[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17893-17894]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 THE TRAGEDY OF A SOCIALIST AMERICA AND ITS DESTRUCTION OF HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, this is not a roadmap. This is 
the Democrats' new health care plan, all of these white things. Can you 
believe that? I was just talking to my colleague over there, Mr. Poe 
from Texas.
  All of these white things are new agencies of government, new 
agencies of government that we're going to have to pay for in order to 
take care of the health of the Nation. Now, this thing is going to cost 
between $1 and $3 trillion over the next 10 years, and I doubt 
seriously if anybody who is writing this 1,200-page bill, or whatever 
it is, knows what this stuff does. It's just crazy. Look at all of 
these agencies. Look at the minefields that people have to go through 
to get to their doctors down there at the end to take care of their 
health care needs.
  Other countries that have used this kind of an approach ration health 
care for senior citizens. They ration health care for people who have 
certain kinds of diseases. They have to wait months and months and 
months for MRIs and for other things that we would get very rapidly 
here in the United States because we have the highest quality of health 
care in the world, and so we are going to create a government 
bureaucracy.
  I hope my colleagues back in their offices are looking at this, 
because most of them haven't seen this.
  We are creating a government bureaucracy that looks worse than any 
Federal highway system like in California. I mean you can't even find 
your way around this thing, but that's not the worst of it.
  Since last October, this is how much money we've spent: $700 billion 
on the TARP program, which includes $54 billion for the auto bailout, 
which we really didn't need to do because they filed for bankruptcy 
anyhow, so that $54 billion was wasted. Who cares. That's just 
taxpayers' money. Then we had $1.1 trillion, including interest, for 
the stimulus package, which is not working, because they said that was 
going to keep unemployment below 8 percent. Now it is 9.5 and is going 
up like a rocket, so that didn't work. That's $1.1 trillion. On the 
omnibus spending bill, we had $410 billion. The defense supplemental 
was $106 billion. Now, there may have been some necessity for that. The 
SCHIP bill was $73 billion. The cap-and-trade is going to cost every 
family in this country between $1,000 and $3,000 a year in additional 
expenses for turning on their lights or for putting gasoline in their 
cars or for getting gas to heat their homes. Then there's this health 
care bill, which will be $1 trillion to $3 trillion, and I'll tell you: 
It is going to be a lot more than that.
  Let me tell you a little story, my colleagues who may be paying 
attention. When I was a state senator, the Federal Government came into 
Indiana and said, If you don't take the Medicaid bill, we're going to 
withdraw $2.5 million in Federal highway funds. They were blackmailing 
the State of Indiana into taking the Medicaid program by saying that we 
were going to lose $2.5 million if we didn't take it.
  I went up to the Senate floor, and I said, Hey, it's going to cost us 
10 times this amount of money if we do take Medicaid. I said it would 
cost about $25 million. Do you know how much that costs now? Between $1 
billion and $2 billion a year. I was so far off it isn't funny.
  This thing right here is not going to cost $1 trillion to $3 
trillion. It's going to cost trillions more than that. It's going to 
reduce the quality of health care. It's going to cause the rationing of 
health care, and it's going to ruin

[[Page 17894]]

the system of health care we have in this country. It's just a tragedy 
that this is happening.
  This administration is moving as rapidly as they can toward a 
socialistic form of government, and everybody in this country ought to 
know it. They are trying to control and are controlling the investment 
business, the banking business, the automobile business; with cap-and-
trade, they're controlling the energy business; and now the health care 
business. This is really a tragic time for America, and I hope 
everybody in this country who may be paying attention will really take 
a close look at this and will call their Congressman if they are paying 
attention.
  I know I can't address them, Mr. Speaker, but if I were addressing 
the American people, I would say, Contact your Congressman and tell him 
you don't want this mess passed into law. It is going to jeopardize the 
quality of your health care here in America.

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