Bill Bennett: “I find myself philosophically agreeing with the Senator from Colorado about the issue of choice, but I intend to oppose…”

“I find myself philosophically agreeing with the Senator from Colorado about the issue of choice, but I intend to oppose his amendment because it ignores the reality of our current health care structure and raises an issue that I have raised before and will raise again and again and again as we deal with the health care circumstance. He uses in his amendment the word ``consumers.'' The fact is that consumers do not buy health insurance. Individual consumers do not buy health insurance except in very rare cases. Companies buy health insurance. Employers buy health insurance. In my view, that is one of the main things that is wrong with our health care system, that individual consumers are not allowed choice. We are forced to take whatever our employers decide to choose on our behalf. I have said on this floor before I had a better health care plan before I came to the Senate than I have now. Why? Because the employer for whom I worked did a better job from my point of view than the U.S. Government does in choosing plans. If I were an individual consumer buying health care the way I buy an automobile, I would have chosen to bring that health care plan with me when I came from one employer to the other employer. But because of the way our health care system is structured, we are not allowed to do that. We, as individual consumers, are not allowed to make those kinds of choices.”