously negotiate about 
controlling spending and controlling debt. All they want to do is cut 
Medicare.
  He already did it. He did it in December.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak as in morning business and that Senator Bennet be allowed to 
conclude his remarks before the vote today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.