[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1930]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1220
                                MEDICARE

  (Mr. CARNAHAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, on March 1, Medicare physician payments 
will be slashed by 27 percent, badly impacting seniors' access to 
health care. We must act now to make sure that doesn't happen.
  A few months ago, I had the opportunity to speak to World War II 
veterans from Missouri who visited Washington to see the memorial to 
their service. They spoke to me about how, during their crisis, 
Americans pulled together to meet the great challenges of their time. 
That's the can-do attitude we need now. We should stop using the lives 
and health of our seniors as political bargaining chips.
  Plain and simple, paying doctors for doing their job, keeping 
seniors' access to health care should not be a partisan issue. It 
should be an American value we can all rally around.
  I call on my colleagues to work together to keep access to Medicare 
services strong. That's an American value.

                          ____________________