[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 9, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H1174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HEALTH CARE REFORM THAT WORKS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I came to talk about health reform, but 
would first note that the gentleman from Virginia fails to mention that 
the economy began its nose-dive when Democrats took control of Congress 
in January 2007. For 54 months before that, with a Republican President 
and Republican control of Congress, the economy was doing very well and 
growing.
  Madam Speaker, the American people have spoken loud and clear: they 
do not want a government takeover of health care. They want sensible, 
step by step health care reform that works. But the White House is not 
listening. Instead, they are proposing expensive new entitlements that 
will only worsen the Federal Government's finances and North Carolina 
family budgets. At least there is one thing we agree on: we need to 
have a bill that will lower the cost of health care in America. But you 
don't lower the cost of health care in America by creating expensive, 
new, government-run programs. The best way to lower the cost of health 
care is by empowering patients, putting patients in charge of their 
health care, not insurance companies and certainly not the government, 
is the solution.
  While I agree with President Obama that we need to lower the cost of 
health care, the problem is that his proposals, which are simply 
retreads of the House and Senate bills, will not really lower costs. 
They are simply a trillion-dollar expansion of government control.
  Lower costs will stem from patients who are empowered in making 
health care decisions through innovations like expanded health savings 
accounts and by making sure that the trial lawyers who are driving up 
the cost of health care with a blizzard of frivolous lawsuits are 
reined in.
  So we should start over. Starting over is the single best way to 
produce bipartisan legislation that the public can support. We should 
focus on working step by step to enact commonsense health care reform 
that will lower costs for families and small businesses and expand 
access to affordable, high-quality care.
  Republicans have been talking about a step-by-step approach for 
months. This approach would allow individuals to buy health care across 
State lines, cover people with preexisting conditions, improve access 
to health savings accounts, as well as enact medical liability reform. 
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that such a 
commonsense plan would reduce deficits by $68 billion and reduce 
private insurance premiums by up to 10 percent. This is a plan that 
doesn't grow the government, and it is a plan that reduces cost without 
a government takeover and without breaking the budget or soaking 
taxpayers. Madam Speaker, it is a plan that will work for the American 
people.

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