Paul Coverdell: “I want to go back, if we might, to this issue we are confronted with on health care reform. The situation we are in is…”

“I want to go back, if we might, to this issue we are confronted with on health care reform. The situation we are in is this. There are three motions that must be approved in order to get the conferees selected, and they are all debatable and can be filibustered. The Senator from Massachusetts has suggested to us that the filibuster would be put into play. So, in a sense, he is blocking the ability for a conference to come together and deal with legitimate health care reform. It has not been mentioned here this morning, but it needs to be mentioned that the administration has a hand in this, too. The administration, for whatever reason--and the Senator from Oklahoma is just as baffled as I--does not like medical savings accounts. We know that medical savings accounts will lead to an increase of those insured among the young. As the Senator from Texas said, young people sometimes feel immortal, and the cost of health insurance is very high, taxes are high, savings are down and people look for things they can do without. Young people feel, ``Well, this is something I can do without.'' So by putting a product such as the medical savings account into the marketplace, we know that what will happen is that many of these uninsured will take advantage of this opportunity, this unique product.”