On the recordMarch 5, 2014
I see no other speakers, so I am prepared to close. Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I have one Member who is in transit, but let me say a few things until he gets here. {time} 1445 I have been in Congress for 25 years, and I have listened to the Republicans talk about what we ought to do about health care. They have never brought a bill to the committee--a chairman's mark--for us to mark up and bring out on the floor. Now, if you have a solution for the fact that health care costs are the biggest costs driving bankruptcy in this country, where is it since you don't like what we have here? When I was younger, I lived through the implementation of Medicare. The American Medical Association--everybody--was just up and down, and it was the worst thing. If we put in Medicare, it was going to be the end of the world, and we would never have health care again in this country. We went on and on and on like that. They so poisoned the well that, when people went out to actually recruit people to get into the Medicare program, people said: I am not going to have any of that socialistic medicine in my house. That is what it was called. That is what people were doing in 1964 and 1965. This is a rerun of that very same movie. The Republicans want to kill the idea and leave the American people out there on their own. It is probably the single best example of the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.…
