Health Care Reform

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as we consider the best way to reform health care, some have argued that a so-called government option would not lead to a government takeover of health care. They promise safeguards to ensure a level playing field between private plans and a government-run plan. But no safeguard could ever create a truly level playing field. The reason is simple: Unlike private insurance plans, a government-run plan would have unlimited access to taxpayer money and could borrow as much money as it wants to subsidize the cost of services. The Federal Government is already planning to borrow $1.8 trillion this year alone. If a company were allowed to borrow that much money, it could easily wipe out its competition, set prices, and create a monopoly. That is just what a so-called government ``option'' for health care will, in all likelihood, lead to.

A government-run plan would set artificially low prices that private insurers would have no way of competing with. Rates for private health plans would either skyrocket, leaving companies and individuals unable to afford them, or private health plans would simply be forced out of business. Either way, the government-run plan would take over the health care system, radically changing the way Americans choose and receive their care, from routine checkups to lifesaving surgeries. No safeguard could prevent this crowdout from happening, and no safeguard could, therefore, keep the millions of Americans who currently like the health care they have from being forced off of their plans and onto a government-run plan instead.

This isn't some fantasy scenario. We are already seeing in the government takeover of the auto industry how government interference in business forces firms out of the way by leveraging taxpayer dollars against their private competitors. Now that the government runs General Motors and has provided billions to its financing arm, GMAC, the company is offering interest rates that Ford, which hasn't taken any government money, and other companies which haven't taken any government money just can't compete with. What this means is that one American auto company that actually made the tough decisions so that it wouldn't need a government bailout is now at a competitive disadvantage to a company that is being propped up by billions of dollars of borrowed tax money. This is how the government subsidizes failure at taxpayers' expense and can unfairly undercut good companies, and this is precisely why so many Americans are worried about the trend of increased government involvement in the economy. The government is running banks now. It is running insurance companies. As of this week, it is running a significant portion of the American automobile industry. Now it is thinking seriously about running the entire health care industry, and chances are Americans won't like the result any more than they like the government takeover of the banks or the auto industry.

Americans who now take for granted the ability to choose their care may suddenly find themselves being told by government bureaucrats that they are too old to qualify for a certain kind of surgery or that they have to go to the back of the line for a procedure they can now get right away. As I have said, Americans want health care reform, but this isn't what they have in mind. Americans don't want their health care denied and they don't want it delayed. But once government health care is the only option, bureaucratic hassles, endless hours stuck on hold waiting for government service representatives, restrictions on care, and, yes, rationing, are sure to follow. Americans don't want some remote bureaucrat in Washington deciding whether their mothers and fathers or spouses have access to a lifesaving drug. They don't want to share the fate of Bruce Hardy.

Bruce was a British citizen who was suffering from cancer. According to press reports, his doctor wanted to prescribe a new drug that was proven to delay the spread of his disease. But the government agency that runs Britain's health care system denied the treatment. They said it was too expensive--that Bruce Hardy's life wasn't worth prolonging, based on the cost to the government of the drug he needed to live. In a story discussing Bruce's plight, the New York Times noted that if Bruce had lived in the United States, he likely would have been able to get this treatment.

But that could change. What happened to Bruce Hardy could happen here. Americans who now have the freedom to find the care they need and to make their own health care decisions could be stripped of that right by a new government agency. This happens every single day in countries such as Britain. It happens to people like Bruce Hardy, against their will and against the will of their loved ones. As Bruce's wife put it:

Everybody should be allowed to have as much life as they can.

In America, we are free to make those decisions ourselves. If Congress approves a government takeover of health care, that freedom could soon be a memory.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Source