[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 41 (Thursday, March 7, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1720-S1721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Medicare

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I am sure everyone remembers the 
Democrats' ObamaCare promise: ``If you like your health care plan, you 
can keep it.'' That promise was named PolitiFacts' ``Lie of the Year'' 
in 2013 after it became clear that millions of Americans would not, in 
fact, be able to keep their healthcare plans. There are no worries 
about being deceived on the question of keeping your insurance this 
time around because Democrats are loudly and proudly announcing their 
intention of getting rid of private insurance with their Medicare for 
All plan.
  At a CNN townhall in February, the junior Senator from Vermont was 
asked: ``Will these people be able to keep their health insurance 
plans, their private plans through their employers, if there is a 
Medicare for All program that you endorse?''
  The answer of the Senator from Vermont was no.
  Another Democratic candidate for President, the junior Senator from 
New York, was recently asked: ``Should ending private insurance, as we 
know it, be a Democratic . . . goal? And do you think it is an urgent 
goal?''
  Her response: ``Oh yeah, it is a goal . . . an urgent goal.''
  If you like your health insurance, you definitely will not be able to 
keep it. In fact, the employer-sponsored insurance that you have today 
would be illegal under the Democrats' plan. In the minds of Democrats, 
Americans are supposed to be enthusiastic about Medicare for All 
because it would give them free healthcare. The problem, of course, is 
it will not really be free. Americans are still going to be paying for 
healthcare; it will just be in the form of much higher taxes.
  A left-leaning think tank modeled a version of the Medicare for All 
plan proposed by the junior Senator from Vermont and found that it 
would cost a staggering $32 trillion over 10 years. To put that in 
perspective, the entire Federal budget for 2019 is less than $5 
trillion. That is Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, defense 
spending, education spending, law enforcement, infrastructure--
everything. In other words, Democrats are talking about increasing 
Federal spending by more than 60 percent each year just for healthcare. 
One Medicare expert estimates that doubling the amount of individual 
and corporate income tax collected would not be enough to cover the 
cost of Medicare for All.
  I don't know about my Democratic colleagues, but I don't know a lot 
of working families who could afford to have their tax bill literally 
double. Of course, this is assuming that the cost of the program would 
be limited to $32 trillion. The Medicare for All proposal the House 
Democrats released last week could substantially exceed the $32 
trillion estimate because, unlike the Vermont Senator's plan, it 
includes funding for long-term care, a notoriously expensive part of 
the healthcare system.
  Democrats' last attempt to have the government fund long-term care 
fell apart before it was even implemented because the program was not 
financially viable.
  It is not just the cost of Medicare for All that is completely 
unrealistic; the timeline for implementation is as well. House 
Democrats' proposal would put every American on Medicare for All within 
2 years. We have 2 years to completely do away with healthcare as we 
know it and create an entirely new healthcare program to cover almost 
every single American.
  I am sure most Americans remember the fiasco that was ObamaCare 
implementation. The Obama administration had 3\1/2\ years to get 
ObamaCare up and running, and they couldn't even build a working 
website in that amount of time. The ObamaCare exchanges were intended 
only to cover a tiny fraction of the number of people who would be 
covered under Medicare for All. The idea that the Federal Government 
could smoothly transition all Americans over to an entirely new 
government-run healthcare program in 2 years is absolutely ludicrous. 
Making the attempt would cause Americans an incredible amount of pain. 
Every aspect of this proposal would cause Americans an incredible 
amount of pain.
  There are the heavy taxes that would be required to even partially 
pay for

[[Page S1721]]

this program and the bureaucracy and inefficiency that would come with 
any government attempt to take over healthcare.
  Then there is the rationing of care that would inevitably come along. 
Democrats are promising that these would be plans with generous 
coverage, but what happens when Democrats don't have the money to pay 
for that coverage? Well, they can raise taxes higher, of course.
  Yet they will also undoubtedly turn to the rationing of care that we 
have seen in other countries with socialized medicine. The majority 
leader noted on the floor last week that Britain's National Health 
Service canceled 25,000 surgeries in the first quarter of last year 
alone.
  I could go on. I could talk about the long wait times Americans would 
experience under Medicare for All. I could talk about the fact that the 
Democrats' proposal would end the prohibition on government funding for 
abortion, meaning that your tax dollars would go toward ending the 
lives of preborn babies, whether you want them to or not.
  I can talk about the threat that Medicare for All represents for 
seniors because, make no mistake, this program would do away with 
Medicare as we know it and the promises that have been made to seniors 
in this country. Seniors would receive care under the new plan, but it 
would not be the plan they signed up for, and there is no guarantee 
that they would receive the benefits the Democrats are promising.
  If I went on about all the ways that Medicare for All is a bad idea, 
none of my colleagues would have a chance to speak for the rest of the 
day or probably tomorrow, for that matter, either. Suffice it to say 
that Medicare for All would be a very bad deal for the American people.
  Let's hope that our colleagues across the aisle halt their mad rush 
toward socialism before the American people get stuck with this 
government-run nightmare.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.