[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19569]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             LET'S LEARN LESSONS FROM HEALTH CARE FAILURES

  (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, tomorrow the President is going to be a 
stone's throw from the Tennessee border when he is out on the trail 
speaking with people. And I have no doubt he is going to have something 
to say about health care and say we can't put off health care reform 
any longer. And most people agree that we need some smart reforms on 
cost, on access, on insurance liability and on insurance 
accountability. I would also say that we need to heed the warnings that 
will come from some of the public option experiments that have taken 
place in our States.
  My home State of Tennessee is home to one of these public option 
experiments. And our governor, a Democrat, has even called this a 
disaster. Now, 15 years after that experiment being put in place, our 
State is still digging out from a system that went horribly wrong, and 
it is a system that rationed care and cost billions more each year than 
anticipated.
  I have asked the administration repeatedly for assurances if they 
understand what went wrong. I am still waiting. Let's learn these 
lessons from TennCare.

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