Health Care Reform

Floor Speech

HEALTH CARE REFORM -- (Senate - November 19, 2009)

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Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I am pleased to be here today with my colleague from New Hampshire to talk about fiscal accountability in the context of the health care reform discussion we have been having.

Back in Colorado, people are not talking about far-left or far-right or Democratic or Republican. That is not what concerns them. What concerns them is that for the last 10 years they have seen double-digit increases in the cost of their health insurance, year-in and year-out, at a time, by the way, when their incomes actually declined.

Even before we were in the worst recession since the Great Depression--which we are in today--during the last recovery, the Bush recovery, it was the first recovery in the history of the United States when median family income actually declined. It was, in effect, for a working family a recession, and they are now having to recover not just from the greatest recession since the Great Depression but from a 10-year period when they actually fell behind in terms of their income. What was happening at the same time their income was going down? The cost of health insurance was going up, by 97 percent in my State. By the way, higher education was going up by 50 percent during this same period.

What we have said to working families before this recession and now in the depths of this recession is that they are expected to do more with less. They are threatened by politics in Washington that for decades has allowed special interests to get in the way of our passing meaningful health care reform for working families and small businesses. At the same time, we have tripled our Federal budget deficits and added to the national debt, as we have been unable to deliver for families all across the United States.

Well, today we are closer than ever to meaningful health care reform that lowers costs, reduces the Nation's long-term deficits, and improves access to quality, affordable care for Colorado's families. With the release of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, we have taken a major step forward. This bill will help put our Nation back on a track to fiscal responsibility.

There is much more we need to do to get us where we need to be. I am the father of three little girls who are 10, 8, and 5, and I am desperate about the amount of debt we have loaded up on our Federal Government, about the size of our Federal budget deficit. While reforming health care is not sufficient to fix that problem, it is a very important step forward. Our Nation's annual deficits are enormous and our debt is staggering. Health care reform, as I said, must help solve that problem, not make it worse.

I, for one, have said from the very beginning of this debate that I would not support a health care reform bill that added a dollar to our deficit. I am very pleased to see that the bill the leader has produced does not do that.

We must pass effective reform that will rein in skyrocketing costs in both the public and private sectors and help to solve the fiscal problems that threaten our economy and our kids' futures. Without reform, if we just hold on to the status quo, if we listen to the siren call of special interests, out-of-control health care costs will place an ever higher burden on government expenditures and create structural deficits that could persist for decades as a drag on economic recovery and growth, with deficits and debt for as far as our eyes can see.

Rising health care costs--especially Medicare costs--are the largest driver of our deficits. Our Nation's health care spending today is 17 percent of our gross domestic product. It is slated to grow to over 20 percent in the blink of an eye. Health care will soon account for one-fifth of our economy. That might not be such a big deal if every other industrialized country in the world was not devoting less than half of that as a percentage of their GDP to
health care. It is like having two small businesses, one across the street from the other, and one is spending a fifth of their revenue on their light bill and the one across the street is spending less than half that. You do not need an MBA to know which of those small businesses is going to be able to invest in their business plan and grow. If we expect to be able to compete in the global economy, we need to devote a smaller percentage of our GDP to health care.

Since 1970, every year for almost 40 years--year-in and year-out--Medicare spending per person has risen by over 8 percent a year and private insurance spending per person has risen by over 9 percent a year. We cannot expect reform to begin at the private or employer-based level. We must drive these costs down at the Federal level by reorienting our Medicare incentive structure.

The Congressional Budget Office Director, Doug Elmendorf, has said that the ``rising costs for health care represent the single greatest challenge to balancing the federal budget.'' If you are embracing the status quo, you are embracing skyrocketing deficits.

The White House Budget Director, Peter Orszag, agrees, saying:

The single most important thing--

"The single most important thing''--we can do to put the nation on a sounder long-term fiscal footing is to reduce the rate of growth of health care costs. Period.

Meanwhile, the cost of health insurance is eating into family budgets faster and faster. About 20 years ago, the cost of an average family health care policy was $4,700 in Colorado, representing 12 percent of the average family's income. Today, an average family's health care policy costs roughly $12,000, amounting to 20 percent of the family's income, going, by 2016, if we do nothing, to 40 percent of their income.

Middle-class wages are not even close to keeping up with these rising insurance costs. In fact, median family income in this country fell by $300 as health care costs increased by 80 percent just while the last administration was in office.

Looking outside the confines of the budget context, health care reform will contribute significantly to economic growth. Health care reform will rein in skyrocketing health care costs and achieve close to $2 trillion of savings through the entire health care system--savings that will result in real economic gains to families and businesses. The Council of Economic Advisers estimates that slowing health care costs will increase gross domestic product by 2 percent in 2020 and by 8 percent in 2030.

After 8 years of irresponsible deficit spending, this legislation will be budget neutral and will put us on course to reduce the deficit over the long term. It is no wonder that people doubt this is actually happening because it has been so long since this body was actually able to do something that was deficit neutral. In this case, we are actually going to improve our deficit situation.

The Congressional Budget Office report confirms that the Senate bill is fiscally responsible and will reduce the deficit. Specifically, the report says the bill cuts the budget deficit by $130 billion over 10 years; cuts the budget deficit by $650 billion in the second decade; extends coverage to over 94 percent of Americans, including a 31 million-person reduction in the uninsured; costs $849 billion; and achieves almost $1 trillion in cost savings.

Just this week, a bipartisan group of more than 20 leading economists released a letter urging passage of meaningful health reform. The economists said our provisions to improve delivery system reform and slow the growth of health care costs ``will reduce long-term deficits, improve the quality of care, and put the nation on a firm fiscal footing.''

The challenges facing our health care system are not new. They are old. But if we fail to act, they will surely get worse, meaning higher premiums, skyrocketing costs, and deeper instability for those Americans who have coverage.

Today, thanks to a lot of hard work from a lot of people, we are closer than ever to enacting solutions to these problems and getting a finished bill to President Obama's desk as soon as possible.

Now is the time for us to set aside the childish politics that put us here. Now is the time to ignore the siren song of special interests. Now is the time for us to create a meaningful health care reform for working families and small businesses all across the United States.

Madam President, I yield the floor and look forward to hearing the remarks of my colleague from New Hampshire.

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