[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 26347-26348]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       HEALTH CARE WEEK XVI DAY I

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, for months, the American people have 
been sending us a clear message about what they want to see in health 
care reform. They want practical, common-sense reforms that drive down 
the cost of care, improve access, and create more choices. What they 
are getting instead from Congress are higher premiums, higher taxes, 
Medicare cuts, and more government control over their health care 
decisions.
  They are getting the same old big-government solutions to problems 
that call for creative, modern-day solutions.
  Quite simply, there seems to be a disconnect between the American 
people and Democrat leaders in Congress. And nowhere is that disconnect 
more apparent than in the 2,000-page bureaucratic monstrosity of a bill 
that House Democrats dropped on the American people last week.
  At its core, this bill is very similar to what we have already seen 
in the Senate--a trillion-dollar government experiment that raises 
taxes, raises premiums, slashes Medicare, and leads to unprecedented 
government control over the health care decisions of Americans. That is 
the foundation, the starting-off point. It doesn't get any better from 
there.
  Let's start with the pricetag. At a time of unprecedented government 
spending and a staggering $12 trillion debt, the Democrat health care 
bill asks taxpayers to pony up at least another trillion dollars. To 
get some sense of the size of that figure, consider the fact that this 
bill would cost more than $2 million per word. And believe it or not, 
that is a conservative estimate.
  Once fully implemented, the bill will spend $2.3 trillion. And this 
doesn't even account for the $250 billion that is needed to prevent a 
cut in reimbursements to doctors who treat Medicare patients. While 
this so-called ``Doc Fix'' is no longer in the bill, we saw last month 
how Democrats in both the House and Senate plan to pay for it. They 
want to put this $250 billion on the government credit card and then 
claim their plans don't add to the deficit.
  Well, Americans aren't buying it.
  The bill would also hit already-struggling States by imposing a 
crippling, 10-year, $34 billion expansion of Medicaid. And it fails to 
meet the key test that Americans had set for reform, which was to 
control costs. Indeed, contrary to early promises by the administration 
about the need to control costs, this bill would actually increase 
long-term Federal health care spending.
  The health care choices that Americans currently enjoy would also be 
limited under this bill, and the government's role would increase 
dramatically. If you don't want to buy insurance, too bad: under this 
bill, the government forces you either to buy insurance or pay a new 
2.5-percent tax. Under this bill, the government would also tell you 
what kind of insurance you can have by dictating the benefits you 
receive. If a politician in Washington doesn't approve of your current 
health care plan, you may be forced to give it up. Ironically, the 
person who would dictate your benefits would go by the title of the 
Health Choices Commissioner only in Washington, Mr. President.
  Notably, this bill no longer includes language from earlier draft 
legislation stating that essential benefits coverage should not lead to 
the rationing of health care. Language preventing rationing is out. We 
can only conclude from the exclusion of this language that the bill 
writers have opened the door to rationing care at some point down the 
road--just like every other country that has gone in the direction of 
government-run health care for all.
  Business owners are also a special target of this bill. The 
government will tell all but the smallest employers they must cover 
employees even if they cannot afford it. If they refuse, they get hit 
with a $135 billion tax--a tax that independent experts warn will lower 
wages and kill jobs.
  Unemployment is nearly 10 percent, despite the administration's 
prediction that it would not rise past 8 percent if we passed the 
stimulus. But instead of trying to create jobs, Democrats are trying to 
push through a trillion-dollar experiment with massive new taxes that 
would kill even more jobs right in the middle of a recession.
  Finally, under this bill, the government would create a government-
run health care plan that Americans oppose. Democrats say the whole 
point of a government plan is to give Americans a lower cost option. 
But the CBO has said that the premiums for the House government plan 
would actually be higher than the premiums for private plans. So in 
order for the government plan to meet its goal of offering a lower cost 
alternative, it would have to use the power of government to subsidize 
costs, ration care, and undercut private insurers. Democrats may call 
this an option, but it is clear to everyone else that this type of 
government-run plan would eventually become the only option.
  Americans want real reforms that lower costs and increase access--
reforms such as getting rid of junk lawsuits, leveling the playing 
field on

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health care taxes, and incentivizing healthy choices. Yet instead of 
adopting these commonsense ideas, the authors of this bill seem intent 
on forcing the American people to accept more spending, more debt, more 
taxes, and more government in their daily lives.
  You can call that a lot of things. You can call it a lot of things, 
but you cannot call it reform. The passage of time has not been good to 
Democratic efforts at health care reform. Earlier versions were deeply 
flawed to begin with. But when Americans look closely at this latest 
version, they will wonder who exactly congressional leaders have been 
listening to over the past several months. Clearly, it is not the 
American people.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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