Prayer

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, in the United States we have the best health care in the world. We have the best doctors, the best nurses, the best hospitals, the best clinics--across the board, the best health care. I believe that is because we have a health care system where individuals make decisions about their health care. They decide what doctor they go to, what hospital, what clinic. They decide what health care plan or what health care policy to choose.

But ObamaCare changes that. It brings government into running the health care system in a way we have never experienced before in the United States, a level of government involvement far beyond what we have ever had before. The proponents of ObamaCare say otherwise, but that is just not the case. Government will set up exchanges and operate those exchanges, and it actually limits the number of policies and options that can be offered on those exchanges. At the same time, the government also prescribes coverage that must be offered in policies, driving up costs and again reducing options--choices--for consumers.

Furthermore, ObamaCare kicks in effectively October 1--the start of the fiscal year, next week--but clearly neither the Federal nor State governments are ready to go. That has been very well publicized, and, of course, that is why the administration has delayed the employer mandate for a year.

The question then is, Why hasn't President Obama also delayed the individual mandate? Why would you delay the mandate for big companies across this country but then not at the same time delay the mandate for the American people, for individuals across this country?

That is just one of the many inconsistencies in the law and in the administration of this law. That is why I support anything we can do to either defund or delay ObamaCare, and that is why our entire Republican caucus supports doing anything we can to defund or delay ObamaCare. Granted, we have some different ideas on tactics, how best to do it, but we are absolutely united in our effort to oppose ObamaCare.

The reality is that instead of ObamaCare, we should be encouraging more choice and more competition in health care, not more government control. That means things such as tort reform to help reduce the cost of health care. It also means encouraging more competition among health insurance companies across State lines and expanded health savings accounts. Expanded health savings accounts, combined with high-deductible insurance policies, will encourage young people to buy health insurance because their insurance premiums will be much more affordable. Again, more competition, more choice, more participation by people of all ages, and as a result, a system that is sound, a system that truly encourages and empowers individuals. That is how we empower people to take control of their medical costs--not with a government-run system but by empowering individuals. We empower health care providers with tort reform, and we empower consumers with more choice, more competition, and more options.

At the same time, we need to reform Medicare and Medicaid. We can save hundreds of millions of dollars by reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. But we also need to provide the right incentives and more flexibility.

Take Medicare, for example. Right now in my home State of North Dakota, on a relative basis we have lower cost health care than many other States, and at the same time that we have lower costs in North Dakota, we have better outcomes. On a comparative basis, we have very high-quality medical care. So think about that--lower costs, better outcomes. But under Medicare, for that performance we are not rewarded. We don't get more reimbursement, we get less reimbursement. That makes no sense. Think about it. So a State with low costs and better outcomes gets lower Medicare reimbursement than a State with high costs regardless of outcomes. Then you get more reimbursement? Think about that as a system, rewarding higher costs, penalizing lower costs. That is the exact opposite of what we should have.

Those are the kinds of things we should be reforming, and we should reform them in a way that creates the right incentives.

Take Medicaid. Medicaid, the same thing. Here, you have way too much of a Federal one-size-fits-all. Why not give the States more flexibility so that they can respond to the circumstances in their State, find ways to improve care, and reduce costs and make sure those States benefit when they do that so that they have the right incentives.

These are the kinds of health care reforms that make sense, common sense. These are the kinds of health care reforms that empower people. These are the kinds of health care reforms we need.

Republicans will vote to defund ObamaCare. We need some Democrats to join us for the sake of health care, for the sake of our economy, full-time employment versus part-time employment. ObamaCare is hurting our economy and hurting job creation. So for the sake of health care in this country and for the sake of our economy, it is what the American people want. They want us to fund this continuing resolution and they want us to defund ObamaCare, and I ask our colleagues to join us in this effort.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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