Nancy L. Johnson: “the President and Mrs. Clinton deserve credit for bringing health care to the center stage in Congress. And while there…”

“the President and Mrs. Clinton deserve credit for bringing health care to the center stage in Congress. And while there is widespread agreement that reform is long overdue, achieving reform that constrains health care costs, preserves quality care and expands access for all Americans is, indeed, a complex challenge. The very real danger is that we will destroy the unique quality of our system and escalate, not control, costs. Because health care reform is a complex challenge, I am going to discuss tonight one aspect of that challenge, the employer mandate and its consequences. In future special orders, I will focus on the global budget and price controls that are fundamental to the President's proposal and the proposal of my colleague, the gentleman from California [Mr. Stark] and to other significant aspects of the health care reform debate and of the kinds of decisions that have to be made by Members of Congress. Finally, I will focus on the significant number of specific solutions to the specific problems we face that command bipartisan support and would have a broad and systemic and healthy impact on our health care system, correcting the problems we all know so well of people being excluded for pre-existing conditions, unable to buy affordable insurance, unable to have the kind of access that a great and rich country ought to provide her citizens to health care, preventative care as well as crisis care.”