[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14350]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. YARMUTH. Madam Speaker, the distinguished minority leader has 
just expressed the desire of his party to engage us in health care 
reform, and I'm so gratified and happy to hear him say that. Similarly, 
the distinguished minority leader of the Senate, who is both my Senator 
and my constituent, has spent the last few days in the Senate talking 
about that same desire, to help us move forward in addressing what we 
all know is an unsustainable and dysfunctional health care delivery 
system.
  The Senator spoke last Friday, and he said, ``Americans want reform 
that addresses the high cost of care and gives everyone access to 
quality care. In America in 2009, doing nothing is simply not an 
option. We must act and we must act decisively. The question is not 
whether to reform health care; the question is how best to reform 
health care.''
  None of us in either body on either side of the aisle will argue with 
that statement.
  Unfortunately, in the remainder of the distinguished Senate minority 
leader's statement, there is not the first idea about how to do that. 
Despite his teasing us that he is going to offer solutions, they're 
not. In fact, what he does is pretty similar to what the distinguished 
minority leader of the House just did, which was to echo the themes of 
a talking point paper provided by Frank Luntz, the Republican message 
person, which basically said the Republicans cannot afford to allow 
Democrats to have a victory in health care. They can't allow us to get 
something done for the American people. And, therefore, they are going 
to respond by criticizing everything we are doing as a government 
takeover of health care. In fact, in the distinguished Senate minority 
leader's statement, some version of government takeover is mentioned 11 
times in 1\1/2\ half pages. So we know where they're coming from.
  But the arguments that are raised are also things that require 
scrutiny, and as we move forward in this debate, we need to examine all 
of them.
  For instance, the Senator says, ``When most companies want to raise 
money, they have to show they are viable and their products and 
services are a worthwhile investment.''
  Again, nobody can argue with that. That means adding value.
  ``Apply this model to health care, and the government would be able 
to create the same kind of uneven playing field that would, in all 
likelihood, eventually wipe out competition, thus forcing millions of 
people off the private health plans they already have and which the 
vast majority of them very much like.''
  You know, when insurance companies are forced to compete, they do 
very well. Senator McConnell and I have a common constituent, the 
Humana Corporation, a great corporation. When they're forced to 
compete, they figure out how to add value. And they're doing that right 
now. They are doing it with the Medicare Advantage program.
  When insurance companies are forced to compete, they compete well. 
Right now they're not forced to compete. What many of us are proposing 
is that we create a public competition for them, make them compete with 
the public plan. And unlike what Senator McConnell says, if they are 
unable to compete, it won't be because of an unfair advantage; it will 
be because they are not providing the kind of coverage at the cost that 
the American people want. If American people want to stay in their 
private plans under the proposals that we're advancing, they will be 
able to do that. We're not forcing anyone out. Right now most Americans 
don't have a choice, and we are trying to provide that choice through a 
public plan.
  In the Senator's statement, he says: ``This is how a government plan 
would undercut private health care plans, forcing people off the plans 
they like and replacing those plans with plans they like less.''
  They're not going to be in plans they like less. They will choose the 
plan they like more.

                              {time}  1045

  ``That is when the worst scenario would take shape, with Americans 
subjected to bureaucratic hassles, hours spent on hold, waiting for a 
government service representative to take a call, restrictions on care 
and, yes, lifesaving treatment and lifesaving surgeries denied or 
delayed.''
  It's a nice scare tactic. Unfortunately, what he is describing is 
what often happens right now in the private insurance system with 
doctors spending endless hours trying to argue with bureaucracies about 
whether certain treatments or certain procedures will be covered. So 
what we're trying to do is to end that and to provide competition that 
will end that.
  Finally, the Senator says, ``The American people want health care 
reform, but creating a government bureaucracy that denies, delays and 
rations health care is not the reform they want.'' I agree with that. I 
agree with that.
  Then he says, ``They don't want the people who brought us the 
Department of Motor Vehicles making life-and-death decisions for them, 
their children, their spouses, and their parents.'' Well, that's a cute 
line, very clever.
  Unfortunately, you know, the Federal Government didn't create the 
Department of Motor Vehicles, but the Federal Government did create 
Medicare, Medicare which now serves 40 million Americans, disabled and 
old, and which does a very, very good job of doing that.
  So I look forward to the debate we're going to continue to have with 
the other side on how best to create health care reform.

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