Senator Lamar Alexander today on the Senate floor discussed health care reform and urged Congress to take President Obama’s advice that any effort to reform health care must first start with reducing health care costs for Americans and their government.
He said:
· "The Democrats’ bill is indeed historic in its combination of higher premiums, higher taxes, Medicare cuts and more federal government debt.”
· “As a former governor of Tennessee, I simply do not see how Tennessee can pay for its part of the Medicaid expansion without imposing a new state income tax and damaging higher education.”
· “Health care reform is about reducing costs, not increasing, costs.
Why don’t we start step-by-step to reduce costs?”
· “At the President’s White House health reform summit, the President himself introduced the b word – bankruptcy. The President said, ‘If we don't address costs, I don't care how heartfelt our efforts are, we will not get this done. If people think that we can simply take everybody who's not insured and load them up in a system where costs are out of control, it's not going to happen. We will run out of money. The federal government will be bankrupt; state governments will be bankrupt.’ That’s the b-word. I think we should listen to those words.”
· “The cost of these health care proposals is going to head us toward state of fiscal ruin. Let’s read this bill; let’s know what it costs, and let’s see how it affects you.”