Health Care Reform Update

Statement

Democratic congressional leaders continue closed, back-room discussions to develop a strategy on how to jam a health care overhaul through Congress on a party-line vote. Speculation now centers on whether the president and Democrat leaders will use a procedural maneuver called reconciliation to pass a health bill. Reconciliation is a legislative process allowing a simple majority to pass legislation with limited debate, circumventing normal, long-standing Senate rules.

The president and the majority in Congress are still not listening to the American people on the subject of health care reform. By an overwhelming margin, the American people are telling us to scrap the current bills and start over.

In December, I spoke on the Senate floor about the many reasons the American people have rejected the Democrats' plan. Their plan includes a half-trillion dollars in new taxes, increases to health insurance premiums, a half-trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare, job-killing penalties for employers, taxpayer-funded abortion and countless new regulations that will ration care to American citizens. At its core, their plan increases the cost of health care and threatens the very health care choices millions of Americans currently enjoy.

If the Democrats in Congress are serious about achieving reform, it is time they scrap their current plan and work in a bipartisan fashion on step-by-step solutions that focus on lowering health care costs. Together, we can achieve meaningful reforms and assemble legislation that Americans will support.

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