Christopher Shays: “Mr. Speaker, a number of years ago the President came in with major reform of health care. It was wide reaching, it was…”

“Mr. Speaker, a number of years ago the President came in with major reform of health care. It was wide reaching, it was well beyond what anyone in this House wanted to do, and now we have a bill that in my judgment is very sensible. It is very logical. The Roland-Bilirakis bill never passed 2 years ago because it never had a vote. It never had a vote because unfortunately the other party was jealously guarding the jurisdictions of each committee. This bill here has the input of the Committee on the Judiciary, the Committee on Commerce, the Committee on Ways and Means, and the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities, and in it there is a very significant portion of this bill dealing with fraud, title II, preventing health care fraud and abuse; it goes for about 70 pages. I have a hard time understanding what is meant by a clean bill. What is a clean bill that does not deal with waste, fraud, and abuse? We have been having hearings for decades about the waste, fraud, and abuse. That so-called clean substitute ignores it completely. This bill here deals with waste, fraud, and abuse, and for the first time makes health care fraud a Federal offense, an all-payer system, not just for Medicare and Medicaid and Champus, but for all health care fraud. We are determined that this House is going to do something responsible.”