Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. I thank the Presiding Officer.
Mr. President, I have been looking at the bill, which, to me, is going to hurt the health care system of our country. I am a physician. I have taken care of families in Wyoming for 25 years, and I think if we want to get costs under control, if we want to help families all across America who are struggling with their health care needs, we need to focus on an amendment that is before us today, brought forward by the Senator from New Hampshire.
I ask my friend and colleague from New Hampshire, is it not true that the numbers we are looking at are underreported? It is going to be much more expensive and the cuts are going to come from our seniors, those who are vulnerable, those who depend on Medicare for their health care, and we need to make sure and promise the American people we will be protecting those folks who depend on Medicare for their health care?
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, the Senator from Wyoming, first as a doctor and second as a Senator, raises a very important point; that is, this is the largest expansion in government in the history of the government.
Let's begin right there. This is a $2.5 trillion expansion in the size of the government when fully implemented. It is a massive growth in the size of government. Most of that growth comes from the expansion of government in two areas: the expansion and creation of a brand new entitlement and the expansion of Medicaid, as was alluded to by the Senator from Tennessee.
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Mr. BARRASSO. If I could follow up with a question for my colleague from New Hampshire, because as I read the Sunday New York Times, it said the Bennet amendment was completely meaningless--the Bennet amendment was meaningless. It also goes on to say, Senator McCain is trying to keep that $500 billion in Medicare, but the Democrats are trying to take that money out of Medicare and, as the article says, the editorial says: to finance coverage for uninsured Americans but not people on Medicare.
So it does seem the New York Times, at least in this segment, got it right: that the Bennet amendment that our colleague from Georgia referred to is meaningless, that the cuts are going to come out of people who depend upon Medicare for their health care to pay for a whole new government program and not to focus on Medicare.
Well, don't we owe it to these seniors who have paid into the program and who have been promised the program to save that program first?
Mr. GREGG. Well, the Senator from Wyoming is absolutely right. I think the New York Times got it right. It is a convergence of two unique forces of nature that the Republican minority in the Senate and the New York Times should be on the exact same page on this issue and both be right.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I wonder if the Senator from New Hampshire would characterize this discussion this way: As I am hearing it, in order to protect Medicare, a Senator wouldn't want to say: I voted for the Bennet amendment and then I voted against the Gregg amendment, when it counted.
Mr. GREGG. It would be virtually impossible to make that argument with a straight face.
Mr. BARRASSO. I have a question for my Senate colleague from South Dakota who is here. We heard the majority leader, Senator Reid, come to the floor a few minutes ago and talk about how this bill is going to get premiums under control, keep the cost--for people who have insurance, keep their premiums under control. I saw a chart from the Senator from South Dakota yesterday that said for 90 percent of Americans, those who have insurance now, if we did nothing and did not pass this bill, the premiums would be lower than if we do pass this bill; that passing this bill actually will raise premiums, in spite of the fact the President of the United States promised, while campaigning, that he would lower the cost of premiums for American families by $2,500.
I would ask my colleague from South Dakota, isn't it true that if this bill passes, Americans wanting--feeling they have been promised that premiums would be reduced, are they not doomed to disappointment?
Mr. THUNE. The Senator from Wyoming is correct. This is where the real rub in this bill comes into play because what we were told and the promises that were made--of course, many promises were made throughout the course of the campaign, many of which will never be realized with this legislation. There was also a promise made that taxes wouldn't go up for people making less than $250,000 a year--not payroll taxes, not income taxes, not any kind of taxes. In fact, we now know that 38 percent of the people who make under $200,000 a year are going to see their taxes go up under this legislation. So promises made during a campaign season tend not to necessarily be adhered to when it comes time to legislate and actually follow through, and I think that is clearly the case here.
With regard to the question of the Senator from Wyoming, the whole purpose of health care reform, at least as I understand it--and I think, for the most part, as the people of South Dakota whom I represent understand it--is to lower cost. Because everybody complains--the thing you hear the most when you go home--and the Senator from Georgia is here. If you go to Georgia, Wyoming, South Dakota, I think the sentiment you hear most frequently from people in our States is: Do something about the cost of health care. We have these year-over-year, double-digit increases or increases that are twice the rate of inflation, and we are dealing with this. Small businesses are dealing with it. More and more people--families are struggling with the high cost of health care. Nobody argues that. We all, basically, accept the premise that health care costs have been going up and health care reform ought to be focused directly on trying to get those costs under control.
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Mr. BARRASSO. As my colleague from Georgia knows, there is no way you can save Medicare when you cut that kind of money out of it. How, when they cut physicians' payments by 23 percent, are we going to have physicians going to any of our small communities in South Dakota, in Georgia, in Wyoming, where we have many people who depend on Medicare for their health care? I worry about access to care.
Our colleague, Senator Isakson, yesterday talked about home health care and how, for pennies on the dollar, you can help people. It provides a lifeline for people who are homebound. It keeps them out of the hospital, out of the nursing homes. Instead, this Senate, the Democratically led Senate, yesterday voted to cut $42 billion out of home health care, which people in our small communities and in the rural areas of our State depend upon. So there is no way this program can stay solvent.
It is hard for me to fathom and, clearly, hard for the people of Wyoming to fathom, how with all this budget trickery it is going to work for people who need to go to see a doctor or to have a home health care provider in many of our rural communities.
We all have townhall meetings, and when I go to townhall meetings, people say: Don't cut my Medicare, don't raise my taxes, and don't make things worse for me than they are now.
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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments from my colleagues. I think we are hearing around the country that we do need health care reform. We need to get costs under control. We need to have patient-centered reform, not government-centered reform, not insurance-centered reform. We need to not cut Medicare. We need to not raise taxes. We need to not make things worse for the American people.
From what I have seen of this bill--and I worked my way all the way through it--it makes things worse for the American people, not better. This is not the right prescription for health care in America.
With that, I yield the floor.
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