The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“INACCURATE STATEMENTS BY PRESIDENT REGARDING HEALTH CARE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H8588 on July 23, 2009.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
INACCURATE STATEMENTS BY PRESIDENT REGARDING HEALTH CARE
(Mr. BOEHNER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)
Mr. BOEHNER. Madam Speaker, my colleagues, last night the President addressed our Nation about the issue of health care, and there were some statements made by the President last night that aren't quite accurate.
One, he said that we will keep government out of health care decisions. Now, if that's the case, I wonder why there was $200 million set aside in the stimulus bill earlier this year so that the government could do a comparative analysis to determine which treatment was most effective in terms of a potential cure for a disease. This is clearly going to give the government information that they believe is the best treatment when the doctors and their patients may not agree.
And secondly, I'd point out that if you look at an amendment that was offered in the Energy and Commerce Committee the other night, the amendment said real simple that no government bureaucrat will make any decisions or interfere with any decision between a doctor and their patient. And I would add that that amendment was rejected on a party-
line vote.
Secondly, the President said if you like your current plan we will give you the option to keep it. I wish that were true. But as I noted the other day on the floor, under the ERISA provision, I believe that thousands of companies will drop their company health care plan because after 5 years it's going to have to be approved by the Department of Labor and the health care choices czar to ensure that the company plan meets certain Federal standards. I've got to tell you this is going to drive a lot of companies out of offering the insurance that people have today. They will have no option but to go to the government plan.
And thirdly, he said no plan will add to our deficit. Well, the Congressional Budget Office last Friday came out and said the plan that was being considered will add $239 billion to our deficit over the next 10 years. And if you look further at this plan, you will see that while the cost of the plan is $1.6 trillion, the tax increases don't go into effect until 2011, but the real cost of the plan doesn't begin to add up for about 5 years. And so when you get into the out years, beyond 10 years, you see these exploding deficits, because it's going to cost
$200 to $300 billion a year more, over and above the tax increases already in this bill. At a time when we've got record deficits and record spending here in Washington, we don't need to be adding to the deficit.
And lastly, the President said Republicans want to kill health care reform and have not offered better ideas. I've got to tell you, earlier this year when I handed Speaker Pelosi the gavel, I said that when Republicans had to oppose our new President or our colleagues across the aisle, it was our obligation to say how we would do it better.
We had a better solution on the stimulus bill. We had a better solution on the budget. We believe that we had a better solution on the energy bill that was here last month. We have offered our better solution on health care. We outlined those in a letter to the President back in May when we asked for a meeting and got a nice, polite letter back from the President that said, Well, thank you for your ideas, but we'll see you at the end of the process.
Republicans have a better solution that won't put the government in charge of people's health care, that will make sure that we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans and ensure affordable access for all Americans.
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