Frank Pallone: “Mr. Speaker, I wanted to thank my colleague from Florida, who just spoke, for saying and admitting that health care…”

“Mr. Speaker, I wanted to thank my colleague from Florida, who just spoke, for saying and admitting that health care reform does create jobs, because, if you listen to the Republicans, they have been saying over and over again that that's not the case. But he finally said, yes, it does create jobs. That's what we really should be doing here. We should be creating jobs and improving the economy, not talking about repealing health care reform, which already is providing so many benefits to many Americans. Yesterday, I saw a statement from our former Republican majority leader, Senator Frist from Tennessee, who said that we shouldn't do the repeal. He recognized the fact that this legislation, this health care reform, is actually making a difference in people's lives and that we should build upon it, as Senator Frist said, a Republican, rather than just trying to do an outright repeal, which is a complete waste of time. Now what I am hearing from my constituents is that they like the benefits that are already coming out from health care reform, whether it is eliminating all the discriminatory practices, like lifetime caps or preexisting conditions or annual caps, or being able to put your children up to age 26 on your policies. These benefits have already kicked in, and Americans actually like the benefits. They understand why they are helpful to them. The only group I can think of that actually would benefit from repeal is the big insurance companies.”