Chris Dodd: “It is not free, and it adds tremendously to the cost of others as well. So the implications, in addition to laying…”

“It is not free, and it adds tremendously to the cost of others as well. So the implications, in addition to laying someone off--as we see now the thousands of jobs that have gone--the Senator from Montana is very accurate in pointing this out when looking at this issue. Here we are taking Federal taxpayer money. That is what my amendment addresses. It says: With Federal taxpayer money you can lay someone off and hire someone else and pay them basically with Federal dollars. So we are, in a sense, not only causing that person to lose their job in this country but also their health care benefits and other benefits they may have, not to mention what it does to a family. Talk about keeping families together, the single largest reason why families break up is economics. Every study in the world that has been done on that institution says it is economics. As a matter of Federal policy, in effect we are saying we are going to outsource these jobs, causing a great disruption in America and families' lives. The Senator from Montana is so right to point out that the health care implications, because we have not yet sorted this out, are huge.”