[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14480-14481]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I commend my colleague from Nevada for his 
remarks and I want to associate myself with them.
  I want to speak to health care and the reform that we are attempting 
to achieve here in Washington. Little disagreement exists about the 
need for health care reform. A routine trip to the doctor's office can 
be surprisingly expensive, and many fear if they lose their jobs or 
even if they switch jobs, they will be left without health care. Others 
who are unemployed may be wondering how they can afford to see a doctor 
at all. So the question is, How can we reform health care so that 
everyone has access to high quality care without changing what works 
for millions of Americans?
  President Obama wants to centralize power in Washington, to change 
the way health care is obtained by all. He would create what he calls a 
public option. This would not be an insurance program run by the public 
but one run by the Federal Government; that is to say, bureaucrats here 
in Washington, and I believe it would result in a one-size-fits-all 
government system that would depend upon complex rules and financing 
schemes, some kind of Federal health board and, of course, higher 
taxes. It would also inevitably create waiting lists for treatment and 
denial of care for many. Why? Because the Federal Government resources 
are not unlimited, so health care for some will have to be delayed or 
denied to keep spending in check.
  The plan the senior Senator from Massachusetts has put forward would 
create a medical advisory council to determine what treatments people 
should get and when they should be treated. The goal of this medical 
advisory council, again, would be to control spending, not to ensure 
that everyone gets care when they need it. It could tell Americans when 
they can get their treatment and what medications they can and cannot 
have. The plan of the Senator from Massachusetts would also offer 
subsidies to those whose incomes reach 500 percent above the poverty 
line.
  President Obama has said that if new government-run health care is 
created, you won't have to use it if you prefer your current plan. That 
is not the way the legislation is being written. The way the 
legislation is being written in the Finance Committee is that after 
your contract expires--and it is usually an annual contract--your 
insurance is gone, and your insurance company must begin to abide by a 
new set of Federal rules and regulations. That means you will not have 
the same policy you had before.
  Moreover, the government-run care would quickly crowd out other 
insurers. Employees who have insurance through their company could be 
forced into the government plan if their employer decides it is simpler 
or cheaper to pay a fine to the Federal Government and eliminate the 
coverage. The company might reason: Why bother doing the paperwork when 
we can tell people to get on the government-run plan? That is exactly 
what the health experts say will happen.
  The Lewin Group has estimated that 119 million people will shift from 
a private plan that they currently have onto this new government-run 
plan if it is created. That would affect two-thirds of the 170 million 
Americans who currently have private insurance, all but ending private 
insurance in this country.
  First, we have the takeover of the auto companies and banks and AIG 
and student loans and now health care. That is apparently the agenda at 
play here.
  Republicans believe that health care reform should make health care 
affordable and portable and accessible. That last point is often 
overlooked. Health care needs to be accessible. People need to get the 
care they need when they need it, and what the doctor prescribes for 
them rather than what a bureaucrat says they can have. Access to health 
care does not mean access to a waiting list. Individuals and families, 
not the Federal Government, should control decisions about their health 
care. The principles of freedom and choice should apply here. The 
government should not eliminate your choices and get between you and 
your doctor.
  I am not sure why some are embracing government-run insurance when 
those programs have created so many problems in Canada and the United 
Kingdom. Many people think that Canadians and Europeans get the same 
quality of health care Americans get but pay less. That is not true. 
The stories you hear from individuals in those countries about months- 
and years-long waiting lists and denial of care are not cherry-picked 
scare stories. They are commonplace. People often have to wait months 
for an MRI or a dental procedure or a hip replacement that they 
urgently need.
  According to a new study by the Fraser Institute, which is a 
Canadian-based think tank, the average wait time for treatment from a 
specialist in Canada is 18.3 weeks. That is the average waiting time. 
Stop and think for a moment. You may have had your physician say, I 
think you have something very drastically wrong with you and I think 
you need to see a specialist to confirm whether that diagnosis is true, 
but you are going to have to wait on average 18 weeks for the 
specialist to see you.
  Some people then say, well, at least everybody in Canada has a 
doctor. That is also not true. That same study reports that 1.7 million 
Canadians--and that is out of a country with a population of 33 
million--were unable to see a family physician in the year 2007. Let

