Ties Urgent Need for Reform to Long-term Imperative of Lowering Deficit
Lays Out Need For Health Care Reform That Lowers the Rising Costs Bankrupting Colorado’s Families, Small Businesses and the Economy
Michael Bennet, U.S. Senator for Colorado, today joined Senator Mark Udall and other freshmen senators from across the nation in a push for strong health care reform. Delivering remarks on the Senate floor, Bennet laid out the need for reform that promotes competition and puts an end to double digit cost increases; devotes less of a percentage of our GDP to health care than we do today, allowing us to compete more effectively in the global economy; and puts us back on the path of fiscal sustainability in Washington.
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See Below for a Transcript of the Speech:
I’d like to thank the Senator from Virginia and the rest of my colleagues. I’ve got a few slides that I want to go through, but the basic point here today is no matter what one thinks about the various health care bills that are out there and the various prescriptions that have been suggested, the status quo is not an option. For me, this starts with fiscal responsibility.
We have seen an unbelievable explosion in debt in our country. From $5 trillion at the beginning of the previous administration to the $12 trillion today. If you look at what’s causing it, you can see that on this slide – this is our revenue line – that the biggest drivers of our deficit are the interest payments that we have on this debt that we are managing to pass on to our kids and our grandkids because we’re unwilling to make the tough choices that need to be made. And rising Medicare and Medicaid costs, which is the red line right here.
One cost of inaction is that we will continue to drive these insane deficits we are facing as a country. In my state of Colorado – and the senior Senator from Colorado is here as well – our working families and small businesses are suffering mightily because the economy is not working for them. Over the last decade, median family income in the state of Colorado has actually declined by $800 in real dollars, Mr. President. That’s happened all across the United States of America where we see median family income down by $300. At the same time, health care premiums have risen by 97%. The cost of higher education, by the way, has gone up 50%. Our working families are being asked to do more with less just for the basic necessities that are required to move your family ahead. These are not nice to have. These are essential if a working family in the middle class is going to be able to move ahead.
The second reason we need reform, as the senator from Virginia said at the beginning of his comments, is we’re spending almost one-fifth of our GDP on health care. That’s more than twice what every other industrialized country in the world is spending on their health care system. As I’ve said in town hall meetings all across our state, this is no different than if you have two small businesses across the street from one another. One is spending one-fifth of their revenue on their light bill, and the other is spending less than half that on their light bill. You don’t need an MBA to know which of those two companies is going to be able to invest in their business plan and grow their business. We have a lot to do to make sure this economy can compete in the 21st century. I would say one of the things we need to do is not devote one-fifth of our economy to health care if we expect to compete.
This shows the rate of insurance premium increase in our state versus the rate of the increase of wages. These are absolutely related to each other. You talk to small businesses in any state – I’m sure this is true in Virginia as it is true in Colorado. Small businesses are desperately trying to keep their employees insured, but the choice they’re making is to pay them less in wages. This wage compression is related directly to the rate of insurance premiums. The other chart on this slide simply shows, Mr. President, that if we change nothing, there are going to be families all across this country that by 2016 are going to be spending 40% of their income on health care. That’s before you get to higher education. That’s before you get to the rent or to food – 40% of every dollar on health care. It’s absurd.
And we see that health care is bankrupting middle class Americans all over, all over this country. And what is staggering to me – we know that 62% of bankruptcies are health care related – what is staggering to me is that 78% of those bankruptcies are happening to people that had insurance. The entire reason people buy insurance is so they have stability when their child gets sick, or their spouse gets sick, or they get sick. 78% of these bankruptcies were caused to people that had insurance.
Finally, no one is burdened more by the current system than small businesses and the employees that work for small businesses. In our state, small business pays 18% more for health insurance just because they are small. And when I say that, sometimes people say, ‘Well, Michael, don’t you understand that’s because the pool is smaller? It’s harder to spread the risk.’ And I say I understand that, but from a business point of view – and the senator from Virginia and I both have spent a lot of time in our careers working in the private sector – but from a business point of view, that is absurd. Because these small businesses, if they’re investing 18% more, then they ought to expect to be 18% more productive or at a minimum ought to have 18% better health care. And that’s absolutely not the case.
My final point, Mr. President, … is that we have been having a healthy debate about how we should do this reform. There are a lot of people that are concerned with things like the public option, with things like government control over health care. I would argue, Mr. President, that the status quo is what’s producing that because fewer and fewer of our working families are covered at work, which is what this slide shows. And every one of those people that then goes on uncompensated care is paid for by the American people.
So, I join my colleagues in saying we absolutely cannot maintain the status quo. It’s absolutely unsustainable, and I look forward to thoughtful, common sense reform that works for working families and small businesses in my state.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.