Sen. Barrasso Issues Statement on Single-Payer Health Care

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 -- Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., issued the following remarks on the Senate floor on how the Democrat single-payer health care bill will hurt American seniors.

"Last week, the junior senator from Vermont and a group of other Democrats unveiled a proposal to have Washington take over health care for everyone in America.

"They intended to do this on the backs of American seniors.

"Their idea is to put everyone in this country on a new program that operates like Medicare.

"That's about 250 million Americans who would be added onto a program, Medicare,

that is already being strained.

"One third of the Democrats in the Senate have signed on to this plan. It seems to be the litmus test of for liberal left.

"Several of them came to the floor last night to criticize Republican efforts -efforts by the Republican Party to save Americans' failing health care system.

"From what I've heard from the Democrats - they seem to want to let the system collapse in a way that they can then impose a complete Washington takeover of health care in America.

"To me this plan will be devastating to people currently on Medicare - these are the seniors who rely on Medicare today.

"Remember when President Obama promised that if people liked their insurance they could keep their insurance? If they liked their plan, they could keep their plan.

"People realized that is not exactly what happened.

"Well now it seems if Democrats get their way, millions of seniors will find out that they're not going to be able to keep the insurance that they have right now, that they depend upon and that they use on a daily basis.

"The Sanders plan will get rid of Medicare Advantage plans.

"We have 17 million seniors in this country who are on a Medicare Advantage plan.

"It's interesting to watch this whole process unfold because about one in three people who are currently on Medicare have chosen to go outside the system that Democrats want to them into.

"So what happens to these 17 million Americans who are currently on Medicare Advantage with the scheme from Senator Sanders and other Democrats have come up with?

"Did the Democrats who came to the floor last night have anything to say about these 17 million seniors who are going to be losing their Medicare?

"A lot of seniors are probably going to lose access to their doctors as well.

"That's because there are going to be doctors who won't be able to take care of these new Medicare patients that Obamacare has caused to have problems but has made worse by what is being proposed by Senator Sanders.

"Right now it can be tough for seniors to find a doctor - these are seniors on Medicare.

"That's because today about one in four doctors doesn't take new Medicare patients - or take any Medicare patients.

"So if a doctor has a lot of Medicare patients, he or she has to make sure that they have enough other patients who have insurance to make up for the lower rates that Washington pays.

"Under the Democrat plan, doctors won't have that backup of private insurance companies, because that's all going to go away.

"When the Democrats came to the floor last night, I didn't hear anything about that.

"How are they going to guarantee that seniors can keep their doctors?

"Seniors are not going to be able to keep their plans under the Sanders liberal-left plan that is being proposed and cosponsored by over half of the Democrats in the House of Representatives.

"We're already facing a shortage of doctors shortage in this country.

"The Medicare trust fund is supposed to be exhausted at the end of the 2020's. That's what the Medicare trustees are telling us.

"So the program is going to have to start doing something. Either raising taxes or cutting benefits.

"From what I've seen proposed by Senator Sanders, it would be raising taxes a lot.

"The Medicare trustees say the program needs significant reform. They say it's already unsustainable.

"The Democrat plan does nothing to change that - it does nothing to reform the program.

"All it does is crowd more people into a system that is already struggling financially.

"The Democrats' plan, my concern is, is going to undermine the stability of the Medicare program that our seniors desperately need.

"We should be taking steps now to shore up, to strengthen Medicare - so it's able to keep the promises that we've made to our seniors

"My goal is to save, to strengthen and to simplify Medicare. That's not what we're seeing here.

"A few years ago, we knew that the Medicaid program needed help - and Democrats just threw more people onto this system with Obamacare.

"Now it looks like the Democrats want to do the same thing that they did to Medicaid, to make it harder for our patients on Medicare. It won't work.

"An insurance card does not equal accessible, available, access to care.

"The people who suffer the most are going to be the seniors who have no other options. These are seniors who relying today on Medicare.

"They were promised that Medicare would be there for them. We need to keep that promise.

"Instead of protecting seniors today, Democrats are trying to give Medicare to everyone else.

"Seventeen million seniors are going to lose access to the plans that they've chosen, that have worked for them, and they want to keep.

"Seniors are going to lose access to the doctors that Democrats push out of the system, as they continue to put more and more people on Medicare.

"Democrats should not be building their takeover of the American health care system on the backs of our seniors."