[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 90 (Tuesday, June 16, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S6612]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the health care system in this country 
is in urgent need of reform. People are frustrated with the soaring 
cost of care, and they are frustrated that so many of their fellow 
Americans lack the coverage they need that they should be able to 
expect in a nation as prosperous as ours. People are also worried about 
the enormous burden rising health care costs is placing on American 
businesses, which are being forced to put off pay increases and lay off 
workers to cope with rising insurance premiums. And now people are 
concerned that a new government health plan that is being talked about 
will make all of these problems even worse.
  For weeks, many of us have been warning about plans for a government 
takeover of health care along the lines of takeovers we have seen in 
other areas of the private sector. Now the details of those plans are 
coming to light, and they raise two questions: How much is all this 
going to cost, and how are we going to pay for it?
  Let's take just three proposals in the plan that is currently taking 
shape in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, the 
details of which are just beginning to emerge.
  First, there is a massive expansion of Medicaid. Here is a program 
that was originally established as a partnership between the Federal 
Government and the States to assist the poor and disabled and which has 
become fiscally unsustainable. Yet, rather than reform this broken 
program, the HELP Committee is proposing a massive new expansion.
  Second, the HELP Committee bill includes massive new subsidies for 
Americans with incomes higher than $100,000 a year. The purpose of 
these subsidies is to help defray the cost of rising insurance 
premiums. We all know health insurance is too expensive, but we ought 
to be working to lower those premiums, not opening the Federal 
checkbook to drive them up even higher.
  Third, the HELP Committee bill establishes a new so-called prevention 
and public health investment fund. The details of this fund are a 
little murky, but early indications are that it will direct billions of 
dollars to things such as having the government build sidewalks and 
government-subsidized farmers markets. The idea here is to use tax 
dollars to encourage healthier lifestyles. But at a time when Americans 
are buried under medical bills and frightened about losing the coverage 
they have, farmers markets and sidewalks are not the reforms they have 
in mind.
  Americans want serious health care reform, not expansion of programs 
that are already fiscally unsustainable, subsidies that disguise rising 
costs instead of addressing their causes, and billions for sidewalks 
and asparagus. These are precisely the kinds of proposals that mask the 
underlying problems and cause people to lose faith in government 
solutions, and they are simply not acceptable.
  The details we are seeing from the HELP Committee should make us more 
skeptical of a government health plan, not less, and they should 
underscore for every American the need for the kinds of real, 
comprehensive reforms some of us have been calling for over the last 
few weeks.
  The irony in this whole debate is that we are being told that 
America's fiscal future will be jeopardized if we do not allow these 
people who are proposing these outrageous so-called reforms to take 
over the entire health care system.
  Preliminary estimates for this flawed legislative proposal are simply 
staggering. Just yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released an 
estimate of just part--just part--of the HELP Committee bill. Focusing 
on just this one section, the CBO determined the bill will spend $1.3 
trillion over 10 years, even though 37 million people would still be 
left without health insurance. Let me say that again, Mr. 
President. Just part of the HELP Committee bill would spend $1.3 
trillion over 10 years, after which 37 million Americans would still be 
uninsured. Let me say that again, as I just have. One section of the 
bill--one section--$1.3 trillion, and 37 million still uninsured. And 
this isn't even a complete evaluation of the bill. Large proposals that 
will have a significant impact on the cost, such as the Medicaid 
expansion and a government-run plan, have not even been factored in 
yet.

  Moreover, according to details of the HELP Committee plan, a new 
health care exchange would result in 15 million Americans losing the 
employer coverage they already have--further evidence if you like what 
you have, you may well lose it under a government-run plan.
  How does the HELP Committee propose we pay for all this? Well, its 
proposal is full of creative new ways to spend taxpayer dollars, but it 
offers little in offsetting the cost of the overall bill. They will 
either charge the money to the national credit card or, more likely, 
raise taxes on working families. In other words, more spending, higher 
taxes, and even more debt. So far, some of the taxes under discussion 
include a new tax on soda, juice boxes, the creation of a new tax on 
jobs, and new limits on charitable deductions.
  Based on the CBO estimate, these taxes would only be the beginning. 
The health care proposal being put together is not only extremely 
defective, it will cost a fortune. And that cost will come straight out 
of the taxpayers' pocketbook.
  The bottom line is this: Under the illusion of reform, Americans will 
be asked to give up the care they like for something worse, and then 
they will be taxed to the hilt to pay for it. Americans don't want 
changes that make the entire health care system as unsustainable as 
Medicaid, and they don't want to go broke covering the cost.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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