[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Page 25860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      HEALTH CARE WEEK XV, DAY III

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, after months of hearing that Americans 
don't want government-run health care, Democratic leaders in Washington 
have made their decision: They are going to include it in their health 
care bill whether Americans want it or not.
  Supporters of the government-run plan say they are only advocating 
one more option among many. What they don't say is that the option they 
are advocating would soon be the only option. The others would simply 
fade away.
  It is not that hard to understand. Private health plans would fade 
away because a government-run plan would use the deep pockets of the 
Federal Government to set artificially low prices or absorb a loss, 
making it impossible for private plans to compete. Private plans would 
either become so expensive that only the very wealthy could afford them 
or they would go out of business altogether.
  If you want to know what happens after that, just ask somebody who 
lives in a country that has already gone down the road of government-
run health care for all. What we have seen in those countries is what 
we would see here: rationing, denials, and delay. In the United 
Kingdom, for example, a government board sets guidelines on who gets to 
use certain drugs and treatments. This means that even if a treatment 
is effective, it can be withheld from patients because of the amount of 
money it costs the government. This is what happens when government 
gets involved in the health care business.
  A government plan won't come cheap either. We don't know all the 
details that Democratic leaders put into their bill behind closed 
doors, but we do know it will cost over $1 trillion in the middle of a 
terrible recession. It will cost $1 trillion at a time of near 10 
percent unemployment; $1 trillion just a few weeks after the Treasury 
Department said the administration ran up the largest annual deficit in 
U.S. history; $1 trillion at a moment when the U.S. Government is 
financing 9 out of 10 new mortgages and already owns most major U.S. 
automakers, along with large parts of the finance and insurance 
industries. It will cost $1 trillion at a time when government spending 
accounts for a bigger share of the national economy than at any time 
since the Second World War. It will cost $1 trillion when Congress is 
about to make a public admission that it can't handle its own finances 
by raising the debt ceiling.
  Now is not the time for a $1 trillion experiment in government health 
care. Now is the time to buckle down financially and to find 
commonsense reforms in the area of health care that actually save 
people money by driving down costs.
  Americans asked for lower costs, and they didn't get it. What they 
got instead was more government, more spending, more debt. This is why 
so many Americans feel as though they have been taken for a ride in 
this debate, and it is also why a lot of our friends on the other side 
are concerned about the bill that is headed to the Senate floor. 
Americans have issued their verdict. They have been clear. They have 
said that enough is enough--no government plan, no more debt, no more 
government takeovers.
  Democratic leaders may continue to insist on a bill that most 
Americans oppose, but it is the wrong approach. A government-owned, 
government-operated insurance plan was a bad idea before, and it is a 
bad idea now.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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