[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 77 (Thursday, May 9, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2756-S2757]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Medicare

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, if you are in a shaky financial situation, 
wondering how you are going to meet your obligations, your first 
instinct isn't generally to wildly increase your spending, unless, of 
course, you are a congressional Democrat.
  Our Nation's Medicare system is on shaky financial ground. Democrats' 
answer is to massively expand the program to the tune of trillions of 
dollars.
  Two weeks ago, the Social Security and Medicare trustees released 
their annual report. According to the report, beginning in 2026, 
Medicare will not be able to meet its obligations. This doesn't even 
seem to register on Democrats' radar. They steamroll right past the 
program's already shaky financial status and ask the American people to 
believe that, somehow, massively expanding the program to include 
almost the entire U.S. population at a pricetag of staggering 
proportions will work.
  It is difficult to overstate just how unrealistic Democrats' Medicare 
for All fantasy is. Start with the pricetag: $32 trillion over 10 
years. To put that number in perspective, that is more money than the 
Federal Government has spent in the last 8 years combined--on 
everything. That $32 trillion estimate is likely too low, as it was 
based on an earlier version of the Medicare for All plan of the Senator 
from Vermont. His new plan also includes a massive new benefit--funding 
for long-term care, an enormously expensive part of the healthcare 
system.
  Democrats' last attempt to have the government run a long-term care 
program fell apart before it was even implemented because the program 
was not financially viable.
  Let's leave aside for a minute the tremendous cost and the tax hikes 
on ordinary Americans that would be required to pay for it. Let's talk 
about the massive difficulty of implementing such a system. The junior 
Senator from Vermont expects people to believe that the government can 
successfully transition more than 180 million people off of their 
private insurance and into government-run healthcare in 4 years. To put 
that in perspective, the Obama administration had 3\1/2\ years to 
implement the ObamaCare exchanges, which were intended to cover a tiny 
fraction of the number of people who would be covered under Medicare 
for All. As I am sure most Americans remember, the government couldn't 
put together a working website in that 3\1/2\ year time period. Yet 
Democrats somehow expect us to believe that they can smoothly 
transition 180 million Americans into government-run insurance in just 
4 years.
  We are also somehow supposed to believe things will be much more 
efficient with government running your healthcare. It is certainly true 
there is a lot of bureaucracy in our current healthcare system, but I 
am fairly sure the answer is not giving control of healthcare to the 
mother ship of bureaucracy--the Federal Government. Democrats also 
apparently expect Americans to believe that the Federal Government will 
be able to deliver almost unlimited healthcare for free. Unfortunately, 
no matter how much money the Federal Government takes in with higher 
taxes, there will eventually be a limit to how much it can spend on 
healthcare.
  What happens when it can't afford to meet demand, which, by the way, 
tends to increase substantially when something is offered for free? I 
will tell you what happens: long wait times and rationing of care, 
which have become the hallmarks of socialized medicine in other 
countries.
  There is no question that our healthcare system is not perfect. 
Republicans are currently working on legislation to address some of the 
healthcare challenges facing Americans, but destroying our current 
health system to fix the problems we have would be like razing a house 
to the ground to fix a leak in the bathroom sink.
  There are lots of good things about our healthcare system. A lot of 
people in this country are happy with their healthcare. We need to 
preserve the good things about our system and fix what is not working 
and not force everyone into a fantastically expensive one-size-fits-
all, government-run healthcare system that would reduce everyone's 
quality of care.
  The Democratic chairman of the House Rules Committee, discussing a 
House hearing on Medicare for All, recently said: ``It's a serious 
proposal that deserves serious consideration on Capitol Hill.''
  I would argue that it is the exact opposite. The only things that are 
serious about this proposal are the serious consequences it would have 
for the American people if it were ever implemented. It is deeply 
irresponsible of my Democrat colleagues to peddle this government-run 
nightmare as a legitimate healthcare solution. One of our former 
colleagues, Tom Coburn, used to say: If you think healthcare is 
expensive now, wait until it is free.
  Let's hope Democrats decide to take a more serious approach to 
healthcare reform before Americans are forced to live under the ugly 
reality of their socialist fantasy.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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