Hearing of the Senate Finance Committee - Open Executive Session to Consider an Original Bill Providing for Health Care Reform

Statement

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

The full text of Sen. Cornyn's closing statement before the committee is below, as prepared for delivery.

Closing Statement of Senator John Cornyn

Both Democrats and Republicans on this Committee recognize that our health care system needs reform. American families have seen the cost of their private insurance skyrocket. Millions of Americans do not have coverage at all. Seniors are concerned about the future of Medicare. We all recognize that Washington's current entitlement obligations and level of spending are unsustainable.

I believe health care reform should first focus on lowering costs, which have more than doubled over the past decade.

We can lower costs by realigning incentives for providers and insisting on transparency, so doctors focus on value instead of volume.

We can create incentives for patients to make healthier choices and get better value for their health care dollars.

We can reform the private insurance market in every state to encourage greater competition-without denying anyone coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

We can find innovative ways to help small businesses provide health benefits to their workers. My home state of Texas, for example, just implemented "Healthy Texas" to reduce premiums for small businesses through a new premium stabilization fund.

We can lower costs by cutting the $70 to $120 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse in our current entitlement programs.

And like we've done in Texas, we can reduce costly defensive medicine by reforming our medical liability laws. The Congressional Budget Office has just said this will save $54 billion.

I recently received a letter from the Bonham Area Chamber of Commerce in Texas saying, "We think the American people support health care reform. The American people believe we have the best health care in the world but would like to bring costs down and increase access to care. This must be done ‘right' without the government controlling health care and 17 percent of the economy and increasing our national debt trillions of dollars."

I've heard this theme repeatedly from other Texans-and Americans from all walks of life-that while they know our system needs improvement, they don't want Washington to make things even worse. I appreciate the tremendous amount of time and effort the Chairman and his staff have invested in the debate about health care reform so far, but I believe we have much more work to do.

Unfortunately, I believe this bill will ultimately increase costs for Americans.

• New Costs on Taxpayers: The Congressional Budget Office reports that the bill will cost taxpayers $829 billion over the next 10 years, but when it is fully implemented, the Senate Budget Committee estimates its 10-year cost will be $1.8 trillion. To "pay for" part of this, the bill includes more than $400 billion in new taxes.

• New Costs on Families: We've seen study after study saying that the bill's new Washington mandates on health benefits will increase premiums for working Americans. According to one survey, 91 percent of Texans who buy insurance in the individual market will see their premiums go up.

• New Costs on States: The bill imposes hidden costs on states. Specifically in Texas, our Health and Human Services Commission estimates the bill will require $20 billion in new state spending over 10 years. That would mean billions in new state taxes, or draconian cuts in education, law enforcement, and other Texas priorities.

• New Costs on Future Taxpayers: The Medicare program has an unfunded liability of $38 trillion and will go bankrupt by 2017, but this bill pillages $449 billion from the program to create new entitlements future generations will have to pay for. Future generations will now have to figure out how to pay for both.

This bill doesn't solve the access problem and jeopardizes the current health benefits of millions of Americans.

Despite the $829 billion in new spending over the next 10 years, the bill would still leave 25 million Americans-6 percent of the population-uninsured in 2019.

The bill will make Medicaid the only health care option for 14 million Americans, which might provide coverage but it doesn't provide access. In Harris County, only 42 percent of physicians are taking new Medicaid patients.

Despite the new mandates on American businesses, CBO estimates that 3 million Americans will lose their employer-sponsored insurance.

The bill will cut $133 billion from the Medicare Advantage program, which CBO has said will cut benefits by "approximately half" for seniors. This will also stifle innovative Medicare Advantage plans, like HealthSpring and WellMed in Texas, which have kept seniors healthier and saved money by focusing on value instead of volume.

This bill would also harm access to benefits by laying the groundwork for government coverage decisions based on comparative effectiveness research. Dr. Benjamin Nguyen, a professor at Texas' UT Southwestern Medical School, said, "While I and my colleagues firmly believe in evidence-based medicine, I am strongly against restricting government payments... as we may miss the window of opportunities to provide many patients and their families with treatment that may make a huge difference in their outcomes."

Perhaps most discouraging in this debate has been the lack of a transparent process. Senator Bunning and I proposed a 72-hour waiting period before we could vote on the bill in Committee. During those 72 hours, the actual legislative text, not just conceptual language, would have been available on the Committee's web site for the public to see, as well as a final score from the CBO telling how much it would cost. The Committee voted this amendment down, and instead we will vote today on something that isn't even a bill yet, with a price tag that could be off by billions of dollars because we've pushed CBO beyond the "fast safe speed."

In conclusion, I cannot support a bill that will increase the costs of health care, and which is being rushed through Congress without giving Americans the opportunity to learn what it would mean for them. I believe that democracy demands that government be accountable to the people, and we know that open and honest government can deliver better solutions. I stand ready to work toward better solutions on health care reform, if my colleagues are willing to invest the time to get them right.

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