Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

SERVICE MEMBERS HOME OWNERSHIP TAX ACT OF 2009 -- (Senate - December 02, 2009)

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Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of the McCain motion, and I do it from the perspective of a representative of the State of Kansas.

We have a number of senior citizens and hospitals that are Medicare-Ðdependent. We have a number of providers for whom a majority of their practice is Medicare reimbursement. They are scared to death of these cuts, and the cuts are well documented--$500 billion in Medicare cuts, and for the 43 million senior citizens on a program that is already projected to go insolvent by 2017, specific cuts of $135 billion from hospitals, $120 billion from 11 million seniors in Medicare Advantage, nearly $15 billion from nursing homes, nearly $40 billion from home health agencies, and then--a cruel gesture, it seems to me--nearly $8 billion from hospice, where people are getting their final care for cancer and diseases that are killing them--$8 billion cut from hospice.

What that does in a State such as mine and in many rural hospitals, it cuts the legs out from under them. They are not going to have the money they need to operate. They are going to do everything they can to continue to operate--and they will, probably. What they will try to do is tax their local citizenry, raise property taxes, in all probability, to make up for the Medicare cuts because they are going to have a hospital there and they are going to do everything they can to keep a hospital there.

But what a terrible gesture on our part here, to take money that has been going into Medicare--and people have been paying into Medicare--and then steal it for a new program that is not going to get everybody covered on top of that and from a program that is already set to go insolvent by 2017. It is like writing a big fat check on an overdrawn bank account to start something new, to buy a new motorcycle. That doesn't make sense to people. Then it seems cruel and unusual to the senior citizens that you are taking $500 billion and really gutting a lot of their care programs on a program that doesn't work.

I met earlier, within the last several days, with the Kansas Association of
Anesthesiologists. They are looking at these things and saying: This is really going to hurt us and our ability to provide services and care. I talked with other individuals who look at this, and they say: Wait a minute, you are going to change everything to try to get a few more people covered and you are going to gut a Medicare program that is not paying the bills now, that a number of private insurance plans are helping to subsidize Medicare and Medicaid, and you are going to cut the reimbursements that are not making things work yet? It makes no sense to individuals that this would take place.

I get called by a number of individuals across the State of Kansas saying they are very scared of this bill and what it is going to do to their health care. I do telephone townhall meetings, as a number of individuals across this body do, and the individuals there whom you get on a random phone calling basis are scared and mad about this bill and the prospects of what it does to their health care. I get it from individuals. I get it from mail.

I was in a meeting in Kansas the week of Thanksgiving, and I polled the audience--it was an audience that was mostly over the age of 65--how many were in favor of the overall bill? There were about 200-some people there, and 10 were in favor. How many opposed? Everybody else, with a few saying they don't have an opinion. But it was 90 percent, 95 percent opposed to this bill, and it is because they look at it and they see what it is going to do to them, and they don't see it providing the care that is being promised--and adding, on top of that, to the deficit.

One of two things is going to happen on these Medicare cuts, because we have seen, in the past, efforts to control the spending in Medicare passed by this body and then each year those cuts to try to restrain the spending on Medicare being restored.

One of two things is going to happen. Either these cuts in Medicare are going to take place, and it is going to cripple the program and particularly hurt it in a number of rural areas across the country and in my State, or these cuts will never take place in Medicare and it is going to add to a ballooning deficit and debt that is taking place right now. Either choice is an irresponsible choice for this body to do. It is irresponsible for us to do for this country. Most people look at it and say: I want to get more people covered, and I want to bend down the cost curve. But let's do that on an incremental basis.

Senator Kyl spoke about incremental changes that can take place, whether it is tort reform, allowing bigger pooling on health insurance, whether it is starting more community-based clinics, one that I look at as something that has worked in my State to get more people covered at an earlier phase in their health care needs. All of those are incremental, low cost, and, in some cases, ones that actually do bend down the cost curve and that can help, not a gargantuan $2.5 trillion program that takes $500 billion out of Medicare that is already headed toward insolvency in less than a decade. The bill doesn't make sense to individuals.

Then to do it on top of a time period when the President, 10 days ago, comes back from China, meeting with our bankers, as most people look at it, and the bankers lecturing us on why are we spending more money which we don't have, going further and further into debt, which we should not do at this point in time, being lectured by the Chinese when we ought to be talking to them about what they are doing about human rights and currency. We are being lectured about fiscal irresponsibility, and it is because of bills such as this. If we just stop and slow down and listen to seniors and others across this country, there is a commonsense middle ground that we can go to, that doesn't cost anything along the nature of this, doesn't change health care for most people but addresses the narrow problem of getting the cost curve down, of getting more people covered. This bill with these cuts in Medicare cripples many of my providers in the State of Kansas and will make them raise property taxes to keep the hospitals open, to try to provide doctors in the community--a lot of the hospitals are going to close and a lot of providers will stop providing Medicare--or, in all probability, these cuts will never happen, and it will be added to the debt and deficit, completely irresponsible toward our kids.

I urge my colleagues to vote for the McCain motion that makes sense, that is what the citizenry wants to do: send these cuts in Medicare back to communities and pull out of this bill.

I yield the floor.

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