WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday regarding the health care bill:
“A little earlier today the President signed the Democrat health spending bill into law, and he used the occasion to point out a number of the things he wants people to know about it. Now he’ll travel the country talking the bill up to a skeptical public. Clearly, Democrats in Washington still don’t get it. Americans already know what’s in this bill. That’s precisely why they don’t like it.
“Most Americans out there aren’t celebrating today. They’re dumfounded by the fact that Congress just passed this 2,685-page monstrosity against their wishes, on the backs of their children and grandchildren, who they know will have to pick up the tab.
“With all due respect, you don’t pass a bill the American people didn’t want, then try to sell them on it. You win their support first, then pass it, on a bipartisan basis, just as we’ve done on every other piece of major social legislation we’ve passed over the past 45 years.
“People oppose this bill not because they don’t know what’s in it, but because they know exactly what’s in it. But for some reason, Democrats in Washington still think they can continue to spin the public on this bill. They’re still trying to sell it as the one and only solution to problems that we all recognize in our health care system.
“They’ll say this is the only solution to controlling costs.
“This is the only solution to covering pre-existing conditions.
“This is the only way to keep people from getting kicked off their insurance plans. The American people aren’t stupid. They know these are false choices.
“They know you don’t have to slash Medicare by half a trillion dollars to get lower premiums.
“You don’t have to impose job-killing taxes to keep people from being kicked off their plans.
“People know you won’t save money on health care by spending another $2.6 trillion on health care.
“They know you can do these things without forcing taxpayers to cover the cost of abortions.
“They know you don’t reduce the deficit by creating a massive new government program that even Democrats have described as a Ponzi scheme.
“They know you can go a long ways towards doing all these things without creating a brand new entitlement at a time when we can’t even cover the cost of the entitlements we have.
“And they know that Democrats can claim to know the verdict of history all they want, but that history will remember this past week not for giving America a boost, but for diverting us from the real task of enacting commonsense health care reforms that actually lower the cost of care without undermining the health care system we already have.
“Americans wanted us to get at the root of this problem, which is cost. Instead, Democrats are spending trillions more on a system that already costs too much and forcing seniors, small business owners and middle class families to pay for it. You can call that a lot of things. You might even call it historic. But you can’t call it reform.
“The fact is, this bill spends $2.6 trillion at a time of near double digit inflation while putting the real problem off for another day. It kicks the can down the road.
“So Democrats here in Washington can celebrate all they want. But that celebration is going to be short-lived.
“The American people aren’t fooled.”
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