[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19231]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      THE BEST PRODUCT FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, back in November, Hank Paulson, the 
Secretary of the Treasury, and President Bush came to Congress in a 
rush that the financial sky was going to fall out if we did not pass 
the TARP bill, the financial bailout for Wall Street. Now, we were told 
that if we didn't do it, that stock portfolios and savings of Americans 
all over the country would decrease, maybe as much as 30 or 40 percent. 
Well, in that spirit of panic that frequently happens in this town, we 
did pass TARP. And what happened to your IRA back home? What happened 
to your savings account? What happened to your stock portfolio? Unless 
you're extremely lucky and unusual, your assets dropped by 30 or 40 
percent. So much for the $700 billion bailout.
  And then in January, President Obama, using the same panic tactic, 
came to us and said, we have got to pass a second stimulus program. 
Keep in mind we had already passed one under President Bush in May of 
2008. But we had to pass, in a hurry, something big, something 
dramatic, $790 billion for a stimulus program. Why? Because the 
unemployment rate was 8 percent. But this would give us immediate 
results, President Obama promised. And so that was passed by Congress.
  And yet, now, unemployment is approaching 10 percent, and in States 
like Michigan, as high as 15 percent; 2\1/2\ million Americans have 
become unemployed since the passage of the stimulus program. And now we 
have the same Washington-knows-best experts telling us that we have to 
pass major health care reform by next week, August 1.
  Now, I want you to think about this. This is 17 percent of the 
economy, and we would put it in the hands of the Federal Government. It 
would set up a scheme where there would be a health care czar that 
would run and stipulate insurance policies all over the country; and in 
order to sell insurance in the United States of America, you would have 
to go through this bureaucracy and enter into an exchange. And there, 
inside this closed circle defined by the Federal Government, you would 
compete against a government option which would have the rules rigged 
in its favor. And if you, as an individual, did not do that, you'd have 
to pay a 2\1/2\ percent surcharge. And if you, in a small business, did 
not offer insurance to your employees you'd have to pay 8 percent.
  Is that the best way to get things done? A huge, $1.2 trillion 
expense on top of the TARP bill, on top of the stimulus bill, on top of 
the war in Iraq, on top of all the other problems that we have, we're 
now going to go out and spend $1.2 trillion and tax virtually everybody 
in America to do it. We can also look at the Canadian or the German or 
the British system and see the rationing that it leads to. And we know, 
if you live around a border State near Canada, that when they need to 
see a doctor, they come to the United States of America.
  And we have also seen in States like Massachusetts, where they have a 
government option, that it takes twice as long to see a doctor as it 
does in Los Angeles. We also know that this plan will do away with 
Medicare Advantage. I don't know if the AARP realized that when they 
endorsed the bill, but this not only does away with Medicare Advantage, 
but it cuts Medicare itself. And then, between you and the doctor comes 
the bureaucrat, because you don't get a second opinion under the 
government-run health care system. What the doctor tells you, that 
sticks. You can't go to three or four doctors because the bureaucrats 
in Washington who make the rules don't allow it.
  These are things that concern me. They concern Democrats and 
Republicans alike, seniors and young people entering into the 
workforce. That's why I think we should slow this system down. And when 
you hear somebody say this does not require a senior citizen to have a 
consultant with their doctor and the government bureaucrat every 5 
years, on their end-of-life plan, they're wrong because that is in the 
bill. Every 5 years senior citizens are supposed to report to some 
bureaucrat and say, here's my 5-year end-of-life plan, and as President 
Obama said himself, and we are going to strongly encourage hospice.
  Well, you know, I'd rather have my mom make that decision as my dad, 
who is now dead. I'd like to have her make that decision just as he 
did, with his doctor, not bringing in a government bureaucrat, and not 
having to have some sign-off by some government bureaucrat. That should 
scare anybody who's parents are alive or any senior citizens.
  Indeed, there are better ways to do this thing: association health 
plans that would allow small businesses to band together and get the 
economies of scale that the big purchasers of insurance can get; 
medical savings accounts, which would allow you to have deductibles; 
many other options. We can look at them. We need the time. Let's make 
the time count. Let's pull Democrats and Republicans together for the 
best product

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