In order to achieve real health care reform, the kind of change that would relieve Kansas families and business owners from facing drastic increases in their health insurance premium costs, we must do something to reduce health care costs. If we fail to affect cost, then reform efforts, whatever they may be, will fail because costs simply get shifted and always roll downhill to the patient. This is one of the many reasons I'm so adamantly opposed to the Democrat health care plan.
You may hear that the health care legislation we apparently are going to vote on this week will reduce costs. But the accounting data shows just the opposite. The facts are the facts. Democrats count billions in tax revenues to pay for their plan's new programs, but then they assign those same revenues to preserve Medicare and Social Security. They are double counting. When all the budgetary gimmicks are removed, we see this bill for what it is, a trillion dollar budget breaker that we cannot afford and that won't improve everyday Americans' access to affordable health care. It's the worst of both worlds: Breaking the bank, breaking the Treasury and not controlling health care costs.