Nancy L. Johnson

I certainly am proud of my hometown of New Britain, CT. Last Saturday we had Christmas in April and I and many, many other people from the town turned out.

That is why I wanted to bring that up, because we do a lot of real thoughtful work here about the problems in our lives and certainly abused children is a very big problem in the communities that we represent, and we took a giant step…

You bet, you bet. It would have been good for the seniors, good for the program, good for the government because it would have created the right partnership between the government, the seniors of America and the providers of health care in…

That is true, and one of the provisions in that legislation goes to the heart of what you were saying. It allowed seniors to report things they had been charged for wrongly and share in the savings. Remember they would have gotten half the…

The transition rule could not be worked out until we were done, and so we are here. I hope we will work well together to complete the work on this important case.

We did run into the same problem with the taxpayer service representatives and felt that they were saying about problems that the taxpayers were having with the IRS was not getting to us, and so we did add provisions in the taxpayers bill…

I think it ought to be also in the record that the government of East Timor is a Timoran, well respected by the people of that island, and Indonesia has a way of sharing the benefits of mining and timber throughout the islands of…

Faced with serious water quality problems a generation ago, the state of Connecticut passed its only Clean Water Act, and this is why I wanted the 30 additional seconds. We passed the first one. The Federal law is modeled on our act. And…

In view of the tremendous progress toward establishing democratic political institutions and market economies made by the Baltic States and their keen interests in NATO memberships, I want to clarify my understanding that this bill in no…

Certainly it is true that we have done a lot of good work on the issue of violence against women. It is not my understanding that there is a specific listing in this bill that addresses those kinds of institutions, and I think, we think…

Reclaiming my time, if we write legislation as sloppily as we have been writing legislation in the last few years, you bet they will be in court and they will tie it up forever. But if we write precise law, that clarifies responsibilities…

And remember it is very significant that they have no provision for wellness programs because, if wellness programs are not in, then they are not part of the mandated plan, and they will have to be paid for by additional insurance or…

And working together, it is my recollection this company is now providing the same comprehensive benefits to their employees as their competitors but at a savings of at least 20 percent in spite of the fact that they have built this…

Let us give a more vivid picture of this. This company has built a beautiful facility. They have 24 full-time people who do nothing but manage health benefits, provide exercise classes, stress management classes, wellness activities for…

We often talk about the job loss associated with the employer mandate, but this is, in my estimation, the most serious and most deadly consequence of an employer mandate. By turning health benefit costs into a set percent of payroll…

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.

The points the gentleman makes are very good. Not only will the mandate cost jobs, because it will not be worth paying benefits for either low-wage positions, and certainly many part-time positions, but others will lose wages, because more…

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…

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.

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.

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…

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…

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…

The difference between you and me is I wouldn't dictate it. I would allow companies to say, ``You participate as Steel Case did. You participate in exercise class once a week, and you get lower rates before that''---- Ms. DeLAURO. So we'll…

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.