Jack Kingston: “I can promise the Members that probably about 80 percent of them are having to go to a professional accountant to have…”

“I can promise the Members that probably about 80 percent of them are having to go to a professional accountant to have their tax returns done, and yet in 1984, as the gentleman said, that was called tax simplification. Here we are with a simplified health care plan, which is three times the size of that tax simplification bill. Folks are doing their taxes right now, and they should be. It is on their minds. Just think in terms of if we think our taxes are simple, think about how simplified our health care is going to be. Health care in other countries right now, according to a recent Associated Press story, the French health care plan is $9.8 billion in the hole. The Canadian plan, daily, people come to America for nonemergency routine type operations. In 1986 the doctors went on strike there. I was reading in just December that hospitals were given a month to cut $200 million in their budget in Ontario, and that employees are being forced to have 12 days of unpaid leave. Their systems have all kinds of problems.”