Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009
Floor Speech
Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Montana for his kind remarks. He does describe the situation very well, particularly one where there was a very close working relationship during the summer and up until the middle of September, when people in this body felt we were not moving fast enough to get a product before the body, and so some of us were shoved to the side, not by Senator Baucus but by other people in this body.
I also compliment Senator Dodd from this standpoint--that as I look at this 2,074-page bill we call health care reform, that as he described parts of this bill, I think you get a broad consensus that the things he talked about should be done. But that does not describe everything in this bill and it does not describe the opposition that comes to a certain part of this bill now, not only by Members of the body, but if you follow polls and town meetings around the country, you find a lot of the people are having second thoughts about the words ``health care reform.''
I would suggest to you, if you were in a coffee shop in any small town of the United States and they were talking about health care reform, and I came into that coffee meeting and I said: The bill before the U.S. Senate is going to raise premiums, it is going to raise taxes, it is going to take hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicare, and it is not going to do anything about the inflation of health care, I will bet you that people at the end of that would say: Well, that doesn't sound like health care reform to me.
Even though Senator Dodd describes a lot of things that are neither Democratic nor Republican nor even bipartisan, there is kind of a consensus that these things ought to be done. He describes it accurately. But, still, a lot of goals that were sought by those of us who were negotiating these things over a period of several months--that we ought to have it be revenue neutral--and on the 10-year budget window, it is revenue neutral. But, remember, that is 10 years of increased taxes and 6 years of program to make that happen. So you raise the question, if it was 10 years of expenditures and 10 years of income, would it be revenue neutral? Well, obviously not. And it does not do anything about health care inflation. Those are two goals that were sought over a long period of time. This 2,074-page bill does not do that.
I believe the people of the United States think our country has the best doctors and nurses in the world. But as Senator Dodd pointed out, there is widespread agreement that the health care system in America does have problems. Costs are rising three times the rate of inflation. Americans are uninsured. Millions more fear losing their insurance in a weak economy and because of preexisting conditions. Doctors are ready to close their doors over high malpractice costs and low government reimbursement. So everybody says we need health care reform. Everybody agrees on that very much.
But, today, the Senate begins debate on a bill--2,074 pages--that would make a bad situation worse. It is unfortunate that early efforts to reach bipartisan solutions in Congress deteriorated into leadership-driven, partisan exercises.
The bills in Congress slide rapidly down the slippery slope to more and more government control of health care. They contain the biggest expansion of Medicaid since it was created 43 years ago. They impose an unprecedented Federal mandate for coverage, backed by enforcement authority of the Internal Revenue Service. They increase the size of government by $2.5 trillion when fully implemented. They give the Secretary of Health and Human Services extraordinary powers to actually define benefits for every private health plan in America and to redefine those benefits annually. They create dozens of new Federal bureaucracies and programs to increase the scope of the Federal Government's role in health care. That is a lot of power over people's lives, and it is concentrated here in Washington, DC, in the Federal Government.
The excesses of the bill appear willfully ignorant of what is going on in the rest of the economy outside of health care. These excesses make the bill far worse than doing nothing.
At this point in our Nation's history, we are a nation facing very challenging economic times--some people would say the great recession, not quite the Great Depression; other people would say the worst recession we have had since 1982.
What have we seen? We have seen the auto industry go into bankruptcy. We have seen banks shutter their doors.
I have a chart that is up. We call it the wall of debt chart. The Federal debt has increased by $1.4 trillion just since inauguration. This chart shows the growing amount of debt the Federal Government is taking on. The amount of increased debt added just since the inauguration is $11,500 per household. It now exceeds $12 trillion for the first time in history.
Within 5 years, the Obama administration's policies will more than double the amount of debt held by the public, and by 2019 it will more than triple the debt. That is not according to this Senator but according to the Congressional Budget Office and the White House Office of Management and Budget. Already, foreign holdings of U.S. Treasurys stands at nearly $3.5 trillion or 46 percent of the Federal debt held by the public. In other words, people outside of this country are holding 46 percent of our Federal debt.
