[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16822-16823]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, over the past several weeks, Americans 
have heard a number of proposals for reforming health care, and they 
are increasingly concerned about many of the details. Americans want 
reform, but they want the right reform, not a reform that ends up 
costing them much more for worse care than they already receive. 
Unfortunately, the government-run plan that some are proposing would do 
just that.
  A government-run plan would force millions of Americans to give up 
the care they currently have and replace it with a system in which care 
is denied, delayed, and rationed. Instead of increasing access and 
quality, it could limit access and options. It could lead us into 
deeper debt. And millions could well remain uninsured.
  Americans are skeptical about all of this. They do not want to be 
forced to change the coverage they have for a government system they do 
not particularly want. Some of the advocates of a government plan are 
beginning to sense this growing public opposition to their proposal. 
But rather than make their case on the merits, they are basing their 
arguments on the urgency of the moment.
  We keep hearing that time is running out, that the clock on reform is 
about to expire, that the entire health care system and the whole 
economy will soon collapse without this particular reform. Well, we 
have been down this road before.
  Earlier this year, we heard the same dire warnings about the 
stimulus. If Congress did not pass the stimulus, we were told, 
unemployment would continue to rise and the economy would continue to 
falter. We did not just have to pass it, we had to pass it right away. 
The results are now coming in: higher unemployment, soaring job losses, 
higher debt, huge deficits, and growing fears about inflation.
  Many of us saw this coming. That is why we proposed an alternative 
stimulus that would not add a trillion dollars to the debt and would 
have gotten to the root cause of our economic problem, which is 
housing. That is why in the debate over health care Republicans are 
proposing reforms that would make health care more accessible and less 
expensive without destroying what people like about our health care 
system and without sending the Nation deeper and deeper into debt.
  Every cost estimate we have heard about the administration's plans 
for health care is astronomical. The administration realizes this is a 
problem, and yet they have no good plan for covering the cost. Some of 
the ideas that have been floated are a series of taxes, including a tax 
on soft drinks. But

[[Page 16823]]

even that would not come close to covering the cost. So they have been 
looking frantically for money, and the target they seem to have landed 
on is Medicare--the government health plan for the elderly.
  Last month, the administration proposed hundreds of billions of 
dollars in cuts. It said by taking this money out of Medicare and 
putting it into a new government-run plan for all Americans, we could 
help pay for health care reform. Not only is this aimed at concealing 
the cost of the new government plan, it is also a reckless misuse of 
funds that should be used to stabilize Medicare instead.
  Weeks before the administration proposed its cuts to Medicare, the 
government board that oversees this vital program issued an urgent 
report on its looming insolvency. Let me say that again. Just weeks 
before the administration recommended Medicare cuts in order to pay for 
a new program, the government board that oversees this program issued 
an urgent report on its looming insolvency. Already, Medicare is 
spending more money than it is taking in. It runs out of money 
altogether in 8 years. And over the coming decades, Medicare is already 
committed to spend nearly $40 trillion that it does not have.
  If there were ever a crisis that cannot wait another day for reform, 
it is Medicare. Yet rather than do the hard but necessary work to put 
this program on a sound financial basis, the administration wants to 
take money away from it and use it to create an entirely new 
government-run system that would presumably have the same fiscal 
problems down the road that Medicare has today. This makes no sense 
whatsoever.
  Savings from Medicare should be put back into Medicare--not a 
government plan that could drive millions of Americans out of the 
private health care plans they have and like and lead to the same kind 
of denial, delay, and rationing of health care that we have seen in 
other countries.
  We must be committed to reform but not a so-called reform that raids 
one insolvent government-run health care program in order to create 
another insolvent government-run health care program. The 
administration should be applauded for trying to fix what is wrong with 
our Nation's health care system, but it needs to slow down and take a 
deep breath before taking over what amounts to about one-sixth of our 
Nation's economy with a single piece of legislation that lacks 
bipartisan support.
  The administration rushed ahead with a poorly conceived stimulus plan 
that added a trillion dollars to the national debt and has not stopped 
half a million Americans a month from losing their jobs. It should 
learn from that and not rush a poorly conceived health care plan with 
money we do not have. We do not need more rush-and-spend policymaking. 
We need to reform health care, but we do not need to weaken Medicare to 
do it. We can reform both, but we should start with Medicare.
  At a time when Americans are increasingly concerned about the future 
of health care and also about a political system in which they see 
fewer and fewer checks on the party in power, now would be the ideal 
time to advance a truly bipartisan reform. The President has repeatedly 
expressed openness to reforming Medicare in the past. We stand ready to 
work with him to strengthen and preserve Medicare if he chooses to 
follow through on those assurances.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I congratulate the Republican leader on 
his remarks. I remember Senator McConnell's first address following 
President Obama's election at the National Press Club. It was to the 
President, saying: Mr. President, we look forward to working with you, 
and the pressing issue is the entitlements facing this country, the 
automatic spending that means more and more and more debt.
  I would ask the Republican leader whether there has been any response 
from the administration to him about the opportunity to work together 
across party lines to deal with Social Security which, as I remember in 
January, was your proposal?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my good friend from Tennessee, unfortunately, 
there has been no followup whatsoever. There seemed to be, on the part 
of the President and the President's Chief of Staff at the beginning of 
the administration, a willingness to support the Conrad-Gregg proposal, 
which would have given us a way to get a handle on at least Social 
Security--they did not seem to want to deal with Medicare, and I think 
we now know why--at least Social Security, with an expedited procedure 
and an up-or-down vote guaranteeing a result. But I would say to my 
friend from Tennessee, there has been no word on that lately.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in my visits in Tennessee this past 
week, if I heard two things, one was too many Washington takeovers; the 
other was too much debt. I found in people--and I hesitate to use the 
word--a great deal of fear about the amount of debt we are piling up 
here in Washington.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I think there is a genuine alarm. 
Americans see the government now running banks, insurance companies, 
automobile companies. The Senator from Tennessee points out student 
loans. Now they fear the government wants to take over health care as 
well. I think there is a growing suspicion that this is exactly the 
wrong way to go.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his comment 
about checks and balances. There is something innate in the American 
character about checks and balances. Alexis de Tocqueville warned, in 
the early 1800s, about the tyranny of a majority. We like to see 
results, but we do not want to see one party or one faction run away 
with policy. We seem to know it is better if there is a check and a 
balance. And the genius of the American system is we have many checks 
and balances.
  I wonder, Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has 8 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Acting President pro tempore.

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