Health care is about the only issue the Senate will consider this month. My phone lines, fax lines and email in-box are full of commentary – overwhelmingly in opposition – from Kansans who don’t support these so-called reforms we are debating. I could not agree more. This $2.5 trillion bill will mean higher premiums, tax increases and Medicare cuts to pay for more government.

Seniors are particularly at risk. This bill slashes half a trillion dollars from Medicare, and uses it to establish a huge new government entitlement program. These cuts will hurt Medicare beneficiaries, our Kansas seniors who have worked their entire lives with the promise that this program would support them through their older age.

Cutting reimbursements to doctors and hospitals and other providers of health care is not what I envisioned for health care reform. Medicare already pays our doctors and hospitals well below fair market costs. More cuts to reimbursements, coupled with the massive increase to Medicaid this bill assumes, will push these limits. It will mean that fewer doctors will open their doors to new Medicare patients, and health care access and quality for our seniors will be compromised. The expansion of Medicaid element is another harmful effect of this bill, further burdening states at a time of economic uncertainty.

The $105.5 billion cuts to hospitals will greatly harm our hospitals in Kansas. In true Washington fashion, national hospital organizations agreed to these cuts during the closed-door negotiations, but when I asked the Kansas Hospital Association to run the numbers on how this reform bill would affect Kansas hospitals’ bottom lines, their outside experts found that it would result in nearly $1.5 billion in losses to Kansas hospitals by 2019. That is devastating. The national groups seem to have made the calculation that these losses would be at least partially offset by potential reductions in hospitals’ uninsured patient populations. But I am not willing to gamble with the financial health of our hospital safety net on a matter of such huge consequence.

A former Congressional Budget Office Director recently wrote, this bill is “fiscally dishonest,” and it uses “every budget gimmick and trick in the book.” In short, this isn’t reform that patients need or want.

I offered amendments in the Finance Committee’s consideration of this bill that would have struck these Medicare cuts. Unfortunately, my amendments to protect our Kansas seniors were voted down on party-line procedural votes. This week I spoke in strong support of a similar effort by Senator John McCain to remove these harmful Medicare cuts from the current bill. Unfortunately this was also voted down. I will continue to do everything I can to stop these devastating cuts.

Let me be clear: I remain committed to responsible health care reform that improves access to affordable insurance and health care for all Americans. I want to protect the benefits of millions who would like to keep the coverage they have. However, this bill is irresponsible and funded on the backs of our seniors by slashing Medicare by a half-trillion dollars, raising taxes and expanding Medicaid. This bill aims to control the government’s spending on health care by rationing your access to that care. I will oppose it at every opportunity.