Pete Stark: “I will confine my remarks to employers collecting data for a data bank that relates to Government insurance and private…”

“I will confine my remarks to employers collecting data for a data bank that relates to Government insurance and private insurance, which I believe is specifically what the bill and I am suggesting; that while we are eliminating this, we are on the other hand creating an even bigger data bank, and perhaps we should prohibit data banks for things like MSA's which, by the way, exist without any new legislation. MSA's are there today. It is, if we require the employer to keep track of who collects the money for an IRS exemption, he will then have to keep track of each specific payment to a doctor, and it has been estimated that it will cost the Government $4 billion to have these MSA's. Not only will it cost the employers, the gentleman from New York is concerned about more money, it is going to add $4 billion in costs. So, as the Republicans have done, on the one hand they say let us save a nickel here, but let us spend a million dollars if it helps our rich friends in business, and this is a perfect example of, I think, being penny-wise and pound-foolish dealing, Mr. Speaker, with a data bank which is minuscule, which requires almost no recordkeeping by business, while on the other hand ignoring those data banks that are being proposed to be imposed on business and private citizens, which increase the number of insured, increase the deficit and do no good to anyone.”