[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 37 (Thursday, February 28, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1556-S1557]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           The Green New Deal

  Madam President, on another matter, I have been spotlighting all week 
our Democratic colleagues' hard left turn toward socialism--their 
fixation on gaining more government control over more of our lives. 
With the Democratic Politician Protection Act, Washington Democrats 
want to control more of what Americans can say about them and how they 
get elected.
  With the so-called Green New Deal, Washington Democrats want our 
government to spend more money than the entire gross domestic product 
of the entire world on new spending programs to forcibly remodel 
Americans' homes, take away our cars, dramatically increase energy 
costs, and disarm our economy while China roars straight ahead. You 
might think that right there is plenty of leftwing social engineering. 
You might think it is enough--oh, but they aren't stopping there, the 
Democrats. They are going after Americans' healthcare and their private 
health insurance plans.
  Earlier this week, House Democrats introduced a bill that would take 
away every private insurance option that American families rely on and 
force everyone into a single, government-run system. Employer-sponsored 
coverage wouldn't just be discouraged, it would be illegal. They call 
this legislation Medicare for All. It is really more like ``Medicare 
for None.'' It completely explodes the Medicare system as it currently 
exists. The program our seniors have paid into for decades and now rely 
on, the Democrats want gone--wiped out.
  Remember, by the time Americans turn 65, most have paid tens and tens 
of thousands of dollars into the current system through Medicare taxes. 
According to one estimate, Americans with average earnings who reached 
the retirement age back in 2015 will have paid a present value of more 
than $70,000 into Medicare over the years.
  American seniors have counted on Medicare. They have planned around 
it, and they have paid into it with every paycheck. Yet now House 
Democrats have decided it is time to change the rules on them in the 
middle of the game. They want to tear down Medicare until the only 
thing left is the name and slap that name on a completely different 
system that a few House Democrats invented and that the Democratic 
Socialists of America is proud to endorse. The Democratic Socialists of 
America is proud to endorse that. Then the Democrats propose to take 
that new government system and pile every single American into it as a 
one-size-fits-all--long waits for treatment, higher costs, and an end 
to Medicare as we know it--no choice, no options, and no alternatives 
allowed.
  More than 170 million Americans currently get health insurance 
through their employers. Surveys show that a majority is actually 
pretty happy with its own specific plans. Well, too bad. The Democrats 
want those families thrown off those plans. Within 2 years, their 
proposal would make private health insurance, as Americans know it, 
illegal across the board. It would be unlawful for employers to offer 
health benefits to their employees and their families. It is right 
there in the bill. It would be against the law for employers to offer 
healthcare to their employees.
  Here is what it reads: ``It shall be unlawful for a private health 
insurer to sell health insurance coverage . . . [or] an employer to 
provide benefits . . . that duplicate the benefits provided under this 
Act by the government.''
  How about that? We all remember ObamaCare's famous broken promise: If 
you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it. If you like the doctor 
you have, you can keep your doctor too. That was the pledge before the 
Democrats' policy was actually implemented. Not long after, the fact 
checkers named that promise their ``lie of the year.''
  Well, this time around, my Democratic friends are not even bothering 
to pretend that families' lives would not be disrupted. A reporter 
asked one of our Senate colleagues who is running for President, ``So 
for people out there who like their insurance, they don't get to keep 
it?'' Her response? Listen to this. ``Let's eliminate all of that.'' 
This is one of our colleagues running for President.
  All the plans American families like and rely on made illegal--
illegal--by this bill, not just unaffordable, not just inconvenient, 
illegal, and all to clear space for a new government takeover.
  So how much is this massive takeover going to cost? Well, under even 
conservative estimates, this proposal would cost more than $32 trillion 
over the first 10 years--$32 trillion over the first 10 years, more 
than the Federal Government spent on everything over the last 8 years 
combined.
  Where is that money going to come from? Well, I think we all know the 
answer to that: massive tax hikes on the American people, cuts to 
services, rationing of healthcare, broken promises, and debt. That is 
where it is going to come from.
  Here is what one economist found in the numbers.

       The Federal Reserve's data only go back to 1929, but it's 
     unlikely that the government ever collected more than 20 
     percent of GDP in taxes. To fully fund Medicare-for-all, that 
     figure would have to rise to more than 30 percent of GDP.

  Now, look, I am sure we will hear the class warfare rhetoric about 
soaking the rich and making a small group of Americans pay for all of 
this, but it will not be true. We all know it will not be true. The 
bill for this $32 trillion takeover would land squarely--squarely--on 
middle-class families. There is no way around it.
  Even if the IRS confiscated every dollar of Americans' adjusted gross 
incomes over $1 million--took it all--if the IRS took every cent over 
$1 million, it wouldn't even pay for half of the proposal--wouldn't 
even pay for half of it.
  Now, look, class warfare may be a favorite tactic across the aisle, 
but numbers are stubborn things. Math is math. The costs would have to 
fall on the middle class. Actually, they would fall on everyone, one 
way or another.
  That economist put it this way, he said: ``The simple fact is that 
financing Medicare-for-all would require a dramatic shift in the 
Federal tax structure and a substantial tax increase for almost all 
Americans.'' Almost all Americans.
  So let's sum it up. Washington Democrats want the American people to 
fork over a recordbreaking percentage of our gross domestic product in 
taxes for the privilege of having their healthcare plans ripped away 
from them, even if they are happy with what they have, and the middle 
class is going to pay for it. What a great deal.
  All this, and I haven't even begun to explain how this takeover would 
cut Americans' access to care and degrade the quality of care. We have 
all heard horror stories from abroad about bureaucrats making decisions 
instead of citizens and long waits for treatment.
  Last year in Canada, the median wait time for medically necessarily 
treatment from a specialist was 21 weeks--21 weeks. That is the average 
wait time for medically necessary treatment in Canada--more than double 
what it was up there just 25 years ago.

[[Page S1557]]

  In the UK, it is not just long waits patients have to contend with, 
it is flatout denials of care. In the first quarter of last year alone, 
Britain's National Health Service abruptly canceled 25,000 surgeries--
canceled them.
  Imagine that--being fully reliant on the government for healthcare, 
planning on a medically necessary procedure, and being told at the last 
minute the whole thing was called off. Welcome to socialized medicine. 
Needless to say, if some Democrats had their way, you wouldn't have to 
imagine much longer.
  Before I conclude, I want to highlight one more thing. I suppose no 
far-left wish list like this would have been complete without radical 
policies on the issue of abortion, without trying to hurt pro-life 
Americans.
  Sure enough, this legislation would shatter the longstanding 
consensus--consensus--that Federal dollars should not pay for abortions 
and force taxpayers to fund abortions nationwide. That has been the 
longstanding consensus. Talk about a perfect case study in the perils 
of a Federal takeover. Talk about a perfect example of why Washington 
Democrats should not get the power to twist American healthcare to suit 
their own radical views--$32 trillion, every family kicked off its 
insurance plans, no choice, no options for the middle class, just a 
huge bill.
  The Democrats are so confident the American people will love their 
new government plan that they feel the need to make other kinds of 
insurance illegal, and Democratic Presidential candidates are rushing 
headlong to embrace all of this--watching them embrace all of this. 
Goodness. If this is one of their best and brightest new ideas, I would 
sure hate to see the bad ones.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.