Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, over the past several weeks, Americans have heard a number of proposals for reforming health care, and they are increasingly concerned about many of the details. Americans want reform, but they want the right reform, not a reform that ends up costing them much more for worse care than they already receive. Unfortunately, the government-run plan that some are proposing would do just that.

A government-run plan would force millions of Americans to give up the care they currently have and replace it with a system in which care is denied, delayed, and rationed. Instead of increasing access and quality, it could limit access and options. It could lead us into deeper debt. And millions could well remain uninsured.

Americans are skeptical about all of this. They do not want to be forced to
change the coverage they have for a government system they do not particularly want. Some of the advocates of a government plan are beginning to sense this growing public opposition to their proposal. But rather than make their case on the merits, they are basing their arguments on the urgency of the moment.

We keep hearing that time is running out, that the clock on reform is about to expire, that the entire health care system and the whole economy will soon collapse without this particular reform. Well, we have been down this road before.

Earlier this year, we heard the same dire warnings about the stimulus. If Congress did not pass the stimulus, we were told, unemployment would continue to rise and the economy would continue to falter. We did not just have to pass it, we had to pass it right away. The results are now coming in: higher unemployment, soaring job losses, higher debt, huge deficits, and growing fears about inflation.

Many of us saw this coming. That is why we proposed an alternative stimulus that would not add a trillion dollars to the debt and would have gotten to the root cause of our economic problem, which is housing. That is why in the debate over health care Republicans are proposing reforms that would make health care more accessible and less expensive without destroying what people like about our health care system and without sending the Nation deeper and deeper into debt.

Every cost estimate we have heard about the administration's plans for health care is astronomical. The administration realizes this is a problem, and yet they have no good plan for covering the cost. Some of the ideas that have been floated are a series of taxes, including a tax on soft drinks. But even that would not come close to covering the cost. So they have been looking frantically for money, and the target they seem to have landed on is Medicare--the government health plan for the elderly.

Last month, the administration proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts. It said by taking this money out of Medicare and putting it into a new government-run plan for all Americans, we could help pay for health care reform. Not only is this aimed at concealing the cost of the new government plan, it is also a reckless misuse of funds that should be used to stabilize Medicare instead.

Weeks before the administration proposed its cuts to Medicare, the government board that oversees this vital program issued an urgent report on its looming insolvency. Let me say that again. Just weeks before the administration recommended Medicare cuts in order to pay for a new program, the government board that oversees this program issued an urgent report on its looming insolvency. Already, Medicare is spending more money than it is taking in. It runs out of money altogether in 8 years. And over the coming decades, Medicare is already committed to spend nearly $40 trillion that it does not have.

If there were ever a crisis that cannot wait another day for reform, it is Medicare. Yet rather than do the hard but necessary work to put this program on a sound financial basis, the administration wants to take money away from it and use it to create an entirely new government-run system that would presumably have the same fiscal problems down the road that Medicare has today. This makes no sense whatsoever.

Savings from Medicare should be put back into Medicare--not a government plan that could drive millions of Americans out of the private health care plans they have and like and lead to the same kind of denial, delay, and rationing of health care that we have seen in other countries.

We must be committed to reform but not a so-called reform that raids one insolvent government-run health care program in order to create another insolvent government-run health care program. The administration should be applauded for trying to fix what is wrong with our Nation's health care system, but it needs to slow down and take a deep breath before taking over what amounts to about one-sixth of our Nation's economy with a single piece of legislation that lacks bipartisan support.

The administration rushed ahead with a poorly conceived stimulus plan that added a trillion dollars to the national debt and has not stopped half a million Americans a month from losing their jobs. It should learn from that and not rush a poorly conceived health care plan with money we do not have. We do not need more rush-and-spend policymaking. We need to reform health care, but we do not need to weaken Medicare to do it. We can reform both, but we should start with Medicare.

At a time when Americans are increasingly concerned about the future of health care and also about a political system in which they see fewer and fewer checks on the party in power, now would be the ideal time to advance a truly bipartisan reform. The President has repeatedly expressed openness to reforming Medicare in the past. We stand ready to work with him to strengthen and preserve Medicare if he chooses to follow through on those assurances.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I congratulate the Republican leader on his remarks. I remember Senator McConnell's first address following President Obama's election at the National Press Club. It was to the President, saying: Mr. President, we look forward to working with you, and the pressing issue is the entitlements facing this country, the automatic spending that means more and more and more debt.

I would ask the Republican leader whether there has been any response from the administration to him about the opportunity to work together across party lines to deal with Social Security which, as I remember in January, was your proposal?

Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my good friend from Tennessee, unfortunately, there has been no followup whatsoever. There seemed to be, on the part of the President and the President's Chief of Staff at the beginning of the administration, a willingness to support the Conrad-Gregg proposal, which would have given us a way to get a handle on at least Social Security--they did not seem to want to deal with Medicare, and I think we now know why--at least Social Security, with an expedited procedure and an up-or-down vote guaranteeing a result. But I would say to my friend from Tennessee, there has been no word on that lately.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in my visits in Tennessee this past week, if I heard two things, one was too many Washington takeovers; the other was too much debt. I found in people--and I hesitate to use the word--a great deal of fear about the amount of debt we are piling up here in

Washington.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I think there is a genuine alarm. Americans see the government now running banks, insurance companies, automobile companies. The Senator from Tennessee points out student loans. Now they fear the government wants to take over health care as well. I think there is a growing suspicion that this is exactly the wrong way to go.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his comment about checks and balances. There is something innate in the American character about checks and balances. Alexis de Tocqueville warned, in the early 1800s, about the tyranny of a majority. We like to see results, but we do not want to see one party or one faction run away with policy. We seem to know it is better if there is a check and a balance. And the genius of the American system is we have many checks and balances.

I wonder, Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has 8 minutes remaining.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Acting President pro tempore.

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