[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 23]
[Senate]
[Page 31637]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, every day we do not act, it gets more 
expensive to stay healthy in America.
  If you are fortunate enough to have health insurance, this is not 
news to you. You have no doubt noticed your premiums have more than 
doubled in the last decade, even though the quality of your health care 
has not doubled--and that is an understatement.
  If you are fortunate enough to have coverage, you might have noticed 
that you are paying at least an extra $1,000 a year to cover all of the 
other families who do not have health insurance.
  Those with insurance know when premiums eat up a larger slice of 
their paychecks, they have less money to take home to their families. 
Those without insurance know the pain of skipping medicine or 
treatments or doctors visits because it simply costs too much to go to 
the doctor. Economists tell us if we do nothing, those costs will 
continue to climb and to climb. The economists tell us that without 
question, if we do not do something, the costs will continue to 
increase.
  Very recently, the President's Council of Economic Advisers has 
crunched the numbers, and this respected group tells us the bill before 
the Senate will indeed keep health care costs down.
  Lower costs are good for every American. It means more people who do 
not have insurance today will be able to afford it, and those who do 
have insurance will have more stability and security against losing it.
  The White House's economists highlighted a number of other impressive 
effects of our bill. The amount our government spends on Medicare for 
our seniors and Medicaid for the underprivileged will be much less than 
if we do not act. Our Nation's deficit will be much lower than if we 
did not act. Health care costs in the private sector will be much lower 
than they would be if we did not act. And with this bill, American 
families' incomes will increase more than they would if we did not act. 
The same is true for job creation, small business growth, and our 
overall economy.
  After all, health reform is economic reform. When you are not 
spending so much of your paycheck on premiums, you have more left to 
feed your family and to fuel our economy.
  We also know a healthier workforce is a more productive workforce, 
and a more productive workforce means a healthier economy. Those are 
pretty good reasons to act and a pretty strong rebuttal against the 
strategy of doing nothing. This data proves once again what we have 
said from the start: this bill will save lives, save money, and save 
Medicare.
  That is the reality, and that is why we are working to make it 
possible for every American to afford a shot at a healthy life. It is a 
goal that will make our economy stronger and make our citizens 
healthier. It is a goal with an eye to the future, to our children, one 
that appreciates the long-term effects of what we do.
  The other side has a goal of its own--one that not only ignores the 
reality of the present but dismisses both the long-term benefits of 
acting and the long-term costs of doing nothing. Whereas we are working 
to slow the growth of health care costs, they are working to slow down 
the Senate. In fact, they would like to bring this body to a screeching 
halt.
  But we will not let talking points meant to scare seniors and 
frighten families obscure the hard data that show just how unhealthy 
our health care system is. We will not be derailed by those who spend 
more time hoping for America's leaders to fail than they do helping the 
American people succeed. We will not be sidetracked by those who try to 
stop history in its tracks.
  Mr. President, would the Chair now announce morning business.

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