[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 18489]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE WILL COST JOBS

  (Mrs. BLACKBURN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, the health care proposals that are 
before us have been tried before. Public option was tried in my home 
State of Tennessee under a plan called TennCare. For more than 10 
years, the legislature and three Governors tried to make it work. It 
has been less than successful. But what has happened is that a program 
that was supposed to have saved millions, tens of millions of dollars, 
has never saved one nickel. It also has restricted access. It has 
driven up the cost of private health insurance, and it has nearly 
bankrupted the State.
  Tennesseeans know that rushing to reform health care and doing that 
wrong is a very expensive process. We all know that costs and access of 
health care needs to be addressed. No one seriously believes that any 
of these plans before this House right now is going to do that.
  Tennesseeans know the cost of rushing and getting it wrong, and the 
American people are figuring it out because they have seen the majority 
rush a stimulus, an omnibus, a housingus and a porkulus that has left 
the American people saying, where are the jobs? And they do not want 
that to happen in health care.

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