On the recordMarch 19, 2010
I'm relatively new here, and I don't know everything about the health systems here. But when I signed up, I was given an array of options. I could go to Blue Cross-Blue Shield, or I can get Aetna, or Kaiser. It turns out that Federal Government employees, including every Member of Congress, have access to an exchange. And if you happen to be in California and you're a public employee at the State or county, many of the counties and cities, you are already in an exchange called CalPers, California Public Employees Retirement System. Those are exchanges. This is nothing new. What we're doing is making that exchange available to everybody. Mr. Andrews, you have been here some time, and I know you're very familiar and indeed an expert on the American economy. Let us talk a little bit about the American economy and why this legislation is extremely important to the American economy. Right now we rank 19th in our health, in how healthy we are. And we're actually ranking below Colombia. The fact of the matter is we also spend nearly 17 percent of our total wealth, our GDP, on health care. Our competitors in Europe, Japan, Korea, spend no more than 11 percent--most of them are 10 percent and below. So you know in your economy, we have an enormous disadvantage. I remember actually it was President Clinton talking about this, and it's as though we took a check every year for about $800 billion and gave it to our competitors.