At the beginning of this debate, one of the key promises of health care reform was--and I said this previously, but I will repeat it now--that it would bring down Federal health costs. This needs to be done before health spending sinks the Federal budget and saddles the taxpayer.
I have another chart, a health spending chart or, more accurately, a Federal health spending chart. As this chart illustrates, this bill bends the Federal spending curve further upward by $160 billion over the next decade. The red area of this chart, emphasizing the red area of the chart, shows net additional Federal health spending--again, not according to this Senator but according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Americans have rightly lost faith when, in the face of the current economic crisis--the ``great recession''--Congress thinks this $2.5 trillion restructuring of our health care system is a good idea.
The Reid bill also includes a government-run plan. A government-run plan would drive private insurers out of business and lead to a government takeover of the health care system. From rationing health care to infringing on doctor-patient relationships, a government-run system would guarantee U.S. taxpayers a staggering tax burden for generations to come.
The government cannot be a regulator, a funder, and a competitor at the same time without doing a great deal of damage to what the private sector has been doing for 60-some years. A government-run plan is not necessary for health care reform unless perchance the goal is to put in place the power of the Federal Government to drive down costs by--how? Not just driving them down but the consequences of that: rationing care and slashing payments to providers. These problems are bad enough, but much worse is that this bill--this bill--fails to solve the fundamental problems in health care. None of them take serious steps to reduce costs in health care.
The bills will cause health care premiums for scores of people to go up, not down. An analysis just released this very day by the Congressional Budget Office confirms our worst fears about the impact this bill will have on people's health insurance premiums. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the new benefit mandates and regulatory changes will actually increase costs of nongroup health insurance for individuals and families by 10 to 13 percent. That means millions of people who are expecting lower costs as a result of health care reform will end up paying more in the form of higher premiums. For large and small employers that have been struggling for years with skyrocketing health insurance premiums, the Congressional Budget Office concludes this bill will do little, if anything, to provide relief.
In fact, they cover their increased premiums they cause by spending even more on subsidies because of the increased premiums. So what happens? They do this by handing over close to $500 billion in hard-earned taxpayer dollars directly to health insurance companies. That sure doesn't sound as though this bill is actually reforming the market. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis makes clear the Reid bill is not fixing the problem.
The Reid bill also imposes new fees and taxes that will be pushed directly to the consumer. These new fees and taxes will total about one-half trillion dollars over the next few years. On the front end, these fees and taxes will cause premium increases beginning next year when they go into effect, and those new fees increase premiums--for 4 years; they are there for 4 years--before most of the reforms take effect in 2014.
Then after forcing health premiums to go up, the legislation makes it mandatory to buy health insurance. Let's think about mandatory health insurance. The Federal Government is a government of limited powers under the 10th amendment. To my knowledge--and I think I know a lot about U.S. history--never in 225 years has the Federal Government said you had to buy anything. You don't have to buy--you buy what you want to buy in America, but not when this 2,054-page bill goes into effect. Then you will buy health insurance.
Somebody is going to throw at us: Well, the States make you buy car insurance, and probably most States do. My State of Iowa does. But under the 10th amendment, the State governments have a lot of power the Federal Government doesn't have.
The Reid bill also makes problematic changes to Medicare. It imposes higher premiums for prescription drug coverage on seniors and the disabled. The Reid bill creates a new independent Medicare board with broad authority to make further cuts in Medicare, and this bill makes that commission permanent. The damage this group of unelected people could do to Medicare is, in fact, unknown.
What is more alarming is that so many providers got exempted--they have political power, so they got exempted from the cuts this board would make--that it forces the cuts. Then what happens? They fall directly and disproportionately on seniors and the disabled.
Sooner or later, it has to be acknowledged that by making this board permanent, those savings are coming more and more--are going to bring more and more cuts to Medicare. That is a good example of the philosophical differences between the two sides in this body, and as the country divides itself more against this 2,054-page bill than for it, but still a large number of people in America support going in this direction. So those are philosophical differences between the two sides.
