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| October 13th, 2009 |
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Media Contact(s): Mark Eddington and Andrea Saul, 202-224-5251 |
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HATCH “NO” ON SENATE FINANCE HEALTH BILL
Votes Against More Spending, More Government, and More Taxes |
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WASHINGTON – Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a high ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, today voted against more spending, more government and more taxes in the Senate Finance Health Bill, America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.
“What could have been a strong bipartisan vote reflecting our collective and genuine desire for responsible reform is now ending as another partisan vote as we take another step forward towards the flawed solution of reforming one-sixth of our economy with more spending, more government and more taxes,” said Hatch.
He continued, “This bill is rife with policies that will do anything but allow you to keep your coverage. It cuts $133 billion out of the Medicare Advantage program, which will adversely impact the availability of these plans for millions of American seniors, especially in rural areas. It is pushing for policies at a federal level that actuaries acknowledge could increase premiums for millions of Americans. Not to mention a slew of new taxes which will simply be passed on to middle class families across the nation.
“American families are very smart and very astute. They realize there is no free lunch, especially in Washington. They are being promised an almost trillion dollar bill that will not increase deficits, not raise taxes and not cut benefits. Only Washington could try to sell a promise like this with a straight face.”
The $829 billion bill cleared the Senate Finance Committee on a vote of 14-9 Tuesday afternoon.
Hatch concluded, “In our current fiscal environment, where the government will have to borrow nearly 43 cents of every dollar it spends this year, let’s think hard about what we are doing to our country and our future generations. Our national debt is on a path to double in the next five years and triple in the next 10 years. There is still time for us to step back, press the reset button and write a bill that all of us can support and be proud of.”
Hatch is scheduled to speak on the Senate Floor regarding his vote around 5:30pm ET, his full remarks as prepared for delivery and EMBARGOED until delivery are below:
FLOOR REMARKS FOR
HON. ORRIN HATCH
ON
AMERICA’S HEALTHY FUTURE ACT OF 2009
October 13, 2009
Mr. President, I have taken a lot of votes in my Senate service as I have had the proud honor of representing Utahns and Americans all across this great nation. I deliver these remarks with a heavy heart because what could have been a strong bipartisan vote reflecting our collective and genuine desire for responsible reform in Senate Finance Committee has ended as another largely partisan exercise as we take another step forward towards the flawed solution of reforming one-sixth of our economy with more spending, more government and more taxes.
I have worked through almost four weeks of debate in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and now through two weeks of strenuous debate in the Senate Finance Committee. However, it almost seems like these hundreds of hours of debate were almost all for naught.
It is important for Americans everywhere to understand that the bills that we have spent hundreds of hours working on are NOT the bills that will be discussed on the Senate floor.
The real bill is currently being written behind closed doors in the dark corners of the Capitol and the White House and we can all only hope that all of us, especially American families, will have ample opportunity, at least 72 hours, to review the full bill and its cost before we are asked to consider this on the floor and vote on it. As a bill that affects every American life and every American business – this is too big and too important to not have a full public review.
I want to spend my time today talking about why the Baucus bill fails President Obama’s own test for responsible health care reform.
This bill is another example of Washington once again talking from both sides of the mouth and using technicalities and policy nuances to evade the promises made to our seniors and middle class families.
First, President Obama in his own words has consistently stated: If you like your current plan, you will be able to keep it. Let me repeat that: if you like your plan, you will be able to keep it. Well, the policies of this bill do not match this pledge.
One of the amendments I offered in the Finance Committee simply provided that if more than 1 million Americans would lose the coverage of their choice because of the implementation of this bill, then this legislation would not go into effect. This was a simple and straightforward amendment – no nuance, no double talk.
This amendment was defeated along party lines. It should come as no surprise to anyone on this committee that in a recent Rasmussen poll a majority of Americans with health care coverage, almost 53 percent, said that this bill would force them to change coverage.
This bill is rife with policies that will do anything but allow you to keep your coverage. It cuts $133 billion out of the Medicare Advantage program, which will adversely impact the availability of these plans for millions of American seniors, especially in rural areas. It is pushing for policies at a federal level that actuaries acknowledge could increase premiums significantly for millions of Americans. Not to mention the new insurance tax which will cost families another $500 in higher premiums. This will make their current coverage unaffordable for countless Americans.
American families are very smart and very astute. They realize there is no free lunch, especially in Washington. They are being promised an almost trillion dollar bill that will not increase deficits, not raise taxes and not cut benefits. Only Washington could try to sell a promise like this with a straight face.
Second, the President has consistently pledged: We’re not going to mess with Medicare. Once again, this is another simple and straightforward pledge that this bill has now evaded through Washington doubletalk.
This bill strips $133 billion out of the Medicare Advantage program that currently covers 10.6 million seniors or almost one out of four seniors in the Medicare program. According to the Congressional Budget Office, under this bill the value of so-called additional benefits like vision care and dental care will decline from $135 to $42 by 2019. That is a reduction of more than 70 percent in benefits. You heard me right – 70 percent.
