[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 18474-18475]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE WILL LEAD TO RATIONING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Scalise) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, right now Americans all across the country 
are dealing with this tough economy, many by tightening their belts and 
by managing their family budgets. Unfortunately, they are looking to 
Washington, and they are seeing this Congress that is being run by 
people that don't get what the American people are dealing with across 
the country.
  Spending is out of control here in Washington by this administration 
and by this Congress. Look at the proposals that we are debating today. 
Health care in America needs reforms. But with all of the problems that 
exist, we still have some of the best medical care in the world. In 
fact, people that live in countries that have a government-run plan and 
who have the means, come to America to get care because in those 
countries, government takeover of health care has led directly to 
rationing of care. And so what are we facing today? We are facing a 
plan by the President, Speaker Pelosi and others here to have a 
government takeover of America's health care system.
  When you read this bill, and you hear all of this great rhetoric, you 
hear the President saying that if you like the plan you have, you can 
keep it. The problem is, the bill doesn't allow you to keep your health 
care plan. There is actually a section in their government takeover 
that allows a health care czar, some bureaucrat in Washington that was 
never elected to anything, to be able to take away your health care if 
they don't think that it complies with these new Federal requirements. 
So if you like what you have, this health care czar can take it away 
from you.
  In fact, if you're uninsured--and all we hear about is the uninsured 
and

[[Page 18475]]

that we need to address the problem of the uninsured, and I agree. The 
thing is when you really break down the numbers and when you look at 
who is really uninsured, you get to a number of about 7 million people. 
Once you strip away the illegal aliens and you take away the people who 
choose not to get health care who are currently eligible, you end up 
with 7 million Americans. That is a number we can address without 
blowing up all of the things that work for over 300 million Americans.

                              {time}  1115

  But in their plan, they actually tax some of those very people that 
are uninsured.
  The Congressional Budget Office just gave testimony last week. 
Unfortunately the chairman of the committee threw the public out of the 
meeting. It was a secretive meeting that they wouldn't even allow the 
public to come into. I guess after they heard the testimony, you can 
see why, because the testimony said, number one, that the costs in this 
bill are out of control. All of the savings that we heard, that were 
promised, don't even exist. That's the Congressional Budget Office's 
testimony.
  But then they talked about the taxes, over $580 billion in new taxes 
on businesses in their health care bill. There's over $240 billion of 
penalties that would be applied to American families that maybe don't 
go along with this new government takeover of health care. There's $29 
billion of taxes on uninsured people in their bill. The Congressional 
Budget Office gave the specific testimony that this bill, this 
government takeover of health care, adds $29 billion in new taxes on 
the backs of uninsured Americans. And this is as they're running around 
saying that they want to help uninsured Americans. I know a lot of 
uninsured Americans out there that don't think $29 billion of new taxes 
on their backs is the kind of help that they want. When you look at 
this bill, you start to realize that what they're doing, what they're 
proposing, is the very government takeover where rationing of care 
would exist, where a government bureaucrat can get in between the 
relationship of you and your doctor. It's the same thing that's 
happened in Canada, it's the same thing that's happened in England, 
where unfortunately just yesterday we saw the story of a 22-year-old 
who was denied lifesaving care, denied a transplant by this government 
bureaucracy that exists in England that rations care.
  I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee where this bill is 
currently being debated. We were in committee till 12:30 in the morning 
last night. We had an amendment that would have prohibited a Federal 
bureaucrat in Washington from interfering between the relationship of 
an American citizen and their doctor. That's the most sacrosanct 
relationship that should exist. Nobody should come between the 
relationship between you and your doctor. Yet they voted down that 
amendment. So clearly this is about rationing. Their proposal is not 
about reforming health care, because there's bipartisan agreement on 
the reforms that need to be made to address the real problems that 
exist in health care. What their bill is about is a government 
takeover. It's growing government more. It's adding more to the Federal 
deficit. Hundreds of billions of dollars by CBO testimony would be 
added to the Federal deficit, at a time when Americans are saying, 
Congress, Washington, control spending. Get a grip. People saw that the 
stimulus didn't work. There are no jobs.
  This bill is a horrible idea. Government should not be taking over 
our health care system and interfering in the relationship between us 
and our doctor.

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