Mike Enzi: “I had intended to present a list of people who worked for me, but a question was asked. I assume it was rhetorical, but…”

“I had intended to present a list of people who worked for me, but a question was asked. I assume it was rhetorical, but I can't let it pass. The question--to me, I assume-- was, why offer what you wouldn't buy for yourself for others? If I were in small business--and I was--and I was faced with rising health costs--and I was--I would have been happy to have been able to buy this insurance for my employees. There is a whole different level of living out there. It is called small business. We usually think if you are in small business, you are making lots of money. A lot of times the employees are making more than the bosses. The bosses buy insurance because that is how they insure their family and they get a group. That helps them, too. But when you have a group, that means that the people in the group get exactly the same insurance you do. You don't get the same package as the Senate. I will admit that the Senate has a pretty nice package. I would also like to tell you, though, that when I was in small business, when I was in the accounting business, I had a better package than I have in the Senate. So it is available out there. It costs a lot of money. I was trying to find some way to bring that cost down. On your bill that you would have liked for everybody in America to have--the same thing as the Federal employees--it didn't get there. I would have been happy to have had a vote on that and had that debate. I offered you that opportunity.…”