[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 45 (Tuesday, March 23, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H2217-H2218]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                DISINGENUOUS SAVINGS IN HEALTH CARE BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Stearns) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. STEARNS. Good morning. Madam Speaker, my colleagues, I've come 
here this morning to talk about the health care bill. The Senate health 
care bill that we passed which honestly continues to spend far more 
than we can afford and at a rate faster than anyone could have 
imagined. The bill itself is chock-full of budget gimmicks to game the 
system to show that it's revenue-neutral. I am briefly going to outline 
this morning why it's not revenue-neutral. In fact, future Congresses 
will repeal some of these cuts in Medicare and some of those taxes, 
like the tax on certain Cadillac health care plans. The President 
indicated that he would veto any health care bill that created a dime, 
a penny of deficit. Well, Mr. President, I hope you are listening 
because I have gone through the scoring on the Senate health care bill, 
and it's chock-full of gimmicks, and in fact, this bill creates a 
deficit. Let's take a look at them.
  These savings that the CBO scored will not be achieved, and let me 
first of all start by saying there's 10 years of taxes to pay for 6 
years of benefits. That's one of the gimmicks we should understand. 
Many of the taxes will start immediately, yet the health exchange does 
not begin until 2014. The two large cost drivers are Medicaid expansion 
and the health care exchange, but there are only 6 years of the 
exchange costs in the budget window. So if we're going to have taxes 
for 10 years, and we're going to institute the program four years 
later, much later, then these will be cost savings obviously.
  But once this thing gets going, after 10 years of taxes and 6 years 
of benefits, what happens after that? No one knows. Obviously there is 
going to be a deficit. That's the first thing I want to start out with. 
There are cuts throughout this healthcare bill to Medicare. But they 
are fiction. Let me give you an example. They have a 21 percent cut in 
what's called the SGR which is the sustained growth rate, or the 
funding rate for physicians. So they're going to cut physicians on 
their SGR by 21 percent, and they're going to do a 2 percent cut every 
year for the rest of the decade. So this would require a $208 billion 
fix. Now is this going to occur? Remember now, we have just passed H.R. 
3961, a doc fix. So they're already agreeing that we have to fix 
Medicare for doctors, yet they are going back into this health care 
bill and cutting them even more to get cost savings realizing they will 
have to stop these cuts or devistate the Medicare program.
  There are $156 billion in cuts to the hospital market basket. Now 
this is the reimbursement formula used to calculate payment rates. Can 
we realistically expect to provide a negative cost increase to 
hospitals? Or are we creating another so-called SGR-type situation for 
hospitals in this bill? There is $70 billion in what's called Community 
Living Assistance Services and Supports program. This is a new 
entitlement. It's an insurance program for assisted living programs. 
However, it does not collect enough revenues and pays out too little. 
It's estimated this program will become insolvent in 2020. Senator Kent 
Conrad has called this a Ponzi scheme of the first order that would 
make Bernie Madoff proud. Another fictitious cost savings. There will 
be $15 billion cut by the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This is 
an unelected body who will be able to force Medicare cuts and reforms 
throughout the system. But where are they going to cut? Congress can 
only vote to stop it if three-fifths of the Senate votes to stop the 
cuts. They have continually talked about a tax on Cadillac health care 
plans. They use this as a saving of $32 billion. You know whose 
Cadillac health care plans we're talking about? We're talking about 
unions plans. They are the ones who will be affected. Do you think the 
Democrats are going to tax unions' Cadillac health care plans? That's 
not going to happen.
  So I will tell you that once this gets passed, they're going to 
repeal this tax at future points. There are 10 years of taxes to pay 
for 6 years of benefits, as I mentioned earlier. The two large cost 
drivers are Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange, but there 
are only 6 years of the exchange costs in

[[Page H2218]]

the budget window. So again, that's a gimmick. Also there are costs 
which are not included by the CBO because they would not be subject to 
future appropriations. They are not mandatory spending. So that's why 
the CBO didn't include the following:
  There is $10 billion to hire about 16,000 new IRS agents to enforce 
the individual mandate on every American. So CBO did not include this 
in the scoring because it would be subject to future appropriations and 
not mandatory spending. So CBO didn't even include that. And what about 
the number of employees who are going to be hired by Health and Human 
Services to operate this bill? That's not in here. There is $55 billion 
for new bureaucrats to run this government expansion into health care, 
none of that is included by CBO. So Mr. President, you should realize 
that if you sign this bill, you're signing a bill that is going to 
create deficits. The savings we will see are not there. We are 
continuing to put this country in hock to China and deficits for the 
foreseeable future.

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