Health Care Reform

Floor Speech

HEALTH CARE REFORM -- (Senate - December 14, 2009)

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Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, first of all, let me say this raid on the States is just that. This is going to be a tax increase, and it is not included anywhere, it is not talked about anywhere. There is no way the States can deal with this except with massive tax increases or massive cuts in education.

In most States, I am sure, like Idaho, about two-thirds of the budget is spent on education, about 10 percent of it is on public safety, and you have about 20 percent that is on social services. Unless you have been a Governor, you can't understand how difficult it is to control what has become an expanding black hole in Medicaid.

The first social program this Congress came along with was Social Security. They decided they would do it, and they funded it. The second was Medicare. They decided they would do it, and they funded it. Along came Medicaid, and some genius here decided the Feds will only pay 70 percent or so and we will make the States pay 30 percent. Well, everywhere across this country, Governors are saying: Don't do this to us.

The dozen of us here who are former Governors were asked to participate in a conference call a couple weeks ago. I listened, but I didn't talk. I didn't need to because there was great bipartisan support for killing this bill. The most vocal people were Democrats. The most vocal Governors were Democrats, who were saying we cannot tolerate this kind of an increase. That is what is going to happen under this bill.

I am sorry none of my friends from the other side of the aisle are here, with the exception of the Presiding Officer.

Could the Senator from Mississippi take the top chart off. If my friends were here, I would tell them to pay attention to the polls because that is what America is going to look like on CNN next November 2, in the evening, if you continue down this road.

I thank the Chair.

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