Formatting necessary for an accurate reading of this text may be shown by tags (e.g., <DELETED> or <BOLD>) or may be missing from this TXT display. For complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.
[Pages S2756-S2757]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Medicare
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, if you are in a shaky financial situation,
wondering how you are going to meet your obligations, your first
instinct isn't generally to wildly increase your spending, unless, of
course, you are a congressional Democrat.
Our Nation's Medicare system is on shaky financial ground. Democrats'
answer is to massively expand the program to the tune of trillions of
dollars.
Two weeks ago, the Social Security and Medicare trustees released
their annual report. According to the report, beginning in 2026,
Medicare will not be able to meet its obligations. This doesn't even
seem to register on Democrats' radar. They steamroll right past the
program's already shaky financial status and ask the American people to
believe that, somehow, massively expanding the program to include
almost the entire U.S. population at a pricetag of staggering
proportions will work.
It is difficult to overstate just how unrealistic Democrats' Medicare
for All fantasy is. Start with the pricetag: $32 trillion over 10
years. To put that number in perspective, that is more money than the
Federal Government has spent in the last 8 years combined--on
everything. That $32 trillion estimate is likely too low, as it was
based on an earlier version of the Medicare for All plan of the Senator
from Vermont. His new plan also includes a massive new benefit--funding
for long-term care, an enormously expensive part of the healthcare
system.
Democrats' last attempt to have the government run a long-term care
program fell apart before it was even implemented because the program
was not financially viable.
Let's leave aside for a minute the tremendous cost and the tax hikes
on ordinary Americans that would be required to pay for it. Let's talk
about the massive difficulty of implementing such a system. The junior
Senator from Vermont expects people to believe that the government can
successfully transition more than 180 million people off of their
private insurance and into government-run healthcare in 4 years. To put
that in perspective, the Obama administration had 3\1/2\ years to
implement the ObamaCare exchanges, which were intended to cover a tiny
fraction of the number of people who would be covered under Medicare
for All. As I am sure most Americans remember, the government couldn't
put together a working website in that 3\1/2\ year time period. Yet
Democrats somehow expect us to believe that they can smoothly
transition 180 million Americans into government-run insurance in just
4 years.
We are also somehow supposed to believe things will be much more
efficient with government running your healthcare. It is certainly true
there is a lot of bureaucracy in our current healthcare system, but I
am fairly sure the answer is not giving control of healthcare to the
mother ship of bureaucracy--the Federal Government. Democrats also
apparently expect Americans to believe that the Federal Government will
be able to deliver almost unlimited healthcare for free. Unfortunately,
no matter how much money the Federal Government takes in with higher
taxes, there will eventually be a limit to how much it can spend on
healthcare.
What happens when it can't afford to meet demand, which, by the way,
tends to increase substantially when something is offered for free? I
will tell you what happens: long wait times and rationing of care,
which have become the hallmarks of socialized medicine in other
countries.
There is no question that our healthcare system is not perfect.
Republicans are currently working on legislation to address some of the
healthcare challenges facing Americans, but destroying our current
health system to fix the problems we have would be like razing a house
to the ground to fix a leak in the bathroom sink.
There are lots of good things about our healthcare system. A lot of
people in this country are happy with their healthcare. We need to
preserve the good things about our system and fix what is not working
and not force everyone into a fantastically expensive one-size-fits-
all, government-run healthcare system that would reduce everyone's
quality of care.
The Democratic chairman of the House Rules Committee, discussing a
House hearing on Medicare for All, recently said: ``It's a serious
proposal that deserves serious consideration on Capitol Hill.''
I would argue that it is the exact opposite. The only things that are
serious about this proposal are the serious consequences it would have
for the American people if it were ever implemented. It is deeply
irresponsible of my Democrat colleagues to peddle this government-run
nightmare as a legitimate healthcare solution. One of our former
colleagues, Tom Coburn, used to say: If you think healthcare is
expensive now, wait until it is free.
Let's hope Democrats decide to take a more serious approach to
healthcare reform before Americans are forced to live under the ugly
reality of their socialist fantasy.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[[Page S2757]]
