[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 93 (Friday, June 19, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S6831]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, one thing Republicans and Democrats can 
all agree on is the need for serious health care reform. On Monday, 
President Obama spoke to the American Medical Association to discuss 
the issue. I applaud the President for his commitment to health care 
reform and agree with him that we need to make health care more 
affordable and accessible to all Americans.
  While the American people want reform, they want us to fix what is 
wrong with the system without taking away the freedom, choices, and 
quality of care they now enjoy. During a speech to the AMA, the 
President acknowledged these concerns and articulated some principles 
on health care reform that many Republicans share. But it seems to me 
that many of my friends on the other side of the aisle should have 
listened more closely to what the President said to the AMA.
  One thing the President said that Republicans agree with is that 
Americans should not be forced to give up the insurance they currently 
have and like and be forced into a government plan. The President 
promised the American people that:

       If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your 
     doctor. If you like your health care plan, you will be able 
     to keep your health care plan. No one will take it away no 
     matter what.

  Republicans agree with the President. Yet Democrats in Congress are 
making last-minute edits to a bill in the HELP Committee that the 
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says will cost 10 million 
people with employer-sponsored insurance to lose the coverage they 
currently have. And that is the number of people who would lose their 
current insurance under just one section of the bill. This legislation 
is still missing significant sections that could force tens of millions 
of additional Americans to lose their current coverage. Republicans 
share the President's belief that those who like their health insurance 
should be able to keep it, but the bill currently being considered by 
the HELP Committee would force Americans off of the health care plans 
they now enjoy.
  Another issue the President and Republicans agree on is the need to 
invest more in preventative care and wellness programs, which is an 
important way to cut costs and improve care. President Obama mentioned 
the successful wellness and prevention program Safeway created, which 
has dramatically cut the company's health care costs and employees' 
health care premiums. He said he would be open to doing more to help 
businesses across the country adopt and expand programs like the one 
created by Safeway. Yet the bill the Democrats are now pushing through 
the Senate would actually ban this successful program from being copied 
and implemented by other companies.
  Republicans also agree with the President on the need to reform our 
Nation's medical liability laws. Frivolous malpractice lawsuits are a 
major cause of our increasing health care costs. These lawsuits cause 
insurance premiums for doctors to skyrocket, and doctors then pass 
those higher costs on, of course, to patients.
  Doctors also often order expensive and unnecessary tests just to 
protect themselves against these lawsuits, and some doctors just close 
their practices or stop offering services as a result of all these 
pressures.
  And patients are the ones who lose out. According to a report by the 
Kentucky Institute of Medicine, Kentucky is nearly 2,300 doctors short 
of the national average--a shortage that could be reduced, in part, by 
reforming medical malpractice laws.
  President Obama has not advocated the kind of medical liability 
reform most Republicans would like to see, but he has at least opened 
the door to fixing the system. But none of the bills introduced in the 
Congress even acknowledge the need for malpractice reform or propose 
any solutions to deal with the problem.
  Finally, Republicans share the President's concerns about how much 
health care reform is going to cost and how we will pay for it. 
President Obama said that he set down a rule that ``health care reform 
must be, and will be, deficit-neutral in the next decade.''
  But the preliminary estimates from the bill before the HELP Committee 
show that just one--just one--section of the bill spends $1.3 trillion. 
And even more outrageous is the fact that the bill doesn't even have 
any proposals to pay for its enormous pricetag--other than to borrow it 
from the taxpayers. Americans want reform. But they don't want a blind 
rush to spend trillions of dollars that they and their grandchildren 
will have to pay for through higher taxes and even more debt.
  When it comes to making sure Americans can keep the coverage they 
have, strengthening wellness and prevention programs, reforming our 
medical malpractice laws, and paying for health care reform, 
Republicans share common ground with the President. I just wish that 
congressional Democrats did too.

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