Schumer: ‘If We Going to Eliminate the Waste, Fraud and Abuse in Medicare, It Does Mean We’re Going to Cut Some of that Out’

Schumer: “About a third of all of the spending that’s done in Medicare, Medicaid — I would imagine a lot of it is in the private sector as well — doesn’t go to really good health care, it goes to other things. And the real nub of this is how do we wring that waste out, that fraud, abuse, duplication, without interfering with the good care that we want every person on Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance to get. The average citizen knows this happens. How many times, when you look at your medical bill, you’ve undergone a minor procedure, and you see Dr. Smith, $4,000, and you sort of vaguely remember he just waved and poked his head in the door? If we’re going to eliminate the waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare, it does mean we’re going to cut some of that out. And when I hear my friend Dave Camp say you cannot cut money out of Medicare, well, we don’t want to cut the good stuff that you point out or not — or to then add the prevention. But if we’re going to — if one third — if what Senator Coburn says, that one third of Medicare doesn’t go to patient care, you can’t just get up there and say, we don’t want to cut anything out of Medicare. We want to cut the bad stuff and keep the good stuff. And I think that’s where we can find common ground on some of the things you’ve mentioned, some of the things that are in our bill. And I hope, at least in this area, we can move forward that way, because, frankly, the Republican Party has always stood for getting rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse in the system. In ’97, it was the centerpiece of your program, and all of a sudden this year we’re hearing, don’t — don’t do any of that. That’s something that I think we can come together on. I thank you.”