Virginia Foxx: “I came to talk about health reform, but would first note that the gentleman from Virginia fails to mention that the…”

“I came to talk about health reform, but would first note that the gentleman from Virginia fails to mention that the economy began its nose-dive when Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007. For 54 months before that, with a Republican President and Republican control of Congress, the economy was doing very well and growing. Madam Speaker, the American people have spoken loud and clear: they do not want a government takeover of health care. They want sensible, step by step health care reform that works. But the White House is not listening. Instead, they are proposing expensive new entitlements that will only worsen the Federal Government's finances and North Carolina family budgets. At least there is one thing we agree on: we need to have a bill that will lower the cost of health care in America. But you don't lower the cost of health care in America by creating expensive, new, government-run programs. The best way to lower the cost of health care is by empowering patients, putting patients in charge of their health care, not insurance companies and certainly not the government, is the solution. While I agree with President Obama that we need to lower the cost of health care, the problem is that his proposals, which are simply retreads of the House and Senate bills, will not really lower costs. They are simply a trillion-dollar expansion of government control.”