Health Care Reform

HEALTH CARE REFORM -- (House of Representatives - July 09, 2009)

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Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I congratulate the gentleman for suggesting the American people contact their Members of Congress. I just want to say I just explained to the American people when we as Members of Congress say I associate myself with those comments, that means I agree wholeheartedly. And I do associate myself with those comments.

I want to remind the American people that former U.S. Senator Dirksen one time said that when he feels the heat, he sees the light. The American people need to put heat on the Members of Congress in the House and the Senate because the Senate has a bill too that is disastrous. It will do just the things that Mr. Shadegg was talking about. In our shop we have looked at those proposals over there on the Senate side, and it is going to be disastrous if that bill as we see it thus far is passed.

The only way we are going to stop it is for the

American people to get on the telephone, to call their Members of Congress, call their U.S. House of Representatives as well as their U.S. Senators and say ``no.'' We as Republicans have been accused of being the Party of No, n-o. Frankly, we are the Party of Know, k-n-o-w. We know how to fix this problem. We know how to lower the cost of health care. We know how to give patients choice and give them ownership of their health care plan. We know how to fix this problem. We know that government intrusion into health care decisions and the health care decision-making process and reimbursement and all the reasons it is so high and unaffordable today.

I just wanted to associate myself with the comments that you made and encourage the American people to get on the telephone, to get on their e-mail, to get on their fax machines, to call their neighbors and their friends all over this country and encourage their neighbors, friends and family to contact their Members of Congress. Let's shut the telephone system down tomorrow, across this Nation, people calling, faxing and e-mailing to say ``no'' to this travesty, ``no'' to this piece of garbage. I will be outright and say it. You were looking for a nice word. But it is garbage. And it is going to destroy the quality of health care.

I am a medical doctor. I practiced medicine for 38 years. And this is going to place a government bureaucrat between the doctor and the patient. It is going to be extremely expensive. The quality is going to go down. Innovation is going to be for naught, and it is going to go away. People are not going to like this, and we need to have it in an open process.

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Mr. BROUN of Georgia. American people need to understand what is in this bill, as little as we know about it. There are some things that we do know about it. Our friend, John Shadegg, just talked about that, the untruth of your being able to keep the health care policy that you currently have, is absolutely in this bill. People are not going to be able to keep their health care policy. We know that.

We also know, without a question, that there is going to be a Washington bureaucrat put between the doctor and the patient. So a Washington bureaucrat is going to be making your health care decisions, is my message to the American people, Mr. Speaker. It's going to make your health care decisions for you, Mr. Speaker.

You doctor is not just going to be able to make those decisions. You are not going to be able to make those decisions. Your family is not going to be able to make those decisions. And the decisions are going to be rationed. In other words, some Federal bureaucrat, some Washington bureaucrat is going to tell the patient what tests that they can have, what medicines they can have, what surgeries they can have, what X-rays they can have and what they can't have.

And there are going to be more can't-haves than can-haves, because this is going to be extremely expensive.

We know this that's in this bill: Right now, today, when people have insurance provided by their employer, that is a tax-free benefit. We already know that this Democratic bill is going to put taxes on your health insurance, and you're going to have to pay those. So what you're getting now, Mr. Speaker, the American people, at no tax consequences to you, you're going to have to pay taxes on it.

We know this, too--that Mr. Obama said a few weeks ago that he had to push through this, what I call cap-and-tax bill, the cap-and-trade bill, that it wasn't about the environment, because he said himself that he needed those taxes to pay for his health insurance program, this single-party payer program that we're going to; some Washington, bureaucratic-directed health care system. He needs those taxes to pay for it. So people's taxes are going to go up. Business taxes are going to go up. We're going to have these energy taxes, which is going to increase the cost of all goods and services--gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, food, medicine, everything is going to go up because of the energy tax that's over in the Senate. And I hope the American people will call and tell their Senators ``no'' to that, too.

It's critical at this late hour, which should be a very, very early hour but it's a late hour because the majority is going to force down the throat of the American people this health care plan that's going to be disastrous and take their choices away, increase their taxes. It's going to destroy our economy, and it's going to destroy the quality of health care. I hope they'll call, fax, e-mail their Members of Congress and say no, let's put everything out in the open so that we can know what it is and so that alternative systems can be looked at.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

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