There are alternatives. Some of us want to reduce the overall cost of the legislation. We want to try to reduce the pervasive role of government, make it harder for undocumented workers to get benefits, allow alternatives to the individual mandate and harsh penalties, and add medical malpractice reforms. I bring a little bit of emphasis to medical malpractice reform because at my town meetings throughout this past year and particularly during the month of August people would say: Why don't you first try to save money in health care costs by taking on the lawyers and doing medical malpractice reform? But, instead, the prevailing view is to move millions of people from private coverage into public coverage and create new government programs that cover families making close to $90,000. Yet, even with all of these changes, after raising one-half trillion dollars in new taxes, cutting one-half trillion dollars in Medicare, imposing stiff new penalties for people who don't buy insurance, and increasing costs for those who do--after all of these changes, the Congressional Budget Office says there are still 24 million people who will not have health insurance under the Reid bill.
I don't think this is what the American people had in mind when the President and the Congress promised to fix the health care system.
It is not too late for bipartisan legislation, so I have the hope that Senator Baucus just expressed before I spoke that builds on common ground to improve coverage, affordability, increased quality, and decreased costs. So here are some more alternatives. I have worked for years on bipartisan legislation that would transform Medicare from paying for volume of services provided to the quality of care delivered. There is also widespread support for stronger rules on insurance companies to make coverage more affordable and accessible, especially for small businesses and for people who aren't offered coverage by their employers, and for reforms to stop denials of coverage due to preexisting conditions. Tort reform would reduce abusive lawsuits that drive up costs and surely limit access to doctors. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that comprehensive medical liability reform would reduce Federal budget deficits by roughly $54 billion over the next 10 years. It would save even more when nonfederal health spending is taken into account. That would mean lower premiums for individuals and families.
So far the Democratic leaders in Congress have little interest in creating an environment where doctors don't have to engage in defensive medicine just to keep their practices open because somebody might sue them. The medical community should continue to make the case for reasonable reforms that will cut down on unnecessary medical tests that serve no purpose except to reduce malpractice premiums and to protect against frivolous lawsuits.
On several occasions, Republicans tried to take the legislative substance in a whole different direction. We tried to ensure the President's pledge not to tax middle-income families, seniors, and veterans was carried out. However, we were rebuffed at every step of the way. Republicans' efforts to provide consumers with a lower cost benefit option were consistently defeated. That means despite the promise, a lot of people are not actually going to be able to keep what they have as they were promised in the last Presidential campaign.
The Democratic leaders in Congress are advancing their extremist health care reform bills with a bare minimum of votes to do the job. I disagree with that approach. Health care is one-sixth of the economy. That is as large as the entire British economy. The legislation Congress is considering will affect every American at every level of health and at every stage of employment. When the debate began last year--in fact, it was just this month of November that I remember 8 or 10 of us from different committees met with a solemn pledge. We were going to work together in a bipartisan way to get this job done. We met again for the next 6 months several times, but it just didn't work out.
But when that debate began last year, interested legislators of both parties set benchmarks that were no-brainers:
Health care reform should lower the cost of premiums. It should reduce the deficit. It should bend the growth curve in health care the right way--downward. The Reid bill doesn't do any of these things.
It is not too late to start over. I guess Senator Baucus has put forth that invitation. I hope it materializes. If both sides can set aside some philosophical differences, and if the Democratic leaders are willing to refocus on the principles that brought us to the table months ago, I believe we can produce health care reform that improves the quality of life for Americans who are suffering under the current health care system and doesn't degrade the quality of life for everyone else.
But it is not the entirety of this 2,074-page bill. These issues can be addressed without upending the entire health care system, with the result of higher taxes, higher insurance premiums, and deficits and debt that will get in the way of opportunities that result from the ingenuity and productivity and industry of the American people.
I get back to that coffee shop meeting, where people are discussing health care reform. As I walk into that coffee meeting and I tell them that this 2,074-page bill increases taxes, increases premiums, takes 400 or more billion dollars out of Medicare, and it doesn't do anything about controlling costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office, that group again will say: That doesn't sound like health care reform to me.
