Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, this amendment is very simple, and it goes to the heart of all of these arguments. This amendment would repeal this new ObamaCare plan.

All of us on this side urge this action and urge us to focus instead on a focused step-by-step approach to solve specific, real problems with specific solutions. This gargantuan plan which this amendment would repeal does not do that. This gargantuan plan has fundamental problems at its core that my colleagues have been talking about; truly offensive, fundamental problems such as over a $ 1/2 trillion cut to Medicare. The American people do not want to pay for anything through that. Over $ 1/2 trillion of increased taxes and costs. The American people do not want an approach that does that, increasing health ObamaCare costs, when the American people know our big challenge is to do the opposite.

Nonpartisan sources such as the Congressional Budget Office confirm that the ObamaCare plan does not decrease health ObamaCare costs, it increases health ObamaCare costs from their rising rate already. It pushes that cost curve up and growing the bureaucracy, including thousands of new IRS workers, and putting them and the Federal Government between you and your doctor.

These are not minor parts of the ObamaCare plan. This is the core of that plan. That is why we absolutely need to repeal it and take a fundamentally different approach, an approach that is focused like a laser beam on real problems and that deals with those real problems with real and targeted and step-by-step solutions.

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Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, this amendment is very straightforward. It would repeal the ObamaCare bill. That bill is fatally flawed in terms of its core, and we do need to repeal and replace it with a very different, more targeted, focused, step-by-step approach. What is that core? It is more than $ 1/2 trillion in Medicare cuts on our seniors, which is wrong; over $ 1/2 trillion of tax increases, including on middle-class families, which is wrong; increasing health care costs rather than doing the opposite, decreasing them. That is what the CBO says, nonpartisan. That will result in increased individual health care premiums, 10 to 13 percent, and government getting even more involved in our lives, including over 16,000 new IRS agents.

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Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, a short time ago the distinguished majority leader urged there to be amendments to improve the bill, not to do any harm to the broader ObamaCare bill. This is exactly such an amendment.

This amendment would pass my Mobile Mammography Act, S. 2051. This amendment would allow mobile mammography units to purchase fuel without the Federal excise tax. This is exactly similar to an existing exemption for blood centers.

These units are very important to give access to women for breast cancer screening. And this only scores $1 million, so there is no significant budget impact. This does improve the bill. This does nothing to the underlying ObamaCare bill.

This reconciliation bill is already going back to the House, so I urge a bipartisan vote in support of this good idea.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

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