Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell Weekly Republican Address 06/20/09 VIDEO TEXT

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell Weekly Republican Address 06/20/09 FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

Hello. I’m Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky.

Republicans and Democrats agree that health care is in serious need of reform. Americans are frustrated with the high cost of even basic treatments and procedures; millions are without coverage; and millions are worried about losing the care they have. That’s why many of us are calling for reforms that would bring down the cost of care and ensure that those who need coverage can afford and obtain it.

Republicans have put forward common sense solutions like reforming our medical liability laws to discourage junk lawsuits that make health care more expensive for everyone; strengthening wellness and prevention programs that encourage people to make healthy choices, such as quitting smoking and fighting obesity; and addressing the needs of small business without imposing new taxes that kill jobs.

Unfortunately, some in Washington are insistent on a different set of proposals that could make our current problems even worse — driving costs higher than they already are and forcing even those who are happy with their current coverage into a government-run system that could lead to the same denial, delay, and rationing of care that we’ve seen in other countries.

Now I give them credit for trying to address the problem. But their proposals just aren’t the kind of reforms Americans are looking for. And this morning, I’d like to focus on just one area where their proposals fall seriously short: cost.

Throughout this debate, the administration’s central argument has been that America needs health care reform for the sake of the economy. Yet according to independent estimates, every health care proposal Democrats on Capitol Hill have offered would only hurt the economy.

This week, the independent Congressional Budget Office priced just a portion of these proposals at well over a trillion dollars. The total cost would be much higher, burying us in deeper and deeper debt. And yet Democrats still want to rush the process. When it comes to health care reform, the Democratic motto is clear: rush and spend, rush and spend.

If all this sounds familiar, it should.

Remember that the economic stimulus bill from earlier this year was sold along the same lines. The administration said the stimulus was necessary to jump-start the economy, even though....

...it would plunge the country deeper into debt. They even predicted that if we passed it quickly, unemployment wouldn’t go higher than eight percent.

Well, here we are just a few months later and the unemployment rate is approaching 10 percent.

You might remember that the administration also promised it would keep an eye on every dollar spent. Well, now we’re learning about projects so ridiculous only the government could make them up:

A $578,000 grant that a town in New York didn’t even request for a homeless problem it says it doesn’t even have. $3.4 million to build a 13-foot long turtle tunnel at a lake in Florida — that’s more than a quarter of a million dollars per foot for turtles. And this one takes the cake: in North Carolina, more than $40,000 in stimulus funds will go to pay the salary of someone whose job is to apply for more stimulus funds.

Now faced with rising unemployment and reports of stimulus waste, the administration concedes it made a mistake on its predictions about the stimulus. But that hasn’t kept it from pushing a government takeover of health care that America’s doctors oppose.

Before, the administration said that government spending would keep unemployment low. Now they say a new government health plan will keep costs low. Well, expecting a government-run system to help the economy is like praying for rain in the middle of a flood. The thing you’re asking for is the last thing you need. And so far, that’s pretty much been the message of every independent analyst who’s looked at the Democratic plans for health care.

If the stimulus bill taught us anything, it’s that we should be wary anytime someone in Washington says the sky’s going to fall unless Congress approves trillions of dollars immediately. Yet once again in the health care debate, it’s rush and spend, rush and spend. Americans want health care reform, but they want the right health care reform. And that means taking the time and the care necessary to get it right.

Against Republican advice, they rushed the stimulus. We shouldn’t rush again on something as important, and costly, as health care. ###