James M. Talent: “this is ``Cover the Uninsured Week'' and there have been press events--and I guess you can call them rallies-- around…”

“this is ``Cover the Uninsured Week'' and there have been press events--and I guess you can call them rallies-- around the country designed to inform America about the problem of the uninsured. I guess I am glad that is happening. It seems as though it happens a lot. We have been talking about the uninsured for a long time. I think it is time we do something about the uninsured instead of just telling everybody that we have. And we can do that. I would suggest we are on the brink of doing it. We in the Senate just have to choose between the employees of the small businesses around the country, who are most of the uninsured, and the big insurance companies that have them under their thumb currently. There are about 41 million uninsured people in the country at any given time. About 60 percent of those uninsured people are either owners of small businesses or employees of small businesses, or dependents of somebody who owns or works for a small business. Most of the people who are uninsured are working people. The reason they are uninsured and the reason they are not getting health insurance through their small business is that the small businesspeople are caught. They are stuck on a dysfunctional market.”