Charles Grassley Funding Quotations

Ottumwa Regional Hospital and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Regional Office are attempting to work through the issues at hand. It is very rare for CMS to withdraw Medicare funding due to these types of violations, especially when the hospital is working to correct them. And, it is my understanding that the hospital will be submitting a plan of correction to CMS shortly.

In addition to allowing plans to book phantom investment gains, United was able to use stale, non-market interest rates to value pension liabilities, thereby further disguising funding deficits. In other words, our pension laws tell these companies, 'Take off the green eye shades and put on rose-colored glasses.

If you make a promise, you are responsible for your own promise, ... Unfortunately, there are a few ... bad apples who have abused loopholes ... to avoid funding pensions in a way that shows they are responsible for their own promises.

And when we expect trading partners to respect science, we should be willing to do the same. So I don't support depriving the Department of Agriculture with the funding it needs to make decisions based on sound science even while we need to send a loud and clear message to Japan.