More than a decade ago, Congress set up a formula that governs how doctors get paid by the Medicare program. The intent was to slow the growth of Medicare costs, but the result was a formula that has proposed cutting payments for America's doctors year after year after year. These are cuts that would not only jeopardize our physicians' pay, but our seniors' health care.
十多年前，国会设立了一套方案来管理医生如何获取医保计划的补偿。其本意是想放缓医保支出的增长速度，但结果却使其成为一年一年又一年地降低医生薪资的方案。这项薪资的削减不仅危及到医生的收入，也危及到了老人们的身体健康保健。
Since 2003, Congress has acted to prevent these pay cuts from going into effect. These votes were largely bipartisan, and they succeeded when Democrats ran Congress and when Republicans ran Congress – which was most of the time.
自2003年来，国会一直在采取措施以避免这项薪资削减方案付诸实施。这些投票表决大多是两党联合进行的，大多时候，当民主党或共和党主导国会时这都取得了成功。
This year, a majority of Congress is willing to prevent a pay cut of 21% -- a pay cut that would undoubtedly force some doctors to stop seeing Medicare patients altogether. But this time, some Senate Republicans may even block a vote on this issue. After years of voting to defer these cuts, the other party is now willing to walk away from the needs of our doctors and our seniors.
今年，大多数国会议员都希望能阻延这项21%的薪资削减计划——这项削减将毫无疑问的迫使部分医生完全放弃为医保病人提供医疗服务。但这一次，部分共和党参议员可能会阻扰对这项议题的投票。在连续多年的投票推迟这些薪资削减计划后，另一党派（即共和党）正准备撂挑子置我们的医生和老人们的需求于不顾。
Now, I realize that simply kicking these cuts down the road another year is not a long-term solution to this problem. For years, I have said that a system where doctors are left to wonder if they'll get fairly reimbursed makes absolutely no sense. And I am committed to permanently reforming this Medicare formula in a way that balances fiscal responsibility with the responsibility we have to doctors and seniors. In addition, we're already taking significant steps to slow the growth of Medicare costs through health insurance reform – not by targeting doctors and seniors, but by eliminating 50% of the waste, fraud, and abuse in the system by 2012. This not only strengthens Medicare, it saves taxpayer dollars.
