Bill Archer: “I can only conclude that the Democrats really want to have it both ways. They want to talk about special interests, but…”

“I can only conclude that the Democrats really want to have it both ways. They want to talk about special interests, but they do not want to talk about the special interests and the trial lawyers who will not let us have medical malpractice reform. They do not want to talk about that. They want to talk about secret agreements. Yet the reason that we have not gone to conference after all these weeks is because in the other body one Senator has prohibited, prevented the appointment of conferees. In the other body, we are told, well, you have to reach an informal agreement amongst yourselves before we can consider the appointment of conferees. We should not be able to have this argument both ways. Then their argument is that, oh, well, of course, this is going to be vetoed because there is a poison pill in here, and that poison pill is medical savings accounts. God forbid that we let people choose their own health care and spend their own money in order to determine what the best value of health care is for each individual, the ultimate in portability. When you have a medical savings account, if you do change jobs, you clearly carry it with you. It is yours. It is the ultimate in portability. If it is a poison pill, how can it be that 80 percent of the American people by polls, survey after survey, support medical savings accounts?”