Senate Proceeding on Oct 28th, 2009 :: 3:43:00 to 3:51:45
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3:42:43 to 3:43:04( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: on almost all federal programs grows relentlessly once they are established. this history won't stop democrats' bid on ramming their entitlement into l member who votes for it is guaranteeing larger deficit and higher taxes far into the future, count on it. close

3:43:00 to 3:51:45( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Robert Bennett

3:43:05 to 3:43:25( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: the with respect to health care is not a pleasant one. the history of predicting what health care will cost is not a pleasant one. the costs have come in lower than projected has been in that circumstance where competion

3:43:26 to 3:43:47( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: in the private sector has been protected. that has been the core of the bill that senator ron wyden and i have introduced as the help the americans act. private competion -- private competition absent a plan. we look at the history and say that will turn the cost curve

3:43:48 to 3:44:08( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: down. that will begin c.b.o. examined our bill. peter orszag was the head of c.b.o. when they looked at our bill and said neutral -- that's a good start -- and then likely to save money

3:44:09 to 3:44:29( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: in the future. they put a number on it. but the lewinroup has put a number on it and said that the healthy americans act, cosponsored by senator wyden and mice, would save $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years. i don't know whether that number is right or wrong.

3:44:30 to 3:44:51( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: i do know. it's wrong i don't know how far wrong it is. but the po the cost curve down rather than turning the cost curve up, and that is what we have to do as our balance sheet reminds us so dramatically.

3:44:52 to 3:45:12( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: so let me talk b idea of a government-run plan, a private option -- (me, a public option, whatever it is we want to call it, the cost curve down. once again, the history of government-run plans is not

3:45:13 to 3:45:33( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: encouraging about turning the cost curve down as we look at medicare and how little it was supposed to cost and how dramatically much it has cost. let me quote from robert samuelson in his column that appeared in "the washington post" just

3:45:34 to 3:45:56( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: he says -- "medicare has a low marketing cost because it's a mo public plan would haveo sell itself and would incur higher marketing costs, private insurance profits included in administrative costs also explain some of costs advantages.

3:45:57 to 3:46:17( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: but profits represent only 3% of the insurance industry's revenue. moreover accounting comparisons are misleading when they don't include the medicare government-suppl capital." so we're trying to mix apples with oranges when look at the low administrative costs with medicare, look at the

3:46:18 to 3:46:39( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: high administrative costs with private insurance. medicare can do it cheaper every projection about medicare doing it cheaper is demonstrated not to work samuelson has this to "the promise of the public plan is a mirage. its political brilliance is to

3:46:40 to 3:47:00( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: use free market rhetoric, more choice and competion, to expand government but why would a plan tied t medicare control health spending when medicare hasn't? a favored public plan would probably doom insurance." i think that's true.

3:47:01 to 3:47:21( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: that's one of the reasons i'm opposed samuelson goes on to make this final cment. he says -- "ma insurers, bring on a single-payer system, but if that's the agenda, why not debate it directly? it's not insurers that caused high health costs.

3:47:22 to 3:47:45( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: they're simply the middleman. it's the fragmented delivery system and open-ended reimbursements with strict regulation of doctors, hospitals, a patients under a single payer provide control or would genuine competion among welcome plans over price and quality work better?"

3:47:46 to 3:48:06( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: that's the debate we i agree, madam that's the debate we need. that's the debate that focuses on how do you get this c curve under control, how do you start t turn it down, how do you get the kind of score that senator wyden and i have gotten from c.b.o. that says our plan is reven neutral and that

3:48:07 to 3:48:28( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: others say will save save $1.3 trillion ten years compared to the cost history of that say they're only going to cost this much and end up costing that much and driving us to this kind of present value liability. twice as much as everything else

3:48:29 to 3:48:49( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: put tog that is a staggering thing to contemplate, but that's what -- brings us back to what i said at the beginning. the core of this debate should cost curve down. i have one more comment to make with respect to as i have worked with senator

3:48:50 to 3:49:11( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: wyden over the last three and a half years to try to understand th issue with solutions to it that make marketplace sense rather than political sense, i have come to discover a great truth that we don't seem to be discussing here in this debate at all, and that is this.

3:49:12 to 3:49:32( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: the greatest cos in health care is quality. the best health care cheapest, and we have b the system now incentives that drive us away from the best care, and most of the perverse incentives that drive us away from the best care and to the

3:49:33 to 3:49:55( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: highest costs are in they are in the medicare system that has gone ten times, 20 times above its original cost, and they're still there. we should that they have produced is less than the maximum care that people can get when they go to

3:49:56 to 3:50:16( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: the places that give us the best health it's parochial for me to repeat this, but i'm happy every occasion. dartmouth has done a study as where the best care is available throughout the united states, and they said it's best available in three cities. seattle,

3:50:17 to 3:50:37( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: minnesa, and salt lake utah. and then they say if every american got his or her health care in salt lake city, utah, it would be the states and 1/3 cheaper than the national average. because of a variety of reasons

3:50:38 to 3:50:58( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: they have practiced the best health care and they have focused on outcomes rather than the kind of perverse incentives that are built into government-run programs. we've got a lot to do and a long time to go before this health care debate is finished, but i hope we recognize that hanging over it, regardless of

3:50:59 to 3:51:22( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: everything else we say with respect to health care, is the fiscal reality that our current present value obligations for health care dwarf every other debt we have in the united states. personal household

3:51:23 to 3:51:43( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: national debt, state and local debt and social security debt all put together do not add to the amount of health care debt that we are facing. the challenge of turning the cost curve on health care now is the number one issue we should be addressing as we're talking about this, and the irony of it is if we are successful, based

3:51:44 to 3:51:46( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Bennett: on what we k