Senate Amendments To H.R. 3590, Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009, And H.R. 4872, Health Care And Education Reconciliation Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

Mr. TERRY. We all want all people to have access to affordable health care, but this trillion-dollar tragedy is just bad medicine. Medical costs are high, but this bill does absolutely nothing to help reduce costs. It does take $500 billion from Medicare, resulting in cuts in service to seniors. It does raise taxes on many small businesses, including new mandates on businesses and actually increases premiums as much as 13 percent.

In committee, I introduced an amendment that gives people access to exactly the same care that we have as Members of Congress, but Mr. Markey and almost all the Democrats voted against it. All Republicans voted for that. Last, the clear language of this bill allows abortion, and I encourage all Members to vote against it.

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Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this unprecedented legislation that will affect one-sixth of our economy, saddle our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt, and lead to a government takeover of America's health care system.

As a member of one of the House Committees with jurisdiction over health care, I have had a front row seat to watch a legislative process that has had one over-riding theme--no reform idea, bill, or amendment on health offered by a Republican or even a moderate Democrat was given any consideration. From the start this has been a process that is best described as, ``our way or the highway.''

This bill will result in rising health care costs and premiums. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, reported in December that if the Senate bill was passed, average premiums per policy would rise by 10 to 13 percent in 2016, resulting in annual premiums of $5,500 for single policies and $13,100 for families.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, the health care bill carries a price tag of $940 billion over 10 years. Most revenue raisers come from new taxes on small business, individuals, and medical goods. Furthermore, the health care bill includes significant payment changes for Medicare Advantage and $500 billion in cuts to both Medicare and Medicaid. A number of arbitrary cuts are made to skilled nursing facilities, hospice, home health, Medicaid DSH payments, and popular Medicare Advantage plans. Specifically, the bill reduces Medicare Advantage payment benchmarks over the next 7 years, resulting in reduced access for millions of beneficiaries currently on Medicare Advantage plans. The ``savings'' Democrats purport are truly cuts to services that our seniors need. I don't think we can afford this plan and it will, in time, hurt both our economy and beneficiaries.

The scoring used by CBO and our Democrat colleagues can best be described as ``new math.'' For example, a 10-year fix for Medicare reimbursement to physicians will cost $208 billion, yet that is not counted in the CBO score. But a separate deal has been struck with the doctors to do that later this year. So by my math, the real cost of health care reform is closer to $1.3 trillion, not $940 billion.

A recent New York Times article highlighted a growing trend of physicians dropping Medicaid patients because of low payments--and the Democrats' solution to our health care crisis is to expand Medicaid eligibility to an additional 16 million more individuals over the next 10 years? In a letter to Congress following the Health Care Summit, President Obama acknowledged the need to increase Medicaid reimbursement to

ensure future services and yet, those anticipated additional costs are nowhere to be found in either H.R. 3590 or H.R. 4872.

Another ``new math'' trick being used by the Democrats is to tell the American people that the Medicare Part D drug benefit ``donut hole'' will be closed. Yes, the ``donut hole'' is partially closed by this legislation, but not closed entirely until the year 2020 which is after the scoring period used by the CBO. Again, this ``new math'' is being used as a gimmick to make it appear that this bill will reduce the deficit. But it will not. This bill costs more than Democrats claim.

Last year, one of my Democratic colleagues stated, ``The fact of the matter is that some in the Republican party don't want these problems fixed because they're already doing just fine. They've got choice, they've got the federal plan, that's what I have. Well in the Democratic party we're saying something else, we want the American people to get at least as good as my friends in the Republican party have. We want at least the benefits that we have here in Congress--choice, affordability, lower cost and lower taxes for all Americans.'' I wholeheartedly agree with Congressman Weiner that Americans should have access to the same plans as their Members. Last year I offered two amendments to Speaker Pelosi's bill. The first was my alternative plan called Simple Universal Healthcare, SUH, which creates a new health insurance program similar to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan now available to the President, Vice President, Members of Congress and all federal government employees. The plan allows the uninsured and small businesses access to more affordable insurance with options, portability and no mandates. The other amendment I offered would require that the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress enroll in Pelosi's public plan. Both amendments were prevented from a floor vote by Speaker Pelosi's rules.

Yesterday, I attempted to offer the Simple Universal Healthcare plan as an amendment in the Rules Committee, however Speaker Pelosi ordered the nine Democrats on the Committee to kill all Republican amendments and therefore my bill did not survive.

Madam Speaker, there are some in this chamber who may consider this a momentous day. And that it will be if the House of Representatives votes to spend trillions of dollars and forwards the bill to future generations. While we ramp up spending, we have not dealt with the exploding costs of Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. We are on a path of fiscal recklessness that threatens the future economic growth of America. So for me, this is a sad day, one that could have been avoided had the House worked together on a bipartisan basis to provide the American people greater access to health care that we can afford.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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