Mr. SESSIONS. Senator Kyl and the Senator from Kansas, as he has indicated, were engaged in this cost curve-bending plan. The essence of the President's proposal--it went to the core of other proposals financially--was that by a Federal Government expansion of our authority, we would bend the cost curve and make health care cheaper for all Americans. That was a fundamental principle that was sold to businesspeople, and some businesspeople thought it was a great idea, but it has not happened.

Already the premiums in private health care in America have gone up $2,000, almost $200 a month, and we are going to see it continue to go up. It does not bend the cost curve down. In fact, we are seeing the opposite occur.

We have to know that our per-person government debt--Senator Johnson is on the Budget Committee, and he knows this--is worse than any other Western world nation. Per capita, we have more debt than Greece, Spain, Italy, and Ireland, with $44,000 per person that every man, woman, and child owes. And if the President submitted a budget and if it were to be enacted--and certainly it will not be--that would go to $75,000 per person in 10 years.

This health care bill is dramatically adding to that. Every expert we have had at the Budget Committee has told us that we are on an unsustainable spending and debt path that will lead to financial collapse. Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who chaired President Obama's debt commission, both issued a written statement that America has never faced a more predictable financial crisis. What they told us was that spending and running up debt as we are today guarantees a financial collapse that could impact every person in America and deeply impact our ability to have health care in this country.

So I think we have to recognize that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will unveil a budget plan tomorrow. The Senate is not going to bring up a budget. The Democratic leader said it is foolish to have a budget, so we will go for the third consecutive year without even attempting to pass a budget. It is supposed to be out of the committee by April 1. It is supposed to be passed by April 15. The House is going to do it. They are going to step up to the plate, and they are going to lay out a plan like they did last year, a plan that will change the debt course of America, a plan that would put us on a sustainable path so that we don't have to fear financial collapse.

They are going to look at this legislation, and it cannot be imposed. We do not have the money. It is going to make health care worse, as we have heard, but more than that, we simply--even if it were a good idea, a nice thing to have, we do not have the money. We are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend, and they misrepresented the cost. It is far higher than anyone has expected, and it is going to continue.

For example, our people have looked at the CBO score--on the Budget Committee--and they have analyzed it fairly, and I am prepared to defend these numbers. Based on CBO's scores, from 2014--the first year the law is really in effect--until 2023, it will cost $2.66 trillion. It is far more than was projected. How much money is that? Over the same 10-year period, we would spend $626 billion on Federal highways. We had been fighting over highways, and we finally passed a highway bill. The Federal money for the whole highway system would be $626 billion, while we are adding a new program that is improperly funded for $2,600 billion. Over the next 10 years, we expect to spend $1,000 billion for education, and this health care cost is going to be $2,600 billion. We have disasters. We spend a lot of money on disasters. It is expected that we will spend $111 billion on disasters, whereas we will spend $2.6 trillion on the health care bill.

This is the kind of thing that has the American people asking us: Are you crazy? How can you borrow 40 cents of every dollar you spend, as we are doing today. How can you do that to America? What is the matter with you people? They say people back home are not smart, they are just angry. Well, aren't they right to be angry? We are adding a program that is financially unsound, that is going to make health care worse, and we don't have the money. This money needs to be used to save Medicare and Social Security--programs that are already in great jeopardy. If we have money, we have to use it to save them, not start a new program of massive proportions that, over 60, 75 years, is going to cost far more than anyone imagines.

I thank Senator Johnson for raising this, and I am concerned about the costs. I know Senator Boozman and others have talked about the rationing. There are a lot of reasons why we simply can't go forward with this health care bill. It must be eliminated as we know it. We can make reforms, but this legislation cannot go into effect.