[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 26545]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          TAKING AWAY FREEDOM TO CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH CARE PLAN

  (Mr. ROYCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, freedom to choose your own health care plan 
is what is at stake here. The drumbeat for entitlement, for government 
control of health care, for a health choice commissioner who will 
decide himself essential benefits, for setting a precedent that will 
devolve into a rationing of medicine through politics, this is driven 
by an appetite for a government-run economy that is blind to the 
consequences.
  One of those consequences is a $1.3 trillion cost in this bill. 
Another is the job-killing mandates and the cuts to senior Medicare 
plans, including a gutting of Medicare Advantage that is in this bill. 
The cost of the tax increases on business. How high can we stack these 
taxes? We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. We 
will see the consequence in higher unemployment.
  Should health care be nationalized, medical rationing is inevitable, 
and we will see the adverse effects on economic growth and opportunity, 
unfortunately, that will be left.

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