Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I just heard the Republican leader talk about the issue of health care in America and the goal which we heard so much about of getting the cost of care under control.

I have practiced medicine for 25 years in Casper, WY. I was in Wyoming yesterday visiting with physicians, visiting with nurses, visiting with those who are patients, as well as those who are providers, and talking with them about what is happening in this country and in this body with the discussion about health care in America and the legislation. No matter whom I talk with in Wyoming, when they look at this massive, 2,000-page bill and they think about it and then they ask questions about it, they say: How in the world is this actually going to get the cost of care down? How is this going to help them save money? Because as they read it and as they look at the rules and the regulations and the new mandates for more bureaucracies--they say it is going to be more government employees at a time when there is 10 percent unemployment in the country--they say: It is going to likely cause my own cost of health care to go up, my own insurance coverage to go up. They have great concerns that the quality of their own care will go down--go down. Americans, and certainly the people in Wyoming, are very worried that if this bill becomes law, the cost of their care is going to go up and the quality and availability of their care is going to go down. That is not what they want.

The President was speaking in Philadelphia yesterday. The front page of one of the papers this morning says: ``[The President] Turns Up the Volume in Bid for His Health Measure.'' And he said, as a challenge to Democrats, ``If not us, who?''

Mr. President, it should be all of us. This should not be something that is being rammed through the House and the Senate and force-fed to the American people at a time when 75 percent of them want nothing to do with this bill. Three out of four Americans say: Stop, we don't want this, because they are worried about the cost of their own care and the availability and the quality of the care they are receiving.

So when the President gives his speeches, as he did yesterday, I would say: Involve all of us. Involve all of us in the discussion, which is what we should have been doing for over a year.

I look at what he said in his speech, and he talked about an insurance broker who apparently told some others there was so little competition--this is the President now talking, saying there is so little competition in insurance, that allows people to drive up the cost. The solution to that is the Republican solution that says: Increase the competition, increase the competition. That is what we need. Patients, people, citizens of this country want to be able to shop around, buy insurance across State lines, look for what is best for them and best for their families. If we did that, if we did that today, there would be 12 million more Americans with insurance by merely being allowed to have more competition, to be able to shop across State lines and to look around for something that is best for them and for their families--not the limited choices they may have in the State in which they happen to live.

So I look at this from the standpoint of practicing medicine for 25 years, visiting with patients, visiting with providers, talking with nurses, talking with doctors, saying there are things we can do to get down the cost of care. Unfortunately, they are not included in this 2,000-page bill that is now sitting over in the House, with all of these different approaches to force this through in a way that undermines what the American people want, what the American people are asking for--the opinions of the American people--by a group of people in this body who say: We know better than the American people.

This body does not know better than the American people. The House does not know better than the American people. It is time to listen to the American people, which is why I go home every weekend to visit with those folks in my State, in my home State of Wyoming, to visit with them about their needs, their concerns. And they have great concerns about this bill.

It is not just people in my home communities. Warren Buffett, the great investor, says Washington should scrap this health care bill and start over. He said they should focus, as our Republican leader said a few minutes ago, on the costs. He said we should say we are going to focus on the costs and not dream up 2,000 pages of other things. Warren Buffett says get rid of the nonsense, and this bill is loaded with nonsense. This bill is loaded with nonsense--nonsense that is going to drive up the cost of care and decrease the quality of care in this country.

So we have now been going through this for a year. The President is out trying to make an appeal to the Nation to say: Yes, buy this package I am trying to sell. The American people are too smart for that. They realize this package cuts $500 billion from Medicare patients who depend on Medicare for their health care--$500 billion in Medicare cuts. Part of it is to hospitals and part of it is to a program called Medicare Advantage. There are 10 million Americans on Medicare Advantage. The reason they signed up for this, they choose this, is because there is an advantage for them as seniors to participate in this program because this is a program that actually works with preventive care, with coordinating care, things that regular Medicare does not do. They are going to cut over $100 billion from our nursing homes and money from home health, which is a lifeline for people at home. They are going to cut money from hospice for people in their final days of life.

That is part of this big bill the President is supporting and that he is asking the House to vote for. It is a bill that raises taxes by another $500 billion. It is a bill the House is going to be asked to pass that includes every one of the sweetheart deals because their first act in the House is going to have to be to pass the bill the Senate passed on Christmas Eve and that includes all the sweetheart deals, whether it is to Nebraska or Louisiana or Florida. Thirteen different Senators had sweetheart deals put into that bill the Democrats are going to be asked to vote for because the Republicans see through this whole thing.

So the opposition to this is bipartisan. It is bipartisan opposition. Those who support it is one party only.

We are looking now at a mandate where every American is going to be forced--forced--to buy a product, to buy insurance--forced under this--or they will either have to pay special taxes, have their wages garnished or pay a fine or a penalty under this plan that the American people, three out of four, have absolutely rejected.

I see my colleague from Arizona has taken to the floor, and I would ask him if he is hearing similar things when he goes home to Arizona to visit with the people and what concerns he is hearing because there are certainly many seniors in the fine State of Arizona.

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I would say to my colleague from Arizona--and there is actually a Mayo Clinic in Arizona, as there is in Florida and as there is in Rochester, MN, which is the home of the Mayo Clinic--one would think, since the President early on talked so much about the Mayo Clinic being a model for health care in the country, the Mayo Clinic might agree with what the President had to say. But if you go to the Mayo Clinic's blogs, they say:

The proposed legislation misses the opportunity--

We have an opportunity now--

to help create high-quality, more affordable health care for patients. In fact, it will do the opposite.

So here you are. The proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher quality, more affordable health care for patients. In fact, it will do the opposite.

Mr. KYL. If my colleague would yield for a quick comment on that point.

Mr. BARRASSO. Absolutely.

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