The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee says the healthcare legislation currently working its way through the Senate will dramatically drive up healthcare costs and further increase the strain on the budgets of American families.
Now that the Senate Finance Committee has passed its version of healthcare reform, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is working to merge it with the HELP Committee bill and get a final package to the floor in two weeks. The ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, warns that since the HELP Committee bill contains a public health insurance option, the merged bill will contain even more government involvement in healthcare than the final Finance Committee bill. He notes the Finance Committee bill itself will increase the size of government by at least $1.8 trillion when it is implemented. "At the end of the day -- after raising billions in new taxes, cutting hundreds of billions from Medicare, imposing still new penalties for people who don't buy health insurance, and increasing costs for those who do -- we're still going to have 25 million people without health insurance," the lawmaker points out. Grassley says instead of creating an "elaborate new tax-and-spend program," the Senate needs to pass delivery system reforms that increase quality and decrease costs, as well as pass medical malpractice reform. Results from our related pollWhich issue below, if any, should Congress give priority over healthcare reform?
Now that the Senate Finance Committee has passed its version of healthcare reform, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is working to merge it with the HELP Committee bill and get a final package to the floor in two weeks. The ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, warns that since the HELP Committee bill contains a public health insurance option, the merged bill will contain even more government involvement in healthcare than the final Finance Committee bill. He notes the Finance Committee bill itself will increase the size of government by at least $1.8 trillion when it is implemented. "At the end of the day -- after raising billions in new taxes, cutting hundreds of billions from Medicare, imposing still new penalties for people who don't buy health insurance, and increasing costs for those who do -- we're still going to have 25 million people without health insurance," the lawmaker points out. Grassley says instead of creating an "elaborate new tax-and-spend program," the Senate needs to pass delivery system reforms that increase quality and decrease costs, as well as pass medical malpractice reform.
Results from our related poll
Which issue below, if any, should Congress give priority over healthcare reform?
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