Pete Stark: “reclaiming my time, seriously, nobody is debating that there was serious error, but I do not think anybody in this…”

“reclaiming my time, seriously, nobody is debating that there was serious error, but I do not think anybody in this Chamber can debate the other side and say, nobody else has ever made an error as egregious or as costly, either in dollars or in human life. That is not the issue. I think I established with my good friend from Arizona that they would rather have this as a debate to in effect tweak the White House, see if they can humiliate the President a little bit. Although it seems to be with events that have led up to this, they have tried and have not succeeded. His popularity is high because he has done a good job with the budget; he has done a good job of addressing all of the things that the Republicans were unable to do that the Democrats did. So I do not know as this is going to make a major difference. But the resolution deals with government officials using private citizens. Is it any worse to meet with lobbyists in private to try and destroy health insurance to fight for improvements in health care in America? We have a memo from the Health Insurance Association of America, the for-profit health insurance lobby, and it talks about the Speaker's aides calling lobbyists up to Capitol Hill to trash a bill to provide consumer protections in HMOs. That was done in secret. Is that any worse than a goof-up like Magaziner making the wrong statement and not letting us find out about a health care plan that never came through?”