[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25237]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         PUBLIC OPTION DISASTER

  (Mr. ROE of Tennessee asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, this week The Washington Post 
published a poll supposedly showing that 57 percent of the American 
people support, and I quote, ``having the government create a new 
health insurance plan to compete with the private health insurance 
plans.'' Unfortunately, what The Post failed to ask and what poll after 
poll has consistently shown is that Americans who claim to support a 
government-run option switch their opinion when they find out that 
creating such a plan will decrease quality and access and increase 
costs.
  How do I know this will happen? I practiced medicine in Tennessee 
under a plan very similar to what the Democrats are proposing here. We 
sought to increase access to health insurance by lowering provider 
payments and promising free medical care to our State's government-run 
Medicaid plan. Our plan was called TennCare, but it might as well have 
been called H.R. 3200. It resulted in costs tripling in 10 years and 
rationing of care when our State couldn't pay for the care that was 
promised.
  Our businesses realized they could shift the cost to the public 
sector, and our State saw 45 percent of individuals on TennCare who had 
previously been on private health insurance. It was a disaster. And I'm 
trying to prevent that disaster from playing out on a national level.

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