The Cost of Healthcare

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. Speaker, it is great to see so many youth in the audience today, and I look forward to sharing what I think is perhaps the biggest problem that is facing Americans right now, and that is the cost of healthcare. Not the cost of healthcare insurance, but truly the cost of healthcare itself.

When I look at the problems facing this country, most of us are very concerned about our national debt of over $20 trillion. In fact, 28 percent of our Federal budget goes towards healthcare right now, and until we can start driving the true cost of healthcare down, we will never be able to fix this huge Federal debt.

When I talk to small businesses across my district, their number one concern is the cost of healthcare. A sixth of their budget is going towards healthcare.

Certainly, I believe that transparency, innovation, and consumerism are the basic principles to drive down the cost of healthcare, but I want to stop today and applaud what the President and the Secretary of Labor did yesterday by opening up association plans. This is one small piece that will help drive down the cost of healthcare for folks who purchase healthcare as individuals or in small groups.

This will start to break down the State walls which prevent competition and once again allow different groups--all my farmers could join together through their associations, or other small businesses would be able to group together and have better purchasing power. This is going to give 400,000 people more health insurance and quality health insurance with true access to healthcare.

Now, on the House side, we passed H.R. 1101, and that bill basically codifies what the Secretary of Labor did yesterday. But like some 6,000 other bills, it has been sitting over in the Senate and, in this case, has been sitting in the Senate for over a year. We need leadership on both sides of the House to help drive down the cost of healthcare.

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