Martin Hoke: “the ranking members of the Committee on Education and Labor, the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and…”

“the ranking members of the Committee on Education and Labor, the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and the Committee on Ways and Means in the House, sent a letter to the chairmen of those committees asking for some bipartisan support, and to get together and have a meeting on how they could all go with a Republican-Democrat approach to health care reform. The chairman of the Subcommittee on Health in the Committee on Ways and Means scribbled across the top of the letter that he had received, and sent it back to the ranking committee member on the Committee on Ways and Means, that ``This is pure, unadulterated * * *'' and I cannot finish the sentence here in the House. Apparently the congressional Democrats and President Clinton are going to meet again next week to plot ways to pass health care reform without Republican help, because I guess they do not want it. Since the Democrats seem to be so out of touch with what middle-class America wants from health care reform, let me give the some hints. First of all, the American people want reform that preserves the high quality of our current system. They want malpractice reform to keep health care dollars from going to lawyers. They want portability reform, a change in preexisting condition requirements, and other insurance reforms that will promote universal access to private health insurance. The American people do not want to pay a huge payroll tax.”