Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. I am grateful to the Senator for bringing this up. I had a telephone townhall meeting last night, and this specific motion the Senator is bringing today came up with great praise from the people of Wyoming who said: She is doing it right, leading the good fight. After I answer the question, I will ask: How do we know the money is even going to be there? That is the question that came up in my telephone townhall. People of Wyoming are concerned, if this passes, it will make health care harder for people in rural States, such as Wyoming and Montana. My colleague from Montana is on the floor. The doctor shortage will worsen. This is the headline on the front page by the Wyoming Tribune Eagle: ``Doctor Shortage Will Worsen.'' There is a lot of concern for the folks in Wyoming and communities where there is a sole hospital, a sole physician provider trying to recruit nurses and physician assistants and nurse practitioners. The doctor shortage will worsen as we see a situation where they will be cutting Medicare $500 billion, raising taxes $500 billion, and people who had insurance on this telephone townhall were very concerned that their insurance premiums are going to go up, in spite of the fact that the President has promised families would see insurance rates go down. We know those rates are going to go way up for people who buy their own insurance. People say: Don't cut Medicare, don't raise taxes, don't make matters worse than they are right now. For the people of Wyoming, they are afraid that matters will be made worse.

The Washington Post had a major poll in the paper today specifically asking seniors the question about Medicare. We are talking about health care quality, the quality of care. The question is: Do you think health care reform will strengthen the Medicare Program or weaken the Medicare Program? They asked specifically and broke it down to seniors. Only 1 out of 8 seniors in this poll said it actually would get better. But the rest are saying: No, it is going to get worse. The seniors who watch this most carefully know what it means to try to get health care under the Medicare Program, a program that we know is going broke. Yet they are taking all this money not to save Medicare but to start a new program. We know the quality of care is going to go down. That is what the people of my home State and the people I talked to from around the country are concerned about. They are delighted the Senator offered this motion.

I did a poll in the townhall meeting: Are you for or against the bill? Some of them say: What is in it? We don't know. Which is exactly what the junior Senator, a Democrat from Indiana, said in today's national press release: We are all being urged to vote for something, and we don't know the details of what is in it. The junior Senator from Indiana is a Democrat. He doesn't know what is in it. The people of Wyoming don't know what is in it. But they do know taxes start immediately, benefits not for 4 years. That is why they are happy you offered this motion. They want to know: How do we know the money will be there 4 years from now?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. That is a very important question. Here we are going to start collecting the taxes for 4 years before the program is put in place. The distinguished Senator from Oklahoma, the other physician in this body, knows we have had promises from the Federal Government before. But I can't remember a time when we started collecting a tax for a purpose that would be 4 years away. What on Earth could people expect to actually be there when the program kicks in?

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