Health Care Reform
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CASSIDY. You know, I agree with almost everything Congressman Burgess said, except for one thing, in that I do think it is important to discuss our Republican alternatives, because, frankly, part of the rationale, the steamroll we are on, is there is no other option. We have, as the President has said, the cost of doing nothing, the costs will double over the next 10 years, and that is an inflation rate of about 7 percent if it compounds.
Well, as it turns out, since the cost according to the Congressional Budget Office of the reforms before us--the inflation rate is 8 percent per year--under the reform proposals before us, costs more than double in 10 years. At a minimum, reform should not be more costly than the status quo.
That said, I think it is important for us to discuss alternatives. I think we can all agree on the goals. We need to control costs. I am with the President on this. If we cannot control costs, we cannot expand access to quality care.
Now, as it turns out, we three are physicians. We know that if the patient is in the middle of the process, then costs are controlled. There is a report by McKinsey & Company and it talks about the three imperatives for health care reform, and they are to decrease the administrative costs--so much money goes to administration; to have transparency, so that when a patient goes in for her knee surgery, she knows before the surgery how much it will cost her, not find out a month later; and, lastly, incentivize healthy lifestyles. So in a patient-centered plan we should lower administrative costs, increase transparency, and incentivize healthy lifestyles.
So I would like to compare it to the 2,000-page, $1 trillion, 20-pound bill.
Now, does it lower administrative costs? You almost have to laugh, because it creates 111 new bureaucracies, boards, commissions. You name it, it clearly expands administrative costs.
Does it incentivize healthy lifestyles? I actually read that provision today, and it gives grants to small businesses that come up with innovative ways in which you can make employees healthier. But it is very vague and very gauzy. And I kept thinking of that small businesswoman who is really struggling to make ends meet, trying not to lay people off. What is the likelihood that she is going to take 2 hours a day to write a grant application to submit to the Federal Government on the hope they will give her $150 per employee, which is the maximum allowed, in order for her to come up with a wellness program? That is something written by a Washington bureaucrat, not by someone who knows the travails of a small business person.
Lastly, transparency. Frankly, I just find it unbelievable that a bill that creates 111 boards and commissions will be transparent.
That said, what are the alternatives? I think we would all agree from our own experience, patient-centered care can work. For example, you have got great anecdotes about health savings accounts. Congressman Fleming, who just left, I love his story about a health savings account.
For those who don't know what they are, with traditional insurance policies, a family of four, you put up $12,000 a year. If you use the insurance, you may get some of your money back, but at the end of the year it is gone, and you put up another $12,000 for the next year.
With a health savings account, you sluice off some of that money and you put it into a banking account, and that banking account is yours and you can spend it on the things which you choose. But at the end of the year, if you haven't spent it, you keep it.
With the traditional policy, you start over. With the health savings account, you conserve that money and it is there for you the next year. It rolls over, and it is that much less you have to put forward. It changes the psychology. We know that.
But just to explain it, in a patient-centered account, a patient was telling me, he goes to a doctor. The doctor writes him a prescription, $159. He says, doctor, you have given this to me before. It is $159. Listen, I have got a health savings account. Can you write me something cheaper? He goes, oh, I am sorry. He writes him a $20 generic, so the system just saved $139.
I actually think the power of millions of individuals making decisions at $139 a decision has more ability to control costs than 111 boards and commissions in Washington, D.C., that are attempting to control health care in all the small towns across the United States.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CASSIDY. If the gentleman would yield, I was a little late coming over here because we were having a telephone town hall. For the folks who are watching, that is where we from Washington have a phone call that goes out to thousands of people in our district, and we have a telephone town hall.
There was a woman that got on and she just nailed it. You pointed out, we have a 2,000-page, $1 trillion bill that was introduced last Thursday that we are going to vote on this coming Friday that is going to remake 17 percent of our gross domestic product, drastically affecting the health care for us all.
If it seems kinds of crazy that we would do that, this woman calls in, Rebecca, and I happen to know the family, I didn't realize it was from her family, and they are very bright people, very hardworking, good people.
So here is kind of her quote. She went to the Kaiser Family Foundation site to determine what her costs would be under the bills before Congress, and she figured out that her family's costs would double.
She says a small business is going to do a cost-benefit analysis, and they are just going to dump patients upon the public option because, why shouldn't they? Now, she says, I am quoting her, it seems like the people writing this are obtuse. They are not writing this for the middle class of the Nation. It is not centered on the patient. It feels rushed. It doesn't make sense; 2,000 pages, one week to digest it. It feels rushed.
She finishes up by saying, for all the possible plans, our premiums will double. It is very expensive. You can't get ahead. The more productive a citizen you try to become, it is like you take one step forward and go two steps back.
This is a bill which is two steps back.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source