Nancy L. Johnson

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…

When the government says ``This is the package and you will pay a percent of payroll for this package,'' then the employer is in a very different situation than he is today. For example, in Connecticut we have been through very hard times…

And the associated health bureaucracy in the Health and Human Services Department, HHS. That tells you that this is not all that easy and that it costs a lot.

And you know this issue that you bring up about the subsidy structure that both the Clinton plan and the Stark proposal provide is very important. It recognizes that small businesses for the most part cannot afford to provide health…

Of course, the good news is, and I thank my colleague from Michigan for joining me tonight, I appreciate it very much to talk about the implications of the employer mandate. Because the bad news is that the employer mandate is still a…

I firmly believe that this Congress has the ability and the will to put on the President's desk a bill that will prohibit insurers from excluding people for preexisting conditions. That is a proposal that I introduced in 1991. My Democrat…

In other words, the companies the gentleman is describing are investing real dollars in health care cost control, in prevention, and wellness, and getting their employees involved, and early intervention and all those things to make for…

The majority leader opened this debate by talking about portability, about guaranteeing private insurance, choice, and security. Four years ago, I talked with a young woman in front of a grocery store who had two beautiful children…

I will give you the insurance. The Republican side introduced the first bill that would have exploded the infrastructure to guarantee all 37 million of those uninsured access to our good community health systems, and, in addition, we…

No, three things do. There are lots of things about holding costs down. First of all, the cost driver is the increased ability to diagnose and treat illness. We know a lot more about diagnosing. We can do a lot more tests and treatment. I…

Which means in fact that when you can provide an opportunity for those businesses, who in fact now are subsidizing those businesses that are not covering their employees, you are going to provide these businesses and these employers with…

The President's plan recognizes that small businesses are going to have a tough time paying the premiums and offer subsidies. How does the gentlelady from Connecticut rationalize supporting a plan that will not offer subsidies to…

I'm delighted to answer that question. In fact only a Democrat could possibly read that statement of mine and assume that I wanted government to set those premiums on that basis. Absolutely I don't want government to set the premiums. I…

We have been devastated by a recession. Our small businesses need subsidies if they are going to have to provide better benefits. The President's bill will check them out of the subsidy plan, and you support that bill.

You want young people to pay higher premiums because what you're saying, this is an important element of the plan. You support community rating. I supported tests of community rating. Community rating says young people have to pay higher…

We gave them the right to choose it. And half the managed care plans provide mammogram reimbursement for women of all ages.

Isn't it odd that study didn't use the Congressional Budget Office figures? It used some weird model no one is familiar with? If we use Congressional Budget Office figures, we don't save money. We cost money.

How would I improve Medicare? I would improve Medicare by allowing all Medicare patients in all States, not just 15, to have access to the Medicare Program that is a managed care program, and for the same premium gives you prescription…

As the Member of this House that introduced the first insurance reform bill, I know a good deal about pooling, and I can tell you that that pool is large enough so we can keep the low cost premiums of large pools, the low administrative…

That's right. The uninsured rate, my colleague, is 8 percent. Connecticut's is 7.6 percent. For one-half of 1 percent why is it necessary to impose on the employers of Connecticut a mandate that you know will cost jobs in the short term…

Small businesses today have doubled the cost of health insurance since 1985. Smaller businesses today spend 35 percent more than the larger firms for health care.

People have choices of what plan they buy. My reform legislation guarantees that choice in the public and private sector.

Listen to this. In the community health center, they pay according to a sliding scale. For the insurance they would pay on their own, unless they were low income, and then they have vouchers to help subsidize the cost. So we provide…

No, that's not government doing it, Rosa. It plans on offering it and people taking up the options to voluntarily lower their health care costs through their own wellness actions.

Typical Democrat, you can't imagine that anybody could do this without government. I'm not setting the rates for the private sector. I'm just saying you can't medically underwrite, you can't exclude people with preexisting conditions, you…