Jeb Hensarling: “Mr. Speaker, let nobody make a mistake about it. I know the Democrats are trying to cast this as a debate about insuring…”

“Mr. Speaker, let nobody make a mistake about it. I know the Democrats are trying to cast this as a debate about insuring poor children. That's false. We have Medicaid. We could reauthorize the current SCHIP program now in the snap of a finger, but that's not what this is about. Instead, this is a debate about who will control health care in America. Will it be families and doctors, or will it be government bureaucrats? This is a proxy fight for the Democrats to take that first step towards socialized, government-run health care in America. That's what this is all about, and there should be no mistake about it. We've got a program for children that insures adults. We've got a program ostensibly to help the poor that can subsidize people making $82,000 a year, and they're going to do all this with a huge tax increase on smokers, and we're going to need 22 million new smokers in 10 years just to pay for it. If this bill passes not today not tomorrow but at some time, the children of America will suffer. If this program passes, and I hope all the mothers of America are paying very careful attention to this, because if this passes, in the years to come they won't wait minutes or hours to see a doctor of their choice. They will wait weeks and months to see a doctor chosen by a government bureaucrat, and that doctor will not be the doctor of today.”