MCCONNELL: OK, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to town.

Let me begin by talking about what is clearly the biggest domestic issue, and that is health care. You know, we've seen the -- the themes of this administration. They're running banks, insurance companies, automobile companies, student loans, and now, if you look at what the administration would like to get on health care, you're inevitably led to the conclusion that they also want to be running the nation's health care.

There's overwhelming opposition in the country to the government being in charge of our health care. Everybody is concerned about cost, but Republicans uniformly feel that the cost issue can be addressed without having the government take over health care.

We already have two examples of government health care now, Medicare and Medicaid. Both of them we know are on unsustainable paths with enormous unfunded liabilities. And yet the administration is trying to fund at least part of their health care effort by additional Medicare and Medicaid cuts, not to sustain those programs, which are already unsustainable, but to try to pay for a program that expands government care even further.

We think this is very wrongheaded. If you're looking for a pattern, look at the stimulus package. The goal was rush and spend, rush and spend. Don't read the fine print. Just get it done yesterday.

And we saw what happened with the stimulus package. The prediction was that it would hold unemployment to 8 percent. It's going to 10 percent. Clearly, that has failed.

And now they're anxious to rush and spend on health care when, frankly, nobody's even had a chance to read the details yet. I think this is a significant move in the wrong direction.

With that, let me call on Senator Kyl.

KYL: Thank you, Leader.

Continuing on with this discussion of health care, all of us having gone home this last week have talked to our constituents, came back with stories about what our folks were -- were saying to us. They are scared to death that what they have -- and, remember, that about 85 percent of the folks have insurance -- they're scared to death that it's going to be taken away from them, that they're going to lose coverage, that somebody's going to get in between them and their doctor.

And using the medical analogy here, doctors, of course, are first admonished to do no harm in treating a patient. We think we should do the same thing with health care reform. Let's take the time to do it right and, especially for all of Americans who are already covered by either a government program or private insurance, don't do any harm to their coverage. If they like what they have, let them keep it. And don't cut programs like Medicare in order to fund this program. That's what seniors back in Arizona are really afraid of.

We just got the word that the HELP Committee has a new version of its bill now. It's actually gotten the score down to only about $600 billion. But part of the reason for that is that they took out a title that's going to cost just about that same amount of money, and that is to add to Medicaid.

So part of this is going to be a shell game to try to show that it doesn't cost as much as it really does by simply deferring to later some of the additional spending that will have to occur, another reason why we want to take our time to do this right for the sake of the American people.

ALEXANDER: Republicans want health care reform this year, and we want to start -- we want to begin with the 250 Americans who already have health insurance and make sure those Americans can afford their health care insurance.

But we also want to look at low-income Americans and make sure that we are fair to them. And one of our greatest concerns -- my greatest concerns is about the proposals to dump millions more Americans in a failed health care program called Medicaid.

Two problems with Medicaid. The first is, the massive new costs to state governments. I've suggested to my Senate colleagues that any of them who vote to increase Medicaid coverage in the way that's recommended by the Democratic bills ought to be sentenced to go home and serve as governor for eight years and try to manage the program and pay for it, because the costs would literally bankrupt the states. In Tennessee, the preliminary estimates are it would add the amount of money that equals to a new 10 percent state income tax.

The second problem is that the Medicaid program doesn't serve the low-income Americans who deserve to be served. Forty percent of doctors won't serve Medicaid patients. And if we dump millions more into that government-run program, it will only be worse. It would be like giving someone a bus ticket without any buses on which to ride.

So the Medicaid proposals that are coming up in the Democratic proposals are simply an attempt to shift costs from Washington, because we've already spent all that anyone can imagine up here, back to the states. And it will put them in the same kind of shape we're finding ourselves in.

THUNE: I think one of the messages that came across loud and clear, at least during my travels during last week's break, was what I think are kind of common-sense arguments that the American people are really picking up on. One is, you can't spend money that you don't have. And, secondly, when you borrow money, you have to pay it back.

There is, I think, this realization across America right now that we are continuing to spend and borrow here in Washington, D.C., and that bears on the debate that we're now having about health care, because health care is going to be a trillion-dollar new entitlement.

One of the things I heard repeatedly over the break -- and most of it unsolicited -- people came up and talked about the hundreds of billions of dollars in new energy taxes that are going to be imposed on the American people if the Democrats have their way here in the Congress.

I think the American people are realizing that these things have to be paid for, that there are huge costs associated with it, and that it's going to entail massive amounts of borrowing from future generations. And I think that's a -- that is a message that they're going to start delivering to the American -- or to the -- to their politicians in Washington, D.C.

And I hope that we can successfully defeat the cap-and-trade legislation that was passed in a hurried way through the House last week and that we can at least slow this health care debate down to where we can really get at the -- at the fundamental issue that most Americans are struggling with, and that is the cost issue, and do it in a way that doesn't add trillions of dollars of debt that we pass on to future generations or trillions of dollars in tax increases on the American economy at a time when we can least afford it.

CORNYN: Folks in Texas don't want another government-run health care program because they've seen the flaws of the ones we have already, one called Medicare, where we already know that it's fiscally unsustainable, tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities.

And so do our Democratic friends really propose to create another fiscally unsustainable, government-run health care program on top of the ones we have now?

And we know that Medicare also is riddled with fraud, some $60 billion a year lost not in providing care to seniors, but rather to people cheating and stealing the American taxpayer.

And, finally, because we know Medicare, like Medicaid, pays below market rates to physicians, in my state, 42 percent of physicians will not see a new Medicare patient. In Travis County, Austin, Texas, only 17 percent of physicians will see a new Medicare patient.

So Medicare, as currently constituted, is not a model for another broken government health care plan on top of two other layers of broken government-run health care plans. We need real reform, which means addressing costs and covering people who don't have insurance now.

MCCONNELL: We'll take a couple of questions, if there are any.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) conference concerned with potentially having a Sotomayor hearing and a Finance Committee markup both next week?

MCCONNELL: If you couldn't hear the question, the hearings for Judge Sotomayor obviously take precedent. This is a lifetime appointment. I expect Republican senators will be there for this hearing, as Democratic senators will be, regardless of what other assignments they must have -- they may have.

I think, you know, that clearly comes first for next week. This is no small matter, the hearings over a Supreme Court nominee to the most important court in the land for a lifetime tenure. QUESTION: Senator McConnell (OFF-MIKE) White House and congressional Democrats about the need for a second stimulus plan. What is your reaction...

(CROSSTALK)

MCCONNELL: Did you hear the question, about a second stimulus? Down home, we used to say there's no education in the second kick of a mule. Now, why in the world there would be any conclusion reached after looking at the results of the first stimulus that the way to deal with that is to pass yet another one is mind-boggling.

I think a second stimulus is an even worse idea than the first stimulus, which has been demonstrably proven to have failed. And we're -- we're spending $100 million a day on interest on the first stimulus. Rush and spend is what this administration is about, rush and spend. This needs to stop for the future of our country and for our children and for our grandchildren.

Thanks.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) Senator Franken taking a seat today, does this change the way you approach conflicts with the other side of the aisle?

MCCONNELL: Well, I would say our Democratic friends now have their long-sought 60 votes. The American people will fully understand that they own the government, the executive branch, the House, and the Senate. And they're waiting to see the results of their programs.

Thank you.