[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Page 22916]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       HEALTH CARE WEEK XI, DAY I

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, Senators will continue to hash out a 
health care bill in committee today, and anyone who tunes in will hear 
a dizzying amount of detail about what is in and what is out.
  But it is worth noting that the basic shape of this legislation is 
already clear: Any bill that makes it to the Senate floor will include 
a heavy dose of tax hikes. Any bill that makes it to the floor will 
include massive cuts to Medicare. Any bill that makes it to the floor 
of the Senate will be about 1,000 pages long, cost about a trillion 
dollars, affect about one-sixth of the entire U.S. economy, and impact 
the health care of every single American, whether they like it or not.
  And here is the other thing we know: Democrats don't want to give the 
American people the time they need to review all the details. We saw 
this last week when they rejected a request for a simple 72-hour 
review, which is hard for anyone who grasps the scope of this 
legislation to understand. Nor would they pledge to wait until we 
understand the full cost of this bill, before acting on it.
  There is important work going on in the Finance Committee this week, 
but no one should lose sight of where the work is headed. What we know 
for sure is higher taxes when American families and businesses are 
struggling just to make ends meet, cuts to seniors' Medicare when the 
program is already going bankrupt, more spending and more debt when we 
are about to end the fiscal year just today with an annual deficit 
roughly equivalent to the deficits of the last 5 years combined--the 
deficit this fiscal year, ending today, will be roughly as much as the 
last 5 years combined--and a government intrusion into health care of 
every single American at a time when Americans are asking us to lower 
costs and lower premiums, not add new burdens to the system or wreck 
the care they already have and like.
  We know the essentials of the health care bill already. Americans 
have every reason to be concerned.
  I yield the floor.

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