{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=22EC1A5A-7243-41BA-BB07-27B50A8B32C6", "Barrasso: Democrats' One-Size-Fits-All Health Care Scheme Will Cost Americans $34 Trillion", "2019-10-22", "2019", "2019-10", "Republican", "House", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso's remarks.\r\nWASHINGTON, D.C. Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) spoke on the Senate floor about how the Democrats' one-size-fits-all health care scheme will cost $34 trillion and will take work-earned health insurance away from 180 million Americans.\r\nExcerpts of Senator Barrasso's remarks:\r\nI come to the floor today, to discuss last Tuesday's 2020 Democrat presidential debate and specifically to discuss the topic of health care.\r\nDespite all the political posturing, here's the key takeaways:\r\nNumber one  the Democrats still want to take work-earned health insurance away from 180 million Americans.\r\nAnd number two  the Democrats want to raise taxes on the middle class, and on all Americans, to pay for it.\r\nUnder the Democrats' plan, people will lose forever the health coverage that they earned at work.\r\nThat means union workers, their hard-fought health benefits, they'll disappear.\r\nThat means that Nevada food service workers, Michigan autoworkers, all would lose their earned health care.\r\nElizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders want to replace work-based insurance with a one-size-fits-all government-run scheme.\r\nAt the same time, the 2020 Democrats want to give free, taxpayer-funded health insurance to illegal immigrants.\r\nThat's the Democrats' so-called Medicare for All plan.\r\nReally, it's one-size-fits-all government-controlled health care and it is extremely expensive.\r\nEven more expensive than I've mentioned before on the floor because a new study that's come out by something called the Urban Institute, a liberal group, they've just reported the cost of Medicare for All would be $34 trillion. That's $34 trillion with a T.'\r\nSo let's put that into perspective. How much money is that? Well, over the next ten years, that's more money than we'll be spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security combined. It's an astronomically large number.\r\nThe Washington Post recently did a story, and this was the headline: Will Medicare-for-all hurt the middle class?' Their sub headline is: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders struggle with questions about its impact.'\r\nThe story notes that Senators Warren and Sanders are scrambling to ease concerns' over middle-class costs.\r\nWorking families back home in Wyoming, and I talked with many this weekend at our University of Wyoming's homecoming football game, people from all over the state, they are not fooled by what is being offered by the Democrats in their debate.\r\nThey know that they will have to pay dearly if the Democrats' scheme is adopted and ever signed into law.\r\nThe Washington Post story, they quote and cite Ken Thorpe, who is Emory University's health policy chair. This is what he says:\r\nThe plan is by design incredibly disruptive. You create enormous winners and losers.'\r\nHe adds, There's no question it hits the middle class.'\r\nFor the middle class, it's a double punch in the gut, and here's why. Not only will the middle-class lose their insurance, but their taxes will go up as well.\r\nStill, Senator Warren, she will not answer the middle-class tax increase question, wont' talk about it. She dodged the question again, and again, and again.\r\nNow, as the Post reports, the senator says she'll release a plan to pay for her proposal  in the next few weeks.'\r\nAt the same time, she continues to duck the tax question.\r\nLast Tuesday she repeatedly tap-danced around the issue on the debate stage.\r\nIn fact, Senator Warren's debate performance reminded me of the Artful Dodger in Dickens' novel Oliver Twist.'\r\nShe said out-of-pocket health care costs will go down.\r\nYet she failed to mention that much, much more will be taken out of middle-class pockets in huge tax hikes.\r\nThe British publication The Economist, well they know a lot about socialized medicine. They've been living with the British health care system for many, many years.\r\nThey point out that Elizabeth Warren repeatedly refused to say how she would pay for her plan. They said she ducked the question six times.'\r\nDuring the debate, it was Senator Sanders who jumped in to set the record straight.\r\nBernie Sanders said, I do think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up.'\r\nNow, he's even promised to raise taxes on lower-income Americans.\r\nIf you're making more than $29,000,' he says, you will be paying more in taxes' under the plan that is being promoted by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.\r\nThen there's the warning from University of Chicago economist Katherine Baicker:\r\nThese are going to be big tax increases,' she says. The tax brackets may have to shift.'\r\nAnd last week's Wall Street Journal editorial, was headlined Warren's Middle-Class Tax Dodge,' it explained the whole thing.\r\nThe only way to pay for this [plan] is to raise taxes on the middle class, which is where the real money is.'\r\nSo to sum up: While Senator Warren continues to dodge the tax issue, Senator Sanders admits Medicare for All will raise taxes on just about everyone.\r\nUnder the Warren-Sanders plan, middle-class taxes rise, we'll see taxes even rise for lower-income families. We're talking about family income at $29,000.\r\nHere's the bottom line: Americans will not tolerate insurance going away and will not tolerate taxes going up. They want to keep their health care plan, and they want to keep the lower costs.\r\nSo we have a choice to make: We can work together to lower costs without lowering standards. Or follow the 2020 Democrats pushing their $34 trillion one-size-fits-all plan.\r\nDon't let this Artful Dodger act fool you. Senator Warren and Senator Sanders support the same plan.\r\nThey won't lower health care costs. But they will raise everybody's taxes. They won't improve care. But they will take coverage away from 180 million Americans who now get it through work.\r\nAs a doctor, I want to improve patient care. I want to make health care more affordable.\r\nRepublicans are 100 percent committed to protecting patients with pre-existing conditions.\r\nWe continue to work on bipartisan solutions, real reforms to lower the cost of everyone's care.\r\nMeanwhile, the solution we heard last week on the debate state, the 2020 Democrats' solution' is to force all of us to pay more, to wait longer, for worse care.\r\nThat's what they've seen in Canada, that's what they've seen in England, and that's what we'll see in the United States if this one-size-fits-all plan were to be ever placed into effect.\r\nLet's give patients what they want: the care they need, from a doctor they choose, at lower costs.\r\n                                               ###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=22EC1A5A-7243-41BA-BB07-27B50A8B32C6"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8023860864341259, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}