Patrick recommended that Congress "put revenues on the table" just as the GOP was exiting spending talks over Democrat-proposed tax increases.
Gov. Deval Patrick speaks to reporters in Springfield in this file photo.Gov. Deval Patrick testified before the Senate Finance Committee in Washington, D.C. Thursday, calling on the federal government to reject a proposal from some Congressional Republicans to convert Medicare and Medicaid into voucher-like systems.
"Dispersing federal Medicaid funding in the form of block grants, as some have proposed, won't reform the system," Patrick said. "It will starve it."
Testifying at the hearing, titled "Health Care Entitlements: The Road Forward," Patrick argued that such proposals focus on "abstract policy" rather than people.
Video and testimony from the hearing is available on the committee's website.
Patrick, a Democrat, also echoed members of his own party in calling for "revenues" — taxes — in order to maintain funding for health care entitlements. Patrick said:
Put revenues on the table. I know this is the point where most politicians run for cover, but it's time we faced up to this.
Our federal government has been running two wars and a costly prescription drug benefit for nearly a decade using borrowed money. Meanwhile, I know mom and pop stores and college students who pay more and taxes than corporations that are earning billions of dollars in revenue, and so do you. Some of these loopholes ought to be closed. If we believe that the poor and disabled — the people Medicaid serves — should get adequate health care, it's only fair, it seems to me, to ask everyone to help close a gap other policy choices have created and end exacerbate.
Congressional Democrats and Republicans have been struggling over that very issue in ongoing budget talks brokered by Vice President Joe Biden. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor exited budget talks prematurely Thursday after Democrats demanded tax increases be coupled with Republican-mandated spending cuts in negotiations.
Congress must find common ground on the federal budget in order to raise the nation's debt ceiling by Aug. 2, the date at which the administration says the nation would default on its debt obligations without an increase.