Roy Blunt: “I wish to speak a little bit about the letters I have received and the emails and the calls over the last few days about…”

“I wish to speak a little bit about the letters I have received and the emails and the calls over the last few days about the health care plan. The numbers signed up or whether the Web site worked--and I have said repeatedly--aren't the test here. The test is, is this a better plan? Does it allow more people to have better coverage or does it allow more people to have lesser coverage? I am becoming more and more convinced that the latter might be the case: the high deductibles, the increase in premiums, the benefit of a couple of years, actually, where the trajectory of health care costs were still going up but were beginning to flatten out, and now they are projected to go up pretty dramatically over the next few years based on the recent projections. So the real test is, is this plan a better plan, not does the Web site work. The fact that the Web site doesn't work sort of shows the ineptitude of government. The easiest thing in the world to do today-- or should have been in 4 years--would be to figure out how to develop a Web site. So I would say the Web site shouldn't be the test of whether the health care plan works because the Web site will work. Apparently a number of States are having a problem, the Federal Government had a very obvious problem, but the Web site will eventually work. Surely that can't be a long-term problem. Given no other alternatives, people are going to eventually sign up in some numbers.…”