Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, this week, Democrats released 42 additional pages of the health care bill in their manager's amendment, meaning the total package now stands at 2,032 pages.

As I see it, the manager's amendment makes it more likely that we will see everyone in the exchange on a government-run plan within a few years of its creation. The amendment calls for insurers to report annual premium increases to the government and gives the administrator the power to kick insurers out of the exchange for increases that he or she deem to be excessive, a term that is left entirely up to the discretion of the administrator.

What we have been saying all year is that a plan that doesn't pay the cost of care will shift higher costs to private insurers, as hospitals and providers have to make up their losses on payments from the government. As costs are shifted, private insurers are left with no choice but to increase premiums.

Independent studies have shown that millions of people will be dropped from their current coverage and put on the public plan. Now, with the manager's amendment, Democrats are simply quickening this transition by kicking insurers off their plan. It is a bad amendment, a bad bill, and it should be rejected.

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