Health Care Reform

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, Americans certainly want health care reform. There is no dispute about that. People are frustrated with the high cost of care, and many are worried about losing the health care coverage they already have. Some can't afford care or have to choose between basic necessities and the treatments they need. These are some of the things that are wrong with the current system, and they need to be fixed.

But while all of us recognize that serious reform is needed, we should also recognize the necessity of getting it right. Before we rush to pass just anything in the name of reform, such as the bill introduced in the HELP Committee this week, Americans have a right to ask some very basic questions: How much will it cost? How will we pay for it? What will this mean for me and for my family?

As to the first question, Americans have good reason to be concerned about what the bill would cost. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that just a portion--just a portion--of the HELP Committee bill would spend $1.3 trillion over 10 years. That doesn't even include major portions of the final proposal, including a massive expansion of Medicaid, which will cost untold billions of dollars. These are staggering amounts of money for taxpayers to contemplate, which is why it is troubling to a lot of people when we see committee members in such a rush to pass this legislation before the Congressional Budget Office even has a chance to fully estimate its cost. On something as important to the American people as health care reform, cost and effectiveness should be a higher priority than speed.

But even if we decided this bill was the right reform, another question arises: How would we pay for it? Most people don't walk onto a car lot, pick out the most expensive model, buy it, and then figure out how they are going to pay for it. Even if they wanted to, the car salesman wouldn't let them. We need to take the same approach here.

The proposal we have seen is full of creative new ways to spend taxpayer dollars, but it offers little in the way of offsetting the cost of the overall bill. We will have to either charge the money to the national credit card or, more likely, raise taxes on working families--in other words, more spending, higher taxes, and even more debt. So far, some of the taxes under discussion include a tax on soft drinks and juice boxes, the creation of a new tax on jobs, and new limits on charitable donations. But this would just be the beginning. The HELP Committee bill would be hugely expensive by any reckoning, and no one has a plan to pay for it. This isn't a very good start as far as health reform is concerned.

Americans are also right to wonder how these changes would affect the family budget. Will the HELP Committee's so-called reforms raise the health insurance costs for millions of families and businesses at a time when they are already struggling? This isn't a scare tactic or a theoretical question. Not only does the CBO estimate suggest the final bill is far too expensive, but we also have the example of States that have tried some of the proposals it suggests. Shouldn't we look at the experience of these States to determine whether we want to replicate these proposals nationwide?

Take Kentucky, for example. Many of the same concepts embraced by the HELP Committee bill were tried 15 years ago in my State--with disastrous results. Instead of reforms that were promised, Kentuckians were left with higher expenses and fewer choices for health coverage. Instead of more affordable care, one report estimates that 850,000 Kentuckians faced dramatically higher premiums. Instead of increased competition, about 50 insurance companies stopped offering individual insurance, leaving only a handful of private insurers and a government-run plan that wasn't affordable for taxpayers. After years of failure, many of these so-called reforms were repealed but not without significant damage to the Commonwealth. While the market has rebounded some, Kentucky's small businesses and families tell me that a lack of competition in the health care market continues to keep prices high. Shouldn't this experience figure into our consideration?

When it comes to our approach on legislation as costly as health care, we should learn from our experience with the stimulus. Democrats rushed that bill on the grounds that we needed it to jump-start the ailing economy. Yet a few months later we are already hearing outrageous stories of abuse and the unemployment rate actually continues to rise.

When it comes to specific proposals within any so-called health care reform bill, we should learn from the experience of Kentucky. We should not be rushed into enacting so-called reforms that cost taxpayers trillions and could increase premiums to consumers.

Americans indeed want reform, but they want us to do it right. They do not want a blind rush to spend trillions of dollars they and their grandchildren will have to pay for through higher taxes and even more debt.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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