W. Todd Akin: “Good afternoon. Once again, we find ourselves here on the floor of the U.S. Congress and the subject before us, in spite…”

“Good afternoon. Once again, we find ourselves here on the floor of the U.S. Congress and the subject before us, in spite of various events that have been of great interest to people yesterday-- I'm thinking of the election of Massachusetts--still remains the question of health care. There is discussion with the new political realignments that it may be that the House will take up and just pass the bill that was passed by the Senate. That is one possibility, which then of course would require the bill not to have to go back to the Senate. And so we come back to this question of health care in America, something that has a lot of people's attention. It's not the top priority I think for many people. I think many people are worried about unemployment, they're worried about the economy, they're worried about excessive government spending, they're worried about terrorism and national security. But underneath those, perhaps, there is still some concern about health care, but particularly a fear that in an attempt to try to solve a problem we may make a bad situation worse. Indeed, when government does too much, we have found that we sometimes get some very bad side effects--inferior quality, inefficient allocation of goods, bureaucratic rationing, and of course excessive expenses. Now, if health care is expensive now, just wait until it's free, some have said.…”