Health Care Alternative

Floor Speech

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. You know, Mr. Speaker, I wasn't going to come down here and speak tonight, but I saw my learned colleague who's a trial lawyer coming down here to talk. The trial lawyers have been doing very well over the years suing doctors and driving up the cost of medical care because of the suits that have to be paid, and the insurance that the doctors have to buy to protect themselves against malpractice claims is astronomical in some States. In some States, doctors are actually leaving the State or retiring from their practices because they can't afford to pay those premiums and/or they're worried to death that they're going to lose everything they have worked a whole lifetime to attain through a lawsuit.

And so it's not a surprise to me that my colleague that was just here, who is a trial lawyer, would be down here talking about the changes that he thinks ought to be made in health care.

We have an alternative. Our alternative is to allow small businesses to bind together to buy insurance for their employees at the same rates as a major corporation; to allow small businesses and individuals to buy insurance across State lines so there's more competition in the system; to come up with tort reform, which will limit these astounding settlements that these trial lawyers get.

There's a whole host of things that we have talked about putting into legislation that will help solve the problems of health care, but they don't want to talk about it. In fact, what they talk about is that we're the Party of ``No,'' we're being obstructionists, and we don't want to solve the health care problems. We do want to solve the health care problems. And we can solve the health care problems without destroying the free enterprise system.

They are for government takeover of medicine. That is socialized medicine. And they want to see the government telling all of us what kind of care we get, who we get it from, when we get it, and what rationing might take place. And there will be rationing of health care if their plan passes. And that's something I don't think the American people want.

And then you start talking to the senior citizens. They want to take $500 billion out of Medicare and Medicare Advantage. What's that going to do to the seniors and the health care they're getting right now? That's going to add to the problem that they say they're going to solve. Just putting the government in complete control of health care is not going to be the answer.

We have problems that need to be solved. They can be solved. They can be solved within the free enterprise system. We don't want to destroy free enterprise in America. There are those on that side and I believe at the White House that believe government should run everything. They should run health care; they should run energy, like the cap-and-trade bill; they should run the automobile industry. We now have Government Motors that took over General Motors. They want to run the finance industry. And the crown jewel is health care, because health care is one-sixth of our economy. They get that. They're on their way to the government controlling every part of our lives, at least in large part.

This is something that we don't believe in in America. We believe in the free enterprise system and the people that have the ability to succeed to have that opportunity, the people who come from nowhere can make money because the system works. And we don't want the government telling us what we can and we can't do. We believe in freedom in this country and not more and more government control.

If their health care bill passes, there will be rationing of health care. There will be bureaucrats coming between people and their doctors. And government here in Washington will be making decisions for people's health care. Are they taking care of the other problems we're facing in this country? Are they solving the problems without the costs going through the roof? Their program is going to cost at least $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion that we do not have. And our kids and our grandkids are going to have to pay for that. That's unbelievable that we pass to the next generation all the problems that we face today.

We could come to grips with this, and we could solve the problem if they'll sit down and work with us. They keep saying, Well, we're not working with them. They've got about an 80-vote majority in this House. In the other body, they've got 59-41. They can pass anything they want. They've got the guy in the White House. The reason they can't get it done is because you, the American people, don't want it. You don't want government control over our lives, and you don't want socialized medicine.

We can solve these problems. And we can do it within the free enterprise system if we just sit down and get the job done. Let there be competition in the free enterprise system and medicine, and we'll solve these problems.

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