‘Any school kid in America could tell you that creating a massive new government program will cost a lot of money; that cutting Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars will lead to cuts in services that people currently enjoy; and that higher taxes on small businesses will lead to even more job losses’

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Monday regarding the importance of getting it right on health care reform:

“Over the past several months, Americans have grown increasingly alarmed about the high levels of spending and debt that we’ve seen under the new administration.

“And they’ve become increasingly vocal about these concerns out of a growing sense that the White House doesn’t seem to be listening to them, that it’s talking over them.

“Nowhere is this more apparent than in the debate over health care, and never more so than in the President’s speech to Congress last week. For weeks and weeks, Americans had expressed their concerns about the Democrats’ health care proposals at town hall meetings across the country. Yet the President returned from the August break with a speech that didn’t really address any of them.

“Instead, he stated his intention to spend nearly a trillion dollars on a plan that he says will expand coverage without increasing costs or adding to the deficit. These are precisely the claims that Americans are finding so difficult to square with reality.

“The speech itself was well delivered. But in the end, Congress isn’t going to be asked to vote on a speech. It’s going to be asked to vote on specific legislation.

“And, in my view, the President’s speech really only highlighted the concerns that millions of Americans and members of both parties in Congress continue to have with Democrat plans for health care reform, because when you strip away the pageantry of the speech itself, what you were left with was simply this: one more trillion dollar government program, and a whole lot of unanswered questions about how we’re going to pay for it; what it’s going to mean for seniors and small business owners; and how it’s going to affect the quality and availability of care for millions and millions of Americans, the vast majority of whom are happy with the care they have.

“These are legitimate questions, and it’s unfair for anyone to dismiss those who ask them as cranks or scaremongers. The answers to these questions impact some of the most important aspects of people’s lives. And people just aren’t getting answers.

“Take the issue of cost. The President says he’s going to pay for his plan by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse out of the system. This raises a couple of questions. First of all, if there’s that much waste, fraud, and abuse, then why isn’t the administration doing something about it already?

“Second, if we’re seeing this kind of waste, fraud, and abuse in an existing government program, why shouldn’t we expect it to exist in the new government program that the White House wants to create? Of course we should root out waste, fraud, and abuse. But let’s do it for its own sake, not to justify a new government program that most Americans aren’t even asking for.

“How about Medicare? The administration plans to pay for much of its health care proposals with hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare. A significant portion of this would involve cuts to Medicare Advantage, a program that serves more than 11 million American seniors, nearly 90 percent of whom say they’re satisfied with it.

“But faced with questions about its proposed cuts to Medicare, the administration insists that services to seniors won’t be cut. This is absurd. How can the administration tell America’s seniors with a straight face that it’s about to cut half a trillion dollars from Medicare, but that those cuts won’t affect the program in any noticeable way?

“What about the hundreds of billions of dollars the administration would have to raise to pay for its plan even after its proposed cuts to Medicare. The White House hasn’t said where it plans to get all of that money. But to most people, the answer is obvious: more spending, more taxes, higher deficits — or, most likely, all three.

“What about the deficit? The White House says its health care plan won’t add a dollar to the deficit. How do they square that with the fact that the Congressional Budget Office has said repeatedly and unequivocally that every proposal we’ve seen would, in fact, add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit?

“Any school kid in America could tell you that creating a massive new government program will cost a lot of money; that cutting Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars will lead to cuts in services that people currently enjoy; and that higher taxes on small businesses will lead to even more job losses.

“These are serious questions; the administration’s response to them is not. Its response is to accuse anyone who asks them of being a scaremonger, and to give them the same two-word answer they gave anybody who questioned the Stimulus: ‘Trust us.’

“When it comes to health care, Americans are saying these arguments don’t add up. These are all simple questions. The administration should be able to answer them. If they can’t, it’s even further validation, in my view, that the questions are worth asking.”

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