Bill Bennett: “I apologize for my voice. Some people may say I need a little health care, but, in fact, I am in good shape. I wish to…”

“I apologize for my voice. Some people may say I need a little health care, but, in fact, I am in good shape. I wish to thank the ranking member of the Finance Committee for his diligence in this situation as well as his attention to this issue over more than a decade. As a very freshman Senator in 1994, I participated in the debate we had on comprehensive health care that ended up in a situation President Clinton described in his State of the Union Message the following year. He said: Last year, we almost came to blows over health care, and he wanted to know why we couldn't get together on bipartisan lines. Well, the ranking member of the Finance Committee has signaled his willingness to get together along bipartisan lines. Senator Wyden, a member of the committee, has talked to me about this, and I have been more than happy to join with Senator Wyden, and I thank him for his statesmanship and his willingness to deal with this question in a bipartisan way. Senator Burr has talked about how universal coverage--the term Republicans always used to hate to use--is now a legitimate concept. Universal coverage used to be code word for a single-payer, government-run system, which Republicans opposed.”