Cliff Stearns: “what we have here is a plan that the Republicans have been on their knees trying to come up with to try and solve this…”

“what we have here is a plan that the Republicans have been on their knees trying to come up with to try and solve this problem. It is voluntary. It brings choice, everything that the Federal employees health benefit plan has, the same program that all these folks have. Joshua Hammond wrote a book called ``The 7 Cultural Forces,'' which defines who we are as Americans; and one of those cultural forces is we are ready, fire, aim. That is, sometimes we do not get it perfect. We do the best we can, and that has been our history for 230 years. Is this bill perfect? No. In fact, the people on this side will argue back and forth, but all of us know this bill is not perfect. However, we have carefully balanced the needs and resources from home health to physical therapy. This bill contains the long-overdue addition of a prescription drug benefit. Our seniors and disabled beneficiaries have waited many years, particularly true in Florida; and I am pleased to be part of the solution and part of that markup that we did for 2 days. Now the folks on this side of the aisle say they have a bill. Their bill is for $1 trillion. Ours meets the budget demands of $400 billion. If we could spend all we want in the world, that would be the Democrat's plan.”