Roy Cooper: “I think the Rules Committee has made a terrible mistake here, and not the usual Rules Committee sort of mistake, because…”

“I think the Rules Committee has made a terrible mistake here, and not the usual Rules Committee sort of mistake, because they have actually allowed to come to the floor a substitute that is so clearly superior to the AHP bill it is amazing. Now, let my friends on the other side understand, I am not against AHPs. I am an original cosponsor of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Johnson's) legislation. AHPs would be an improvement over current market conditions, which are appalling. But this plan put forward by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) is better than AHPs, and let me describe some of the ways. First, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany) mentioned choice earlier. Under the AHP approach, the average small business might be able to offer their employees one or two insurance plans, and that employee of the small business would have no idea whether their doctor was going to be a apart of one of those plans. But under the Federal employee approach, such as the one that we enjoy in this House of Representatives, they could have 10 or 20 or more plans to choose from, and the likelihood that their physician, their caregiver, would be part of one or more of those plans increases substantially.…”