[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 40 (Thursday, March 18, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1631-H1632]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. It is so nice, Mr. Speaker, to see these fine 
looking young ladies out here today talking about health care. I really 
appreciate it. It's time that we saw all of you out here tonight. It's 
really nice to see you and I appreciate you taking the time to be here.
  There are just a few things, ladies, that you really haven't talked 
about. You keep talking about this as if this is the only approach to 
solving the health care problem. You don't mention that for trillions 
of dollars less, trillions of dollars less, money that we don't have, 
the Republicans have proposed a bill that would allow people to buy 
insurance across State lines so they could get the very best rates.
  We provided a bill that would deal with people to help them get 
medical savings accounts so they could put their money into a savings 
account tax-free, as well as their employers, and then they would use 
that money and they would decide when they needed to go to the doctor 
and when not. And if they didn't use it, it would build up in the bank 
account. And if they used it, there would be a major medical policy, 
also tax-free, that would take them up to an undetermined amount of 
money, maybe $100,000.
  You didn't mention that our bill says that you can take your 
insurance with you from one company to another when you move. And that 
is what I think most people want. They want to make sure that there is 
portability.
  You didn't mention that we want companies, small companies to be able 
to band together in our bill so that they can buy insurance at the 
rates that the major corporations do. That is a pretty good 
alternative.
  You didn't mention that we want tort reform, which will definitely 
lower the cost of insurance because there won't be all these frivolous 
lawsuits by trial attorneys. Incidentally, you don't have any of that 
in your bill because the trial attorneys you like, because they support 
you and they support the President. And the trial attorneys have got 
this bill in their pocket.

                              {time}  1845

  You don't mention that our bill does cover preexisting conditions, 
and it doesn't cost as much money. You don't mention that our bill 
provides a safety net for the people who are uninsured which will deal 
with a lot of the problems you have been talking about tonight. You 
don't mention that we're going to have a safety net for indigent 
people, people who can't afford insurance.
  And let me just say this: doctors across this country don't want this 
bill. Hospitals across this country don't want this bill. The people 
across this country overwhelmingly don't want this bill. Do you know 
why? Because it's going to cost trillions of dollars that we don't 
have. And you know who's going to pay for all of this? The budget this 
year, as I said earlier, is $3.78 trillion that we don't have. This is 
a new entitlement, and it's going to cost trillions of dollars that we 
don't have. And we're not going to be able to borrow that money from 
China and Japan and all of these other countries from around the world 
for very long.
  So what are we going to do? We're going to print the money. And if 
America was watching tonight I'd say, Hey, don't worry about it. 
They're just going to print the money. So if you got a thousand dollars 
in the bank and we double the amount of the money in circulation, you 
still have the thousand dollars, but it's only worth $500 because it 
will only buy half as much. But who cares?
  And then, of course, the legislation that's going to cost trillions 
of dollars in addition to the trillions of dollars that you're spending 
on everything else is going to cause higher taxes. But, then, what the 
heck? In fact, in your bill, the taxes are going to go up by $569.2 
billion. Oh, that's chump change. Don't worry about that. The American 
people can afford it.
  Heck, right now at 10 percent unemployment, I'm sure the American 
people are saying, Raise my taxes. The small businessman wants you to 
raise his taxes because if you raise his taxes, he won't be able to 
hire people, and he may even say, Well, I'm going to take a boat and 
take my business overseas because we can't handle this anymore because 
the taxes are too high. But what the heck. Who cares. It's just money.
  The bottom line is we all want the same thing, and that is to solve 
our health care problems. But we don't want to give a hole that our 
kids and our grandkids will never get out of. They'll be paying higher 
taxes, and they'll be dealing with inflation. And they will look back 
on our generation and say, Why did you do that to us? Why did you do 
that to us?
  And so when you tell the American people all of the things you're 
telling them tonight about these people are going to be covered and 
everything else, just tell them this: we have got a plan that will do 
it, too, and it will do it for a heck of a lot less money. It won't put 
the government in control of health care and have bureaucrats between 
people and their doctors, and it

[[Page H1632]]

won't cause socialized medicine. So tell them that, too, if you would.
  And just remember this as I leave, I love you, ladies.

                          ____________________