Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. BARRASSO. I come to the floor as a physician who practiced medicine in Wyoming for a quarter of a century as an orthopaedic surgeon, taking care of families across the State, and to present a physician's second opinion on what has happened with the health care law people are dealing with. As Nancy Pelosi said 1 year ago: ``First we have to pass it before you get to find out what's in it.''

The American people are finding out what is in it and, frankly, they are not happy with it. They don't like it, they don't want to live with it, and they don't want to live under it.

One year ago, when we started this discussion, what we heard and what I believed as a physician was that what people are looking for is the care they need, from a doctor they want, at a cost they can afford.

This 2,700-page bill that is costing trillions of dollars doesn't deliver that at all. To me, it is a bill that makes it harder to create jobs. It increases the cost of care, eliminates choice, raises taxes, is locking 16 million Americans into a broken Medicaid system, and is taking $500 billion from our seniors--not to help take care of Medicare and solve that problem but to start a whole new government entitlement program.

I was visiting with one of my colleagues, Dr. Kris Keggi, an orthopedic surgeon whom I trained under in my residency program. Just the impact on seniors alone who need hip and knee replacements--we know when we take that kind of money away from Medicare, it doesn't make it easier for seniors to get the care they need.

Two courts have ruled--one in Virginia and one in Florida--that this health care law and the mandate that everybody in the country must buy or obtain government-approved health insurance is unconstitutional. The States are at an impasse in knowing what to do. How do they react? What will the Supreme Court decide? What kind of resources must the States commit?

That is why I am delighted to be joined on the floor by Senator Hutchison from Texas. I think she has the right answer. She has introduced, as an amendment to the bill we are discussing on the floor, the Save our States Act. It is an amendment to suspend implementing these health care reform measures until the lawsuits have been settled and we actually get a clear understanding.

I believe this law is unconstitutional. I ask my colleague--and I note there are quite a few Senators who have cosponsored this legislation--if she would perhaps share, as part of a second opinion, her thoughts on what the States have to live under now and what rights and opportunities the States should have.

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, to follow up on that, I am so pleased to be an original cosponsor of the Save our States Act.

States are very concerned. As I heard my colleague from Texas say, 44 States are in the red right now. When we hear the complaints from Governors of both parties--they are all having to live under this law--they have great concerns. Some States, as my colleague notes, have actually applied for waivers so they don't have to live under the constraints of the law. The State of Maine has been given a waiver, 2 1/2 million Americans have been given waivers by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Many of those are union workers who actually supported the law. When they found out what the law was going to cost--as in the example the Senator has given from Corpus Christi--they said: We can't live under this.

To be forced to put out this expense and pay for it at a time of huge financial challenges for our States, it seems that the Save our States Act is a rational, logical, commonsense way to deal with this.

I will be home in Wyoming this weekend, very likely at a health fair, visiting with people from the communities. Health care fairs are ways to get low-cost health screenings. We know early prevention and early detection of problems are ways to keep down the cost of health care. Those are measures that work. We need to repeal and replace this health care law with things that are commonsense solutions that work. Of course, we can make it legal to allow people to buy insurance across State lines, give people individual incentives to stay healthy, allow people who buy individual health insurance to get the same tax breaks as big companies, and deal with the lawsuit abuse doctors will tell us impacts the way they practice and raises the cost of care.

There are so many things we need to do. That is why I come to the floor again with a doctor's second opinion on the health care law, saying it is time to repeal and replace this health care law and replace it with something that works for the American people. This law we have passed and is now on the books is one I believe is unconstitutional and one that the Save our States Act will help our States deal with. This is a way that I think will help the health care of Americans who are struggling at this time to deal with the onerous requirements they see coming at them under the President's new health care law.

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