Don Nickles: “I also thank my colleague, Senator Bond from Missouri. He and I and the Senator from Arkansas have been fighting for…”

“I also thank my colleague, Senator Bond from Missouri. He and I and the Senator from Arkansas have been fighting for this provision for years, and we are going to get it done. This provision is basic tax equity. Why in the world wouldn't we allow self-employed individuals to deduct 100 percent of their health care premiums if we allow corporations to do so? I used to be self-employed. I used to run a corporation. Corporations get to deduct 100 percent. Every corporation in the country, if they want to provide health care for their employees, gets to deduct 100 percent of the expense of that health care. They get to deduct it. A self-employed person this year gets to deduct 60 percent. That is not fair. That is not right. It needs to be changed. It can be changed in this bill. You might ask, why are we changing this bill? There are a lot of reasons. Unfortunately, the bill we have before us, the so-called McCain-Kennedy bill, will increase the number of uninsured in the millions. Some have estimated 1 million, some 2, 3, 4 million. I think it is a higher figure, but millions of people will lose their insurance if we don't improve the bill.”