As we start this debate this week, I urge my colleagues to listen to the American people. The Reid bill is in the wrong direction.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I am not in favor of doing nothing. The previous Democratic speaker, Senator Casey, said if we do nothing, costs will go up. I think the fact is, if you look at CBO's analysis, it says costs will go up even more if this bill, this 2,074-page bill, passes. So I want to spend some time because there has been some obfuscation on what this Congressional Budget Office letter to Senator Bayh means.
This morning, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office sent a letter to Senator Bayh providing a very detailed analysis of what health insurance premiums will look like as a result of this 2,074-page bill. I have the letter from the Congressional Budget Office right here, if anybody wants to read it in detail.
Like many of us, Senator Bayh wants to know if the Reid bill is addressing our constituents' No. 1 priority: costs. I think if you were to have a Saturday morning coffee club meeting in almost any of the small towns of America, and they were discussing health care reform--and emphasis upon the word ``reform''--and I walked into that meeting, and if I told them under this 2,074-page Reid bill that costs were not going to be brought under control, taxes were going to go up, premiums were going to go up, and we were taking $400 billion out of Medicare to set up a new health care program, they would probably unanimously respond: Well, that does not sound like health care reform to me.
A lot of Senators are concerned about costs because that is what we are hearing from the grassroots of America. Everyone, from the dean of Harvard's Medical School to even the New York Times, has said this bill does not sufficiently address the rising cost of health care. But before today, we were still all anxiously waiting to hear what the Congressional Budget Office has now said about that issue of rising costs. Well, today, CBO has spoken loudly and clearly. The Reid bill not only fails to bring down costs, it will actually raise costs for millions of Americans. I think that bears repeating. The Reid bill will make health insurance more expensive. Families will end up paying 10 to 13 percent more as a result of this 2,074-page bill.
Some proponents of the bill are trying to spin this, what they consider unfortunate news, and tell the American people that taxpayer-funded subsidies will actually offset these cost increases. In fact, tonight some Members have already been saying that this CBO analysis shows costs will come down.
But I want to make it very clear CBO says that is not the case. Well, this may be true; if you take $500 billion of taxpayers' hard-earned money and give it out in subsidies directly to insurance companies, sure, some people may end up paying less for health insurance. But this argument fails to recognize two big underlying problems.
First, most Americans will not qualify for any subsidies. They will end up paying higher premiums. In fact, 160 million Americans who stay in employer-based plans will not see any help. In fact, despite all the rhetoric about how employers cannot afford the status quo, CBO says this bill does little, if anything, to lower costs for employers. Maybe that is why the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and a host of other business groups, oppose this 2,074-page bill.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office goes on to say that 14 million people who cannot get coverage through an employer will not get any help either, but they will see a 10- to 13-percent increase in premiums. And, of course, an intrusive new insurance mandate will be enforced by the IRS if you do not do what has never been done in the 225-year history of America. Never has the Federal Government said any American had to buy anything. Now you have to buy insurance. If you do not buy it, pay the IRS more money. Some people are going to say: Well, you have to buy car insurance. But under the tenth amendment, the State governments have any powers that are not prohibited by the Federal Constitution to them.
So families who would have paid $13,100 under current law will actually pay more than $15,000 as a direct result of this 2,074-page bill. And people in employer-based coverage will be paying more than $20,000 a year for health insurance in 2016.
The second big problem is this: Health insurance premiums are still more expensive in the Reid bill than they would be under current law. The government is cutting Medicare and raising taxes to offset the increases. So instead of addressing the underlying issue of cost, as was promised, this bill enacts policies that drive up costs by close to 30 percent, and then hands over close to $500 billion in hard-earned taxpayer dollars directly to health insurance companies to offset the increases.
Well, you might not believe the spin. In fact, you better not believe the spin because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has confirmed it. This bill fails to drive down the cost of health insurance premiums.
It simply drives up prices with a bunch of arbitrary regulatory reforms, very cutely shifting the cost on to the American people in the form of higher taxes and massive Medicare cuts. So, once again, don't take my word for it. Read what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says. They have confirmed what we have been hearing for months: The Democratic leadership bill means higher costs for millions of Americans.
I yield the floor.
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