[[Page 14481]]

me repeat: 1.7 million people couldn't even see a family doctor, and 
that number does not include those who have a doctor and are on a 
waiting list, so add the wait times. The bottom line is that having a 
government-run plan does not guarantee that everyone will have access 
to a doctor or to medical care. Indeed, it chokes access.
  There are some Canadian doctors who are taking action because of 
this. Private hospitals are sprouting up all over Canada. Dr. David 
Gratzer, who is a physician, recently wrote an article in the Wall 
Street Journal about the story of another physician, Dr. Brian Day of 
Vancouver. Dr. Day, who is an orthopedic surgeon, grew tired of the 
government cutbacks that reduced his access to an operating room, while 
at the same time increasing the number of people waiting to see him. So 
he opened a private clinic, the Cambie Surgery Center, which employees 
more than 100 doctors. Public hospitals send him patients because they 
are too busy to treat them. The New York Times has reported a private 
clinic is opening each week in Canada.
  Think about that. This is in response to a wonderful health care 
system? No, it is in response to a health care system that denies care 
to patients.
  Opening a private clinic that gives health care access to more 
people, of course, is a noble thing to do, and I commend Dr. Day, but 
the success of these clinics also shows that many people who can get 
out of government-run health care will do so.
  Americans do not deserve or want health care that forces them into a 
government bureaucracy that will delay or deny their care and force 
them to navigate a web of complex rules and regulations. They want 
access to high-quality care for their own families and for their 
neighbors. They want to pick their own doctors, and they do not want 
Washington to dictate what care they can and cannot get for their 
families.
  On a personal note, none of us in the Senate or in the gallery or 
anybody who may be watching us, I suspect, cares more about anything in 
the world--other than perhaps their own freedom--than the health of 
their family. If there is a health emergency right now, we will all 
drop anything we are doing to provide whatever health care is needed 
for our family. We don't want anybody to stand in the way of that. But 
the bottom line is that it is inevitable; when government wants to 
control the cost of providing health care, and it has control, what it 
will do is to either deny information to people about what options are 
available, as happens in Germany, for example; delay the care, which is 
frequently what happens in Canada; or what frequently happens in Great 
Britain, where they have a board that makes these decisions, they deny 
the care altogether because it is simply too expensive for what they 
consider the value you get out of it. For example: If you are over a 
certain age, then you are not likely to have an operation such as a hip 
operation or a knee operation. There are other restrictions that apply 
as well.
  We don't want that in America. We don't want the government in 
Washington saying that because we want to save money, you can't get 
care. I would also remind folks that the alternative that is being 
created in Canada--these private clinics--is not available under the 
one government-run program we have in America--the Medicare system. We 
also have a veterans' care system. But under Medicare, there is no 
alternative. You can't have private care. If you are on Medicare, and 
you go to a doctor who serves Medicare patients, it is against the law 
for him to treat you and then charge you individually for that. Under 
Medicare, it is either Medicare or no care. That is the law.
  I know because I tried to get it changed. We tried to get something 
called private contracting, which would be the same as that alternative 
in Canada--the private clinic. We tried to get that for Medicare, so 
that if you were not satisfied with what Medicare gave you, and you 
wanted to speed it up or get a private doctor, even if he charged you 
whatever amount he charged you, you would have the right to do that. 
No. What Congress did was to say--in the middle of the night, in a 
conference committee--that you cannot do that. Only if a doctor says in 
advance, I will not treat Medicare patients for at least 2 years is he 
able to provide that care to you.
  So we have a perverse incentive. If you want to take care of people 
outside of Medicare, you have to agree not to treat Medicare patients. 
And since we have so many physicians deciding not to take Medicare 
patients, that is the wrong incentive. We should be encouraging them to 
take more Medicare patients and at least allow the option that people 
in Canada have.
  The bottom line is, Washington-run health care is not a good idea, 
and Republicans are not going to support legislation that includes 
Washington-run insurance companies or that gets in between the 
physician and the patient and interferes with that important 
relationship to deny or delay care.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.

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