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WASHINGTON - During debate in the House of Representatives on major health care reform legislation Saturday evening, Rep. Tom Petri warned that the legislation would disrupt the economy, raise taxes, and cause health care premiums to skyrocket.
His floor statement follows:
Unemployment is 10.2 percent - the highest in 26 years.
Yet, here we are, being asked to vote on a bill which will radically alter and disrupt one-sixth of our economy, hit businesses with costly new regulations, ratchet up monstrous Medicaid mandates on the 50 states, raise taxes on job creators, impose skyrocketing insurance premiums on individuals and families, and destroy popular Medicare Advantage plans.
All this while failing to bend the cost curve down and providing no real liability reform.
At a time of record deficits, this bill spends over a trillion dollars to provide health insurance to less than 15 percent of Americans.
To pay for this budgetary train wreck, it imposes $730 billion in new taxes and relies on a series of budget gimmicks in a slippery attempt to claim it won't contribute to our deficit tsunami.
This legislation will bring about a radical intrusion of government into every sector of health care. It puts bureaucrats between patients and their doctors.
It doesn't make sense, and isn't very smart.
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