Burr and GOP HELP Committee Members Respond to Democrats' Health Care Bill

Press Conference

Burr and GOP HELP Committee Members Respond to Democrats' Health Care Bill

Posted by: Burr Press Office

Today, U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, along with Senators Enzi (R-WY), Gregg (R-NH), Alexander (R-TN), Isakson (R-GA), McCain (R-AZ), Murkowski (R-AK), and Hatch (R-UT) held a press conference to discuss the Democrats' health care proposal that passed through the committee this morning. Senator Burr addressed the need for true health care reform as well as the lack of bipartisanship in the committee process.

TRANSCRIPT: SENATOR BURR: The president stated very clearly at the start of this process that healthcare was unsustainable on its current path. Today it's 17% of our gross domestic product. We agree with the president, it is unsustainable today, and the goal was to produce a healthcare system that reduced the cost of healthcare over a period of time and made the future sustainable and predictable. Well, we have anything but that today. Tom Coburn and I did offer a complete substitute to the bill, one that checked all the boxes that Senator Gregg just talked about. It assured that every American was covered. It assured that the right investment was made in prevention, wellness, and disease management, which are the only three things that bring the cost down in the future. And yes, it passed the test of being financially sustainable well into the future. Not only does the bill that was passed out of the HELP committee today fall 34 million Americans short of full coverage, it is unsustainable financially. And it actually will penalize Americans that have insurance today that they are happy with and doctors they want to go to, that will affect them in the future on the cost of their healthcare and possibly on who their provider of choice might be. We are headed in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, there are only two numbers you need to remember from the entire markup process, and that's 13 and 10. When it was a republican amendment it was defeated 13-10. When it was a democrat amendment it was passed 13-10.

Source