Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009
Floor Speech
SERVICE MEMBERS HOME OWNERSHIP TAX ACT OF 2009 -- (Senate - December 07, 2009)
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Mr. THUNE. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. GREGG. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. THUNE. It strikes me that the Senator's amendment is very straightforward, very simple, and very clear; that is, any savings that come out of the Medicare Program cannot be used to fund a new entitlement program.
Mr. GREGG. That is not related to seniors.
Mr. THUNE. Correct. And it seems to me, at least, that the amendment gets at what some on the other side have argued, with their amendments, they are trying to accomplish.
Could the Senator from New Hampshire describe how the effect, the legal effect, of his amendment differs from, say, for example, the votes we have had, where it was a 100-to-0 vote the other day on a Bennet amendment, what the impact the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire would be relative to some of the previous votes we have had, which it appears to me, at least, were completely meaningless, sort of cover votes, to try and give people on the other side the opportunity to say: We voted to protect Medicare, when, in fact, they did not?
How is the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire distinguished from those that have been voted on previously?
Mr. GREGG. My amendment has force of law behind it. Those amendments have no force of law behind them. They have no effect at all. As the Senator said: a political statement, an editorial comment, a piece of paper written.
This amendment, if passed, will have the force of law behind it. It will very simply be structured in a way that the money cannot be taken out of Medicare if it is going to be used for the purposes of funding the new programs in this bill, whether they are the entitlement programs for people who are not seniors--this expansion of entitlements--or whether they are for the purposes of getting votes to pass the bill.
Mr. THUNE. So if a Senator on either side of the aisle, a Republican on this side or a Democrat, was serious about protecting Medicare, ensuring that Medicare's solvency is protected and that these funds are not going to be reallocated to create some new entitlement program or spend money on some new, clearly, $2 1/2 trillion expansion of government, which we know is going to require enormous amounts of revenue which seems to me has to come from somewhere--what the Senator's amendment would do is simply force the other side to put up or shut up with regard to this argument they have, which is that they are, in fact, supporting Medicare; the Senator's amendment would essentially say, very clearly, in a very straightforward way, that funds that come in out of savings from Medicare have to be retained in the Medicare account.
Mr. GREGG. That is correct. This is the first and only vote Members on this floor are going to have, to make it clear that Medicare dollars will not be used for something other than Medicare.
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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.
The irony in all this is, after cutting $ 1/2 trillion from Medicare in the first 10 years, and if you go into the fully implemented time period it is about $1 trillion, and $ 1/2 trillion in tax increases, what happens with premiums? Well, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 90 percent of Americans would be the same or worse off. In other words, 90 percent of Americans would see no improvement in their health insurance premiums. In fact, if you buy in a small group market, if you buy in a large group market, your premiums go up by about 6 percent a year, year over year. In fact, a family of four--let's put it in a perspective that an American family can understand. If you are a family of four--this is according to the Congressional Budget Office--that is paying $13,900 for insurance this year and you are getting your insurance in a large group market because you work for a large employer, in 2016, your insurance cost is going to be over $20,000 a year. In other words, your insurance is going to go up about--a little under $14,000 to over $20,000 a year in that time period.
So what American in their right mind is going to say that is reform? I think most Americans are going to say: What are you doing? You are spending $2.5 trillion, you are raising my taxes, and cutting my parents' or my grandparents' Medicare benefits, for what? So my premiums can stay the same or go up? If you buy your insurance in the individual marketplace, your insurance premiums, according, again, to the Congressional Budget Office, are going to go up anywhere from 10 to 13 percent a year. So you get Medicare cuts, you get tax increases, and for 90 percent of Americans, you stay the same or are worse off. In other words, your insurance premiums are now going to be impacted, you have achieved the status quo or, worse yet, your insurance premiums are going to go up 10 to 13 percent if you are buying in the individual market. That is according to the Congressional Budget Office.
So I would say to my friend from Wyoming, the point he made is exactly right. In doing all this, the exercise ought to be about reducing costs. Clearly, that is not the case with this legislation.
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Mr. THUNE. If the Senator will yield, the Senator, of course, is one of only two physicians in the Senate and has great experience and great depth on this issue and knows what it is like to serve and provide health care services to people in rural areas, such Wyoming and South Dakota and some areas of Georgia.
I think it is interesting too--and the Senator from Georgia was here, as was I; I don't think the Senator from Wyoming was here at the time. But in 2005, we had a debate about Medicare, and the Senator from New Hampshire proposed cutting $10 billion in Medicare, taking $10 billion over a 5-year period or about $2 billion a year, and paid for it by income testing the Part D benefit that people got. In other words, the premiums that are paid, those who are in the higher income categories would have to pay a higher premium for their Part B drug benefit than would those in lower income categories. You would have thought that the apocalyptic pronouncements and predictions around here about what that was going to do for Medicare: $2 billion a year or $10 billion over 5 and you heard the other side describe it as immoral, it was cruel, it was a disaster of monumental proportions. That was some of the terminology that was used around here at the time. That was for $10 billion over 5 years, and that basically was to say to people who have higher incomes, the Warren Buffetts of the world ought to pay a little bit more for their prescription drug benefit under Medicare than those in lower income categories, and people on the other side went nuts about that.
Now here we are talking about cutting $465 billion over a 10-year period, $1 trillion over 10 years, when it is fully implemented, and it seems to me, I would say to my colleagues, the other side is going to have a lot of explaining to do to the American people about why $10 billion in reductions was immoral, cruel, and a disaster of monumental proportions, but cutting $ 1/2 trillion out of home health care and nursing homes and hospitals and everything else to pay for an entirely new entitlement program, a $2.5 trillion expansion, somehow makes sense.
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