Newly elected Republican Congresswoman Nan Hayworth (NY-19) talks about the budget standoff in Congress.
From It's A Free Country:
Welcome to Politics Bites, where every afternoon at It's A Free Country, we bring you the unmissable quotes from the morning's political conversations on WNYC. Today on the Brian Lehrer Show, newly-elected Republican Congresswoman Nan Hayworth (NY-19) talks about the budget standoff in Congress.
The specter of a government shutdown looms large as only one week remains for Republicans and Democrats to agree on a budget. While more moderate Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner seem ready to accept the Senate's compromise of $33 billion in cuts in order to avoid a shutdown, Tea Party supporters such as Indiana's Rep. Mike Pence refuse to accept anything less than $60 billion in cuts and are pushing for the shutdown instead.
Freshman Republican to the Congressional delegation Nan Hayworth represents New York's 19th congressional district.
A House United
Hayworth disagreed that there is a divide between Tea Party supporters and more moderate Republicans, saying “There are no camps in the house republican conference, there really are not.”
To meet the Senate majority, the House could pass a budget without enough Republicans to do it on their own, thereby forming a coalition of moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats and further relegating the Tea Party portion to the fringe of the vote. Hayworth didn’t want to make a prediction about the likelihood of such a moderate coalition, but she did stress her belief that there is no fractionation within the Republican Party.
Not About a Number
Asked if she would support a bill offering $33 billion in cuts, Hayworth said the number isn't important.
I’m going to vote for the bill that we in the House Republican Conference determine to be the best bill we can bring forward for the American people. It really is that simple. This is not about a number that is in the press today.
Hayworth also chose not to answer whether she would prefer a government shutdown over a concession of less than $60 billion.
Again, I can’t emphasize enough that what we are aiming to do is to work on behalf of the American people to so what they told us to do. We are not working to create new obstacles, that is what the Senate leadership certainly seems to be aiming to do, and I think you have to ask them if that is what they’re looking for, because it certainly sounds as though that is the pertinent question.
Cutting Financial Services Regulation
There are specific items Hayworth wants to see included in the coming budget cuts.
What we want to do for the American people is assure them that we are going to be relieving the burdens of excessive regulation, for example on the financial services committee, obviously. There are very costly avalanches of regulation that are due to fall on our small business and entrepreneurs and employers and large businesses too, and those are crippling the economy and holding back job creation.
Driving Doctors Away
Hayworth was recently quoted saying that doctors cannot afford to provide care at the rate of reimbursement that Medicare insists that they accept, and she believes the recent health care reform legislation may make that situation worse.
Essentially what has happened over the years is that Medicare has constrained physicians to provide care at a designated rate, and it isn’t something that our providers… [have] really been able to negotiate with Medicare on a sensible basis.. that would take into account the cost of providing care in a state like New York, which has particularly onerous malpractice tort law burdens, for example. So we have been stuck with a progressively deteriorating situation in which it actually, unfortunately, ends up costing money to care for our Medicare patients. Physicians want to be able to care for their Medicare patients, but they have to be able to afford to keep the doors open, and this really is what a lot of practices are facing and you’ve seen some practices leave New York because of it.
Next week proposals are expected for some longer-term budget actions, such as Medicare reforms. Hayworth said any solution to the projected growth of Medicare would be multi-faceted.
It may involve, for example, flexibility.. in the way in which doctors and patients treat a given visit or a given service that’s provided, allowing doctors and patients to work among themselves as far as what the Medicare reimbursement constitutes of their reimbursement schedule, and that’s one aspect.
Hayworth said providers and patients can work out among themselves how much to pay for services.
You don’t have to have an intervening body to do this for them but you do have to structure our financing of healthcare rather differently.