Nat sent this in:

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) -  Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) issued the following statement today after voting against passage of H.R. 3961, the “doc fix” bill that Speaker Pelosi has turned into a budget gimmick which will add $210 billion to the deficit:

“Fixing the current mandated annual cut in reimbursement rates to physicians for Medicare services, a formula known as the Sustainable Growth Rate, is extremely important and a measure I strongly support.  The current law causes a whole host of problems for our doctors and patients, squeezing the health care system – it must be fixed and doctors must be fairly compensated.”

“Nancy Pelosi has taken the critical issue of stopping automatic reductions in Medicare payments to doctors and turned it in to yet another budget trick to fund her government takeover of health care and hide the true cost to the taxpayer – more than $1.3 trillion dollars.”

“The doc fix was originally included in the House Democrats’ health care bill with a cost of $210 billion.  Democrats were simply unwilling to be fiscally responsible and make the difficult choices necessary to find a way to pay for this critical fix.   Nancy Pelosi would rather use procedural tricks and budget gimmicks to try and hide unprecedented levels of deficit spending from the American people than make difficult, but responsible decisions.   She is fooling no one.  Most tellingly, this same scheme has already been soundly rejected in the Senate.”

“Recognizing how critical it is that this measure move forward, I introduced an amendment which would have paid for the fix by using unspent, but already committed, stimulus funds.   This week the national debt broke the $12 trillion mark for the first time ever and a week ago Pelosi pushed through her trillion dollar health care takeover.  We need to pass the doc fix by making tough decisions and finding a way to pay for it.  I have proposed one such solution.  I will not support more reckless deficit spending that strangles our economy.”