[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 21623-21624]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       GET HEALTHCARE DONE RIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Michigan (Mrs. Miller) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. MILLER of Michigan. Madam Speaker, the American health care 
system is clearly in need of reform. Yet at the same time our system of 
health care continues to be the envy of the world in producing life-
saving innovations in the pharmaceutical industry, in medical 
procedures and in treatment.
  Congress certainly must act to help bring down costs and expand 
access to health insurance, while preserving the quality of care 
patients receive in this great, great Nation. I have heard many of my 
Democratic colleagues, and certainly the President, speak about the 
need to increase competition in the health insurance marketplace to 
help reduce costs, and I could not agree more.
  But where I part company with my Democratic colleagues is in their 
prescription for the problem. The way they want to increase competition 
is to create a new government insurance company, better known as the 
public option, to provide this competition. They have demonized 
insurance companies in an effort to build support for this misguided 
plan, even though recent public opinion surveys have shown that over 80 
percent of Americans are satisfied with their current plan. My concerns 
with the public option, which are shared, I think, by huge amounts of 
Americans, is that it would have an unfair advantage that could crowd 
out private health care, and it would put huge new costs on the 
American taxpayers.
  For months the President has said if you like what you have, you can 
keep it. Then just last week, the President changed that and he said, 
instead, there is nothing in this bill that would force you or your 
employer to change what you have.
  Well, it may be true that nothing will force you or your employer 
into the public option, but the bill before the House has perverse 
incentives to encourage your employer to do just that. The bill 
mandates individuals to purchase insurance, and it requires large 
employers to provide care for their employees. Businesses that do not 
provide health care insurance will be taxed at 8 percent of their 
payroll as a penalty, and most employers will tell you that health care 
costs typically run about 14 to 16 percent of their payroll.
  So businesses that are struggling to make ends meet will now face a 
choice, either continue to pay 15 percent of their payroll to provide 
coverage for their employees, or just dump them out onto the public 
plan and take the 8 percent penalty. Well, that is a pretty easy 
business decision to make. Unfortunately, it has very broad 
implications for their employers, and I believe this Nation will go to 
a government-run health care plan very, very quickly as a result of 
that.
  Madam Speaker, there is a better way to reduce the cost of insurance 
at virtually no cost to the government, and that is to simply allow 
individuals

[[Page 21624]]

and businesses to purchase health care insurance across State lines. 
Lifting this restriction would bring hundreds, if not thousands, of new 
competitors into the private marketplace to compete for business. This 
would absolutely reduce costs, and it's a simple change which we can 
enact immediately.
  The President actually made an analogy to private auto insurance, and 
I would respectfully remind the President that auto insurance can be 
purchased across State lines, and there is no public option in auto 
insurance. The market regulates itself to keep costs down.
  Additionally, millions of Americans today have their health care 
covered by a health savings account. If H.R. 3200 is enacted, health 
savings accounts will be gone and those who utilize them will be forced 
to change their coverage. So, again, this is actually less choice and 
less competition in the health care industry.
  I was very glad last week when the President said he would look at 
pilot programs with regard to medical liability reform. For too long, 
trial attorneys have looked at doctors as ATM machines and have filed 
countless frivolous lawsuits.
  This has driven up costs by forcing insurance companies to settle 
because these suits cost too much to fight, regardless of their merit, 
and the costs are passed along to doctors in the form of higher 
premiums and ultimately higher health insurance costs to consumers. It 
has also made it very difficult for specialty doctors like OB/GYNs to 
practice, and it limits access, particularly in rural areas.
  Many States have enacted caps on noneconomic damages. And in every 
place where this has happened, doctors have moved in, lawyers have 
moved out, and costs have gone down.
  So I was very disappointed when the President said over the weekend 
that he doesn't believe caps work. Respectfully, Mr. President, 
actually, caps on noneconomic damage is medical liability reform.
  Madam Speaker, the American people are rightfully concerned about how 
any reform will impact out-of-control Federal spending and our 
exploding Federal deficit. It just stretches credibility when people 
are told that we can create a public option, expand access and 
availability of care, and we can do so without dramatically increasing 
taxes or adding to the Federal debt.
  Well, you can't get something for nothing, particularly when the 
government is involved. And many seniors find it difficult to believe 
that we can pay for some of this by reducing spending on Medicare by 
$600 billion and more and not impact their level of care.
  The proponents say these cuts are just waste, fraud and abuse. Well, 
if there is that much waste, fraud and abuse, we should be attacking 
that.
  Madam Speaker, we can do better. And, for the sake of the American 
people, we must do better.

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