Greg Ganske: “That would be my understanding, and let me just read from this letter from Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association and the…”

“That would be my understanding, and let me just read from this letter from Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association and the Health Insurance Association of America. "As representatives of the health insurance and health plan community, we are concerned about the issue of access to health coverage for small firms. However, we urge legislators to avoid legislation that unravels the market by helping a limited group of small employers at the expense of other individuals and small groups." And I can assure you, as somebody that speaks to a number of insurance companies located in my own district that still provide insurance to individuals outside of the employer market, that if you created this health mart idea, what you would be doing is you would be taking the healthy individuals out of that individual market, thereby making the individual market more sick. That would, therefore, have the effect of raising the premiums significantly for those who still purchase their own health insurance. And there are a lot of people like that; farmers, for example. I represent a lot of farmers. So I would certainly advise the GOP Task Force not to include this type of proposal in their health care legislation, but simply to stick with the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) who has worked on that task force so strongly in terms of a Patient Bill of Rights.”