W. Todd Akin

Now there's something here that just seems to be ironic to an extreme. We passed this massive government takeover of health care, and the very people that the President and his administration chose to take a look at and study the effect on…

So they're saying that this new bill, among other things, is going to close hospitals.

Let me just cut to the chase for a minute here. Are you suggesting that with this new proposal, because of the tremendous pressure that's going to be placed on those hospitals, that they're basically going to be starting to close?

Thirty-six million more people go into Medicare--now, you don't have to be too much of a wizard on business--36 million people go into Medicare that weren't there before, it's going to cost more money. And then you are going to cut $575…

What you just said is so common sense and straightforward. You are going to take how many more people and put them into Medicare?

So I guess from what you are saying, a quick summary, 31 years in medicine, you thought maybe you knew something about medicine, decided to take the huge amount of effort to come to Congress so you would have something to say about the…

That's an incredible question, isn't it, the control of the information, the spin on the whole thing, the promises initially of it being a transparent process, it's going to be on C-SPAN, everybody can watch it, and in fact everything is…

I would like to underline that point. We just had my good friend from Tennessee talking about what happened when Tennessee did this crazy harebrained idea and how it really messed up the economy in the State of Tennessee. And now you're…

I think there is continuing information that is being released that a lot of people may not have known about when the bill was passed, additional facts and figures which are, at a minimum, quite disturbing. The facts and figures that I…

You are not just a Member of Congress, you are not just a former doctor, but you are also from the State of Tennessee, and the State of Tennessee is one of two States that tried this ObamaCare kind of approach to health care. And your…

You can take your employees and unload them on the Federal Government, and if you do that, how much money does it save?

I am a cancer survivor. I happened to have taken a look at the cancer survival rates in foreign countries that have socialized medicine. You notice the U.K. survival rate of cancer in men is a whole lot less than it is in the U.S. Well…

So if you are a big company, you can make $40 million by just dumping your employees onto this plan?

Okay, I'm starting to understand. Doctor, you're great at explaining this stuff. So what you're saying is you've got a certain number of people that are all kicking into the system and paying for medical care. All of a sudden you create a…

Do you think we really know the consequences? I don't think people have a clue what the consequences are.

So we are getting this radical, one statement says one thing and yet when you look at it, it is the exact opposite.

The promise was if you don't pass the stimulus bill, this was a year ago, you could have unemployment above 8 percent. I wish we hadn't passed it because our unemployment is now 10 percent. You were on the floor here about a year ago…

We will start by reducing premiums as much as $2,500 a family. If somebody told me that, I am saying I like that. Our expenses, we go through a lot of money with a bunch of kids and health care. If you are going to reduce my premiums by…

Just interrupting for a minute, from a business standpoint, because my background was engineering and business, when a business is running at 1 to 4 percent, that's like if you think about somebody that has to breathe keeping his lips…

I really appreciate you bringing that point up, gentleman, because what you're really saying is there are a whole lot of question marks out there. It almost seems like to me, coming from our State of Missouri, it's almost like maybe you…

You're talking about a bill that is actually driving the unemployment worse. It's a bill that's going to create unemployment is what you're saying. That's what this small business owner says. In other words, you're saying he's making…

They're going to bankers, those loans are all set up, and when this thing passes, they go, Forget it, we're not going to expand business that way. And so you literally have people you know in the banking business in the State where the…

Well, I'll tell you that I'm going to be talking to one in another hour or two not very far from my district. I think they've got the same set of concerns. It's at a place where the President has been visiting, and they're turning out to…

As of today, there are 19 States, representing 41 percent of the population, which have sued the Federal Government over ObamaCare, which has caused Justice Briar to make the statement: ObamaCare, a good candidate for review by the Supreme…

What in the world are these Congressmen doing, standing on the floor, railing about some bill that has already been passed? Well, part of the reason is there was some truth in what Speaker Pelosi said, which is that you've got to pass the…