[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16859-16860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       HEALTH CARE WEEK V, DAY II

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the American people want health care 
reform. There is no question about that. But they have serious concerns 
about some of the proposals coming out of Washington, concerns that I 
have outlined on the Senate floor over the past few weeks. And 
Americans are also increasingly concerned about the way these proposals 
are being sold. Specifically, they are concerned that the same mistakes 
that were made on the economic stimulus bill are about to be made 
again--only this time, those mistakes would be all but permanent and 
would directly affect every single American family.
  Here is what they are concerned about:
  Earlier this year, advocates of the stimulus said that the bill had 
to pass right away, with minimal scrutiny and minimal bipartisan 
support. They gave the American people less than 24 hours to review one 
of the costliest pieces of legislation in history, and then they hoped 
for a good result. The reason for the rush is clear. Proponents of the 
stimulus were concerned that public support would start to fade if 
people got a closer look at the details. So they short-changed the 
debate and overpromised on results. And now their predictions are 
coming back to bite them.
  Here is what they said at the time.
  They said that if the stimulus passed, unemployment wouldn't rise 
above 8 percent. Unemployment is now approaching 10 percent. They said 
the stimulus was necessary to jumpstart the economy. Yet now, with 
about a half million jobs lost every month, they have started to admit 
that they simply ``misread'' the economy.
  These were costly mistakes, and we can't take them back.
  But we can prevent these same kinds of mistakes on health care. If 
the stimulus taught us anything it is that Americans should be 
skeptical any time someone in Washington rushes them into a major 
purchase with taxpayer dollars. We would walk away from any car 
salesman who tried to

[[Page 16860]]

rush us into buying a car--even if it was a cheap one.
  We should be just as skeptical of a lawmaker who tries to do the same 
thing with our tax dollars and trillions in borrowed money. And now 
that Americans are hearing the same kinds of arguments about health 
care that we heard about the stimulus, the taxpayer antenna should 
begin to go up.
  Now it is time for advocates of a government-run health plan to 
actually take the time to determine what reforms will actually save us 
money and increase access to care while preserving the things people 
like about our system.
  Taking time may be frustrating to those who want to rush a health 
care bill through Congress before their constituents have a chance to 
see what they are buying. But the fact that the public is increasingly 
concerned about government-run health care isn't reason to rush. It is 
reason to take the time we need to get it right--and to make a serious 
effort to get members of both parties to work out reforms that a 
bipartisan majority can agree to, several of which I have enumerated 
many times already on the Senate floor.
  We should reform our medical liability laws to discourage junk 
lawsuits and bring down the cost of care; we should encourage wellness 
and prevention programs that have been successful in cutting costs; we 
should encourage competition in the private insurance market; and we 
should address the needs of small businesses without creating new taxes 
that kill jobs.
  Advocates of government health care should also be exceedingly 
cautious about the predictions they make this time around. We already 
know that many of the promises that are being made about a government-
run health plan are unrealistic--such as the claim that everyone who 
likes the insurance they have will be able to keep it and that the cost 
of such health care proposals won't add to the national debt.
  As Democrats rushed the stimulus funds out the door, they also 
predicted it wouldn't be wasted. Yet every day we hear about another 
outrageous project that it is being used to fund. I have listed some of 
these projects in previous floor remarks, such as a $3.4 million turtle 
tunnel in Florida. Americans struggling to hold onto their homes and 
their jobs want to know why their tax dollars are being spent on such 
wasteful and needless projects.
  Americans were overpromised on the stimulus. This time they want the 
facts.
  Soon, the Government Accountability Office will issue a report that 
gives us an even greater sense of the problems with the stimulus. I am 
concerned that this report provide an even clearer accounting of the 
mistakes that were made with that bill--and the flawed manner in which 
it was sold to the American people.
  Americans who are now waking up to headlines about the problems with 
the stimulus don't want to be told a few months from now that the 
people who sold them a government-run health care system misread the 
state of our health care industry, or that the health care plan they 
are proposing was based on faulty assumptions.
  Americans don't want to wake up a few years from now with their 
families enrolled in a government-run health care system because some 
here in Washington decided to rush and spend a trillion dollars and let 
the chips fall where they may.
  The American people don't want us to rush through a misguided plan 
that pushes them off of their health insurance and onto a government 
plan that denies, delays, and rations care. On the stimulus, Americans 
saw what happens when Democrats rush and spend. When it comes to health 
care, they are demanding we take the time to get it right.

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