[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17537-17538]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. THUNE. I think that sort of segues into the other big issue, the 
big epic battles we are going to face in the Congress, and that is what 
to do to reform our health care system so that we can make the cost 
more affordable for American families and consumers. I don't think 
anybody argues that we don't need to reform our health care system; 
that there aren't things we can do better, more efficiently, more cost 
effectively.
  I certainly would not for a minute suggest--as some have suggested 
about Republicans--that Republicans in the Senate don't want to do 
anything. We all believe we need to do something. We all believe there 
is much that can be done that will help improve coverage and lower 
costs for people in this country. But it can be done in a way that 
doesn't turn everything over--the keys of the health care system--to 
the Federal Government.
  Much of what we are seeing right now in terms of the plans that are 
moving through the Congress is that the House of Representatives will 
pass a bill, perhaps first, which will come over to the Senate. What is 
being debated--at least at the committee level in the Senate--consists 
of what they call a public plan option which, in effect, is a 
government plan. It is a--I would characterize it--government takeover 
of the health care system in this country because when the government 
goes into competition with the private sector, I think it will be very 
difficult for the private sector to compete.
  There are many, obviously, already competing plans out there. In 
fact, George Will noted there are 1,300 entities offering health care 
plans in this country. Another one isn't going to change that. But the 
larger problem we have when the Federal Government gets into 
competition with private business is that the Federal Government 
becomes not a competitor but a predator. I think the government plan is 
not going to compete with the private market, but rather it will 
destroy the private market. A lot of studies bear that out.
  If you look at the independent estimates--and in fact the Lewin Group 
studied this very carefully--they suggest that nearly 6 out of 10 
Americans with private coverage, or about 118 million Americans, would 
lose their current health care coverage and be forced into a 
government-run health care plan. In fact, John Shields of the Lewin 
Group said:

       If we created this public plan which is priced so much 
     lower than private insurance, that will draw a lot of people 
     in. Then you will wake up one morning and say: Wow, there is 
     only one payer.

  Essentially, what would happen, Mr. President, in my view, is we 
would see the private companies that are offering insurance, or small 
businesses that are offering coverage to their employees who would say: 
I can't compete with the Federal Government. I am just going to have 
all my employees move over into the government-run program. So that 
essentially, by default, we would see this government takeover of our 
health care system, and the government plan would become the plan in 
the country. Eventually, over time, I would argue, it would evolve into 
a single-payer system.
  We are talking about one-sixth of the American economy. Certainly 
there are shortcomings in our current way of doing things. When we 
spend 17 percent or one-sixth of our entire GDP on health care, the 
assumption is that we are not spending enough money on health care. It 
is probably that we are not spending it wisely enough or not spending 
it smarter. We have lots of ideas about how to spend smarter that don't 
involve putting another $1 trillion or $2 trillion in tax burden on 
Americans in order to pay for this new system or, perhaps even worse 
yet, borrowing it from future generations, which is what we have been 
doing routinely around here for the past several months to fund many of 
these new initiatives. But those are both bad solutions.
  A $1 trillion tax or upwards of that, depending on which estimate we 
look at, up to $2 trillion in additional cost for the plan that is 
being proposed by Democrats in the House and the Senate--we have to 
finance it somehow. It is going to be paid for. It is either going to 
be paid for in the form of higher taxes on the American economy or 
borrowing from future generations, neither of which, in my view, is an 
option we ought to pursue.
  On the other hand, we ought to look at how we can make the current 
system--the 17 percent of our economy or the $2.5 trillion we spend 
annually on health care--more efficient and more effective. How can we 
emphasize wellness? How can we emphasize prevention? How can we allow 
individuals and small businesses to join larger groups to get the 
benefit of group purchasing power and buying in volume? How can we 
create competition by allowing people to buy across State lines? How do 
we get the cost of defensive medicine down by reforming our medical 
malpractice laws so the doctors aren't in fear of being sued or in fear 
of liability, overutilizing and therefore practicing defensive 
medicine, which has been suggested by the Health and Human Services 
Department in a study they did in 2003.
  If we put it in today's dollars, it suggests we could save about $180 
billion a year in health care costs by doing something about medical 
malpractice reform.
  So these are all things that we are for. We have lots of ideas about 
how to improve health care in this country or improve at least the 
delivery of health care and drive down the cost of health care but do 
it in a way that doesn't impede upon that important relationship 
between a physician and a patient; in a way that prevents the 
government from imposing itself into that situation and the government 
then making a decision about which procedures are going to be covered, 
how much is going to be paid for each procedure, and essentially 
becoming the decider when it comes to health care in this country.
  We think the decisions that are made with respect to people's health 
care ought to be made by patients, by providers, and not having the 
government dictating and getting in the way of that basic fundamental 
relationship.
  The CBO has said about the Kennedy-Dodd bill, which is the only one 
we know of right now that is moving its way through the committee 
process and that is currently being marked up, the government plan was 
not projected to have premiums lower than those charged by private 
insurance plans. But how, then, is the government going to offer any 
benefit?
  The government plan is going to be, in my view, redundant to what is 
already out there unless it comes in and tries to undercut private 
insurance,

[[Page 17538]]

 which would put private insurance options out of business and force, 
as I said before, many small businesses offering coverage to push those 
employees into the government-run program.
  So, Mr. President, these are both, just as I said before, in terms of 
size, scope, scale, and magnitude, enormous issues in terms of our 
domestic economy, and we shouldn't be hurrying these issues through. 
There is some suggestion that the health care bill, as it comes over 
from the House, might be returned to the floor of the Senate, put on 
the floor under rule XIV, and an attempt made to get it passed before 
the August recess. That is not the way to conduct the business of the 
Senate. That is not the way to deal with one-sixth of the American 
economy. It is not the way, certainly, to deal with something as 
complex as the American health care system.
  To allow the government takeover of that system, it seems to me, is 
something most Americans, if they were aware was happening, would not 
be for. I think the survey numbers bear that out. I think, as is true 
with cap and trade, the more the American people are engaged in this 
debate, the more they hear about it, the more objections they are going 
to have to the government takeover of health care in this country.
  So these are both issues which need to be done thoughtfully and 
carefully and, frankly, they shouldn't be rushed out of here. We 
shouldn't be trying to pass health care out of the Senate before the 
August break. We shouldn't be talking about doing cap and trade--
although I think that is now being pushed back into the fall.
  These both have huge impacts on America's economy and get at the 
heart of the issue of how we are going to retain and create new jobs 
and expand our economy. These are very consequential issues and 
shouldn't be rushed. So I hope the Senate will take its time. I hope it 
will allow for full debate and that we will have an opportunity to put 
some of our ideas out there, some of the alternatives we think, in 
fact, would improve health care in this country and make it more 
affordable for more Americans.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________