Olympia Snowe: “I thank, first and foremost, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, the HELP Committee…”

“I thank, first and foremost, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, the HELP Committee, Senator Enzi, for his commitment and for moving this legislation out of the committee as the first of a group of health-related bills to be referred out of his committee as the new leader, the chair of this committee this year. I thank the chairman for doing so and I express my gratitude to him. This sends a very significant message to the House of Representatives of the importance and the value of this initiative. Senator Enzi not only as chair of this committee but previously was instrumental for participating in negotiations for more than 16 months to help fashion a consensus on the legislation now before the Senate and that was enacted through his committee, as well. I thank him for his leadership that made it possible to bring this legislation to the Senate. I also express my appreciation to my colleague on the other side of the aisle, Senator Kennedy, as ranking member of the HELP Committee, who has been a longtime champion of protection for an individual's private health information, dedicating himself over the past year and a half toward forging a bipartisan solution to this issue.”