Chuck Grassley: “I particularly suggest to the Senator from Tennessee that there is probably not as much concern on the part of the…”

“I particularly suggest to the Senator from Tennessee that there is probably not as much concern on the part of the proponents of this legislation as to whether or not some of the self-employed plans will be abandoned if this bill passes because the Washington bureaucrat has an answer to that problem. That problem is, we will do what President Clinton suggested in 1993 in his health care plan. We will mandate that every employer has to have insurance for their employee. Just mandate, don't worry about whether or not they can afford to do it. Just pass a Washington mandate that you have to offer this type of insurance. However, 42 million people in America today do not have health insurance. That number will increase if this bill passes as it currently reads. There will be things done in this bill that will not cause that to happen, if people on the other side of the aisle are willing to compromise. However, if they don't compromise, for these 56 million people who are in self-insured plans, if some of those are abandoned by employers because they don't want the threat of a lawsuit hanging over their head, that number will be increased.”