GREGG: RESET THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) today issued the following statement in advance of the President's address tonight to a joint session of Congress on health care reform.

Senator Gregg stated, "Tonight, the President has a chance to press the reset button on the ongoing health care reform efforts taking place in Congress. We desperately need to refocus this effort because the measures produced so far by Committees in the House and the Senate dramatically increase the size of the federal government by adding trillions of dollars of new spending and putting in place a government-run public plan that would undermine the high-quality care provided by a private health care system. Further, these bills have been advanced on a purely partisan basis. Under these Democratic proposals, millions of Americans would lose their present health coverage and essentially would be forced into a public plan that would ultimately put a federal bureaucrat between patients and their doctors and would lead to price controls, delays and most likely rationing of health care. It is no surprise that so many Americans have expressed strong concerns about how this Congress has handled health reform.

"Partisan, big-government measures to mend our health care system are clearly not the fix. They do not achieve the President's own goals of improving quality, reducing health care spending, or allowing people who like the insurance they have now to keep it. The President should take the opportunity tonight to reject these proposals and instead should endorse the bipartisan efforts here in the Senate to find a better way to control the cost of health care while expanding coverage to all Americans, especially low income people who are uninsured. We can achieve this goal, and initiatives such as the one led by Senators Baucus and Grassley on the Senate Finance Committee and the bipartisan Wyden-Bennett bill show great potential for getting us there. It is time for the President to embrace a new course represented by these types of constructive bipartisan initiatives that will provide insurance for all Americans in a fiscally responsible manner, while not undermining the health coverage that most American currently have and prefer."