Political Quotes

“today this House of the people has a historic opportunity to cast their vote for landmark legislation designed to address the health insurance concerns expressed by the people. For nearly three decades the American people have looked to Congress to improve private health insurance accessibility, affordability, and accountability. Unfortunately, until this point, efforts to nationalize health care have deprived our people of the added security that would result from the commonsense and bipartisan elements of targeted health insurance reform contained in the measure we are now considering. These elements, such as health insurance portability, renewability, and pooling for small employers, have been long debated and included in various legislative proposals offered by the members of the Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee and many others. These needed well-targeted reforms did not advance in the last Congress because of the failed efforts by the President to promote his government-run health care plan. The American people were not fooled-- the elements of the President's plan proved too costly, too bureaucratic, and would have led to health care rationing. However, our efforts here today give evidence that we are seriously taking President Clinton at his word which was given in his State of the Union address last year, ``Let's do it step by step; let's do whatever we have to do to get something done'' in regard to incremental health insurance reform.”