Mark Neumann: “I rise tonight to first address just briefly what my colleagues have been talking to me about, or have been talking…”

“I rise tonight to first address just briefly what my colleagues have been talking to me about, or have been talking about here on the floor in advance of me, and that is health care in America. We hear so much about HMOs that are not doing their job for their patients, and we think about what kind of solutions we could come up with. There is a very naturally tendency in Washington, D.C. to say Washington needs to solve the problems. One thing Washington might consider doing is empowering the people in this country to have a choice of which HMO they go to and which health care coverage they would like. Today that is not possible, because if you work at the General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, General Motors offers you as an employee one of several health care plans. But if you choose not to take the one offered by General Motors in Janesville, Wisconsin, and you instead go and buy some other health care plan, you first lose the benefit through your place of employment, and second, you have to take after tax dollars and go and purchase that other coverage. One thing I think we should be thinking about as it relates to health care coverage is empowering all Americans to have the option of choosing the health care coverage that they want.”