James M. Talent: “I agree with my friend about one thing--there certainly is a very big difference between the approach of the President…”

“I agree with my friend about one thing--there certainly is a very big difference between the approach of the President to resolving the problem of the uninsured and costs in health care and the approach of my friend and his colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry. There is no question that there is a problem in this country because too many people do not have health insurance. I have been leading a fight on this issue for at least 7 or 8 years. There are about 45 million people who at any given time are uninsured. The interesting thing is that most of those people are working people, and they are working on farms or for small businesses. There is a reason why a disproportionate number of the people who are uninsured are working for small business. It is because health insurance costs more to purchase for small groups. The administrative costs to small businesspeople of buying health insurance for their employees is about three times the administrative costs of buying it for national pools, for the employees of big companies.”