I offered an amendment to protect these benefits for our seniors, many of whom are low-income Americans and reside in rural states. However, this amendment too was defeated in the Finance Committee. The majority chose to skirt the President’s pledge about no reduction in Medicare benefits for our seniors by characterizing the benefits being lost – vision care, dental care and reduced hospital deductibles – as extra benefits, not statutory benefits.
Let me make this point as clearly as I can – when we promise American seniors that we will not reduce their benefits, let us be honest about that promise. Benefits are benefits. So we are either going to protect benefits or not – it is that simple and under this bill, if you are a senior with Medicare Advantage, the unfortunate answer is NO.
Third, the President has consistently stated: I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.
Now let us examine the realities of this bill. As I said before, there is no such thing as a free lunch, especially when Washington is the one inviting you over. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, there are more than $400 billion in new taxes under this bill to continue to fund Washington’s insatiable appetite for spending.
Here are some of the highlights:
• $23 billion in new taxes on employers through a mandate that will disproportionately affect low income Americans and all at a time when our unemployment is rapidly approaching double digits.
• $4 billion in new taxes on Americans who fail to buy a Washington-defined level of coverage.
• $322 billion in new taxes on everything from insurance premiums to prescription drugs to hearing devices and wheelchairs.
Representatives from both the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) testified before the Finance Committee that these taxes will be passed on to the consumers. So even though this bill tries to hide these costs as indirect taxes, average Americans who purchase health plans, use prescription drugs and buy medical devices – everything from hearing aids to crutches – will end up footing the bill. By the way, it is interesting to note here that although these tax increases and Medicare cuts will start as early as next year, subsidies to help people with their premiums, which will skyrocket under this plan, will not be available until July of 2013 – three and a half years later .
So what about the promise of no taxes on families making less than $250,000? Well look at the evidence. According to data from the Joint Committee on Taxation and former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, 89 percent of these new taxes will be paid by taxpayers making less than $200,000 a year. The insurance excise tax alone will cost families up to $500 more in premiums. That’s not all. The Joint Committee on Taxation also found that at least 71 percent of all penalties collected from the individual mandate will also come from those making less than $250,000. Like I said, there is no free lunch in this town.
By the way, we all know when this bill is fully implemented it will cost significantly more. Every time Washington tells you that something will cost $1, it usually costs $10. History is prologue. Medicare started off as $65 million a year program and now has a $400 billion budget. So look for these taxes to only go up in the future as we have just given the federal government a whole new checkbook.
So based on my count this bill already has three strikes against President Obama’s own pledges to the American people.
Lastly, let me talk a little bit about the myth of this proposal actually reducing the deficit by $81 billion over 10 years. Here is the harsh reality – Congressional Budget Office recently reported that our national deficit for fiscal year 2009 alone was a shocking $1.4 trillion.
Let me put this in perspective. This was the largest yearly deficit since 1945. It is more than THREE times our deficit from last year and almost 10 percent our ENTIRE economy. This should send shivers down the spine of every American out there. We are literally drowning the future of this nation in a sea of red ink.
Now here is the fantasy – Congress will actually follow through with these massive Medicare cuts that are being used to make this $829 billion spending bill deficit neutral. I challenge a single member of the Senate to tell me when have we ever followed through such massive cuts?
Let me use the words of Dr. Doug Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, on this issue: These projections assume that these proposals are enacted and remain unchanged over the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. The long-term budgetary impact could be quite different if those provisions were ultimately changed or not fully implemented.
I could not have said it better myself. We all remember the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 which attempted to reduce Medicare spending by a mere $22 billion over 10 years. That proposal was mercilessly attacked by the other side of the aisle as being among many other things as being “Orwellian” and “immoral.” Now suddenly, we are being asked to believe that Congress will follow through in almost $500 billion in cuts to Medicare?
Take another example – the physician payment. This bill only contains a one-year fix. After that the doctors will face more than a 20 percent cut in their payments, seriously threatening access to Medicare seniors. We all know that we have to fix this problem and that we will. Unfortunately the hundreds of billions needed to overhaul this broken system are not included in this score and will go to further increasing our skyrocketing deficits.
But the biggest bait and switch on the American people about this bill’s impact on deficit is a simple math trick. If something is too expensive to do for a full 10 year period, just do it for 6 years. Most of the major spending provisions of the bill do not go into effect until 2013 or later – coincidentally after the 2012 Presidential elections. So what we are seeing is not a full 10 year score but rather a 6 year score.
According to the Senate Budget Committee, the full 10 year score of this plan will easily surpass $1.8 trillion.
In our current fiscal environment, where the government will have to borrow nearly 43 cents of every dollar it spends this year, let’s think hard about what we are doing to our country and our future generations. Our national debt is on a path to double in the next five years and triple in the next 10 years. There is still time for us to step back, press the reset button and write a bill that all of us can support and be proud of. Thank you.
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