The last hour just ended, and you heard the admonition at the end of the hour that it is extremely important for people to pay attention. And during this hour, I am going to echo that thought. It is important for people to pay attention…

I thank the gentleman for the recognition. One minute is not much time to deal with what is a very complicated process. It is unfortunate we didn't have more time to actually look at this bill before it came to the floor on the concept of…

Well, they may not be constitutional at our level. And the other thing to remember about a mandate, for a mandate to work, you have to know that it's in existence, and you have to know what the penalty is, and the penalty has to be pretty…

Let me point out just one thing. We hear over and over again Republicans have no solutions for health care. HealthCaucus.org is a Web site that deals only with health care policy. On that Web site, Dr. Burgess's prescription for health…

And I can be as critical of the insurance companies as anyone else, but they take the path of least resistance. Their capital is not necessarily any more courageous than anyone else's. The easiest way to get to what they want is an…

One interesting point. You have these groups that went down to the White House in May and June--and I'm not going to criticize them for going down and advocating on behalf of their industries, on behalf of their groups. But what is so…

So we have two problems. The Constitution says we have to vote on the bill. We say the mandates may be extraconstitutional in their scope. And then the whole question of equal protection under the law. We have a constitutional scholar with…

I would just go back, too, to that instance with the Deficit Reduction Act, where a small difference in the House- and Senate-passed bills led to a court challenge, and we came back in January. We left on December 21st or whatever day it…

But, and I am sure the gentleman feels the same way, I would not want to stand in front of the 2,000 people on a hot August morning in a town hall in Denton, Texas, and say, you know what, I never voted for that bill. I voted for the rule…

There is no question that they are. You are right, the American people can see through that. It's an elaborate charade. It will provide no protection.

Actually, that is a House bill that the Senate passed. So we would simply have to concur with the Senate amendment, and that would be the identical bill. But in this case the Slaughter rule would say we don't even have to bring that bill…

The exact same bill. We learned that in December of 2005. The Deficit Reduction Act had one word different between the House and Senate bills, and the whole thing was held up.