I have spent a great deal of my life advocating for the victims of crime. It seems to me this is an outrage that exists in current law. The victims of crime should not be revictimized. In this case, American law does revictimize those…

Never before in the history of our Nation has such a massive change in policy been made on a purely partisan basis and in the face of such overwhelming opposition. Tragically, this bill will destroy freedom and do incredible damage to the…

I am trying to understand this. So if the Medicare Advantage participants in Arizona who are having their Medicare Advantage cut, and the Medicare Advantage participants in Florida who are not, under the Gator Aid that Senator Bill Nelson…

Federal legislation already passed in 2006 offered all 50 States some Federal money to help set up the State high-risk pool to care for those people with preexisting conditions and offered Federal money to subsidize or to underwrite the…

The truth is America's health insurance companies are playing under the rules we set, and the rules we set say they really don't have to compete for my individual business, for John Shadegg as an individual customer, or yours, or our…

Going back to my board here, why don't Democrats want to force United to have to compete with Aetna for the business of that little guy so that he or she can buy health insurance, tax-free, like Intel can or Motorola can or the Federal…

An elaborate charade. Trickery. If the American people think we are engaged in trickery, why not engage in trickery.

Well, it seems to me that while we do not know what the quid pro quo was for any given deal, we know a couple of things: We know the insurance companies went in first and foremost and said, We want an individual mandate. We want the…

That's the IRS. The IRS is going to force you and me to buy health insurance from an approved health insurance company, federally approved health insurance. Maybe you can answer the question that is posited on this graphic: Why does the…

The gentleman started by commenting about the shutting down of the switchboards and whether or not individual citizens could get through to their Member of Congress today and express their feelings, and I would suggest right now maybe…

It will contain Gator Aid. It apparently contains $100 million for a local hospital in Connecticut that Chris Dodd got in. It contains $1.1 billion for Medicaid in Vermont and Massachusetts. I guess not Arizona or Texas. Our States didn't…

So AARP likes it and PhRMA, which are big drug companies, like it. All of the big insurance companies like it because you're mandated to buy their product. And there is no public option competing with them, and they don't have to compete…

So this would be the first Federal mandate saying you must buy a product because the Federal Government tells you you must buy a product?

Wait, the gentleman's telling me that never before in Federal law have we ordered people to buy a particular product, that we don't do that in Federal law as a routine matter?

Ah, so it's Republicans who oppose this bill that are the pals of the health insurance industry? I don't think so. And you're telling me that in the one State where we've already tried this, a mandate that you must buy health insurance…

No, we don't force people to do that. I guess we do say that if you want to drive in some places, you have to buy auto insurance to insure against damage to somebody else. Right?

I certainly think we need health care reform. I know that we believe that while the current system provides very high-quality health care, it often denies people access. But I want to talk a little bit about what's in the bill as well. The…

Oh, the cost went up. Wait, the cost went up? They have forced everybody in Massachusetts, like this bill would do, to buy a health insurance plan on the premise that the cost would go down. But in Massachusetts where they did it, the cost…

Wait, wait, wait. Are you telling me this is a deal? You're telling me these health insurance companies went into the White House and struck a deal, and the deal says, If you'll pass a bill forcing everyone in America to buy our product…

It seems to me morally indefensible, morally indefensible to say to the American people, If you work for a big, big, big employer--like you and I do, the Federal Government--or like we'll say, General Motors or Intel or Motorola or AT&T or…

You know, it stuns me that you just said that, under current law in America, if you work for an employer who gives you health care through your employment, it's tax free. There's no income tax paid on it by your employer, no tax paid on it…

I kind of think the American people are fairly bright. I think they see through this. If you are deeming a bill passed in a rule, aren't you actually passing that bill and aren't you voting for that bill? And isn't this just a trick or a…

Because of one word difference? One word difference. The Senate has already passed the Senate bill, the House has to pass that exact bill word for word. It can't have one word missing?

So the reason you wouldn't want to stand on the floor and vote for that Senate bill is not just because of the policy in it, it is because that bill will contain the Cornhusker Kickback, right?