Mr. President, even in Kentucky, where our state's General Assembly has made some mistakes with health care recently, we want to keep working before turning everything over to Uncle Sam. So, the scope of this bill is troubling. But even more troubling is the cost of the Kennedy bill. And cost is certainly the one single health care issue that Kentuckians talk the most to me about. The cost of insurance premiums, prescription drug prices, medical equipment.
People are worried about their bottom lines.
They are worried about how much is going to come out of their pockets. They want to know if they are going to be able to continue to afford to take care of themselves and their families. For the folks who are worried about costs, the Kennedy bill is definitely the wrong prescription because it will increase costs, it will raise prices and it will swell the number of un-insured American families. The worst part of these higher costs is that they mean fewer Americans will be able to afford health insurance. CBO estimates the Kennedy bill will cost 1.4 million Americans their health insurance.