Mike Enzi

I do appreciate that we have a Small Business Advisory Committee that is supposed to be looking at any regulation that will cost small business over $100 million a year in costs.

Right now we are having a thing called regional haze that we are trying to correct in the West.

Well, and how do you make sure that the benefits that we are talking about are really related to the same project?

As an old shoe salesman, I was particularly impressed with Ms. Dudley's comment about how we are trying to shoehorn new things into old ones.

I was proud to work on and support the Every Child Achieves Act these past few months which highlighted State-funded dual enrollment programs in our K-12 education system.

I would like to start off by saying that I am very proud that students in my home State of Wyoming, along with students in North Dakota and Nebraska, have the lowest student loan default rate of 5 percent in the Nation.

My concern is data hackers will have Senator Enzi's collection of data before I will have it or the patients will have it at this rate.

I picture the day when I would be able to have a card in my wallet that has every bit of my medical information on it.

Don't go off and do something entirely new until we have got that job done.

One of the things we were working out was a 10-step plan for providing healthcare for everyone.

I got to work with Senator Kennedy for years, and we did a lot in other bills.

We're the inventors for all of the things for the rest of the world, and I know of a lot of things that are coming through the pipeline now that will make a difference to people.

Health insurance is expensive because healthcare is expensive, and that has to be part of the solution.

I would beg you, Mr. Chairman, to focus on the goal. What is it that we are trying to accomplish?

I don't think that's where we want to go as a country, and we're not going to.

I would far rather see scarce Federal dollars go to support people at the lower end of the income scale.

We're here to make sure that we can collectively work together for the accessibility and affordability of health insurance for all Americans.

Thank you for your questions, and, of course, if you or your staff have more, we can get some written responses, too.

I support my own Senator, Senator Shaheen's bill, Senate bill 1099--she has bipartisan support with Senator Scott.

I think the reason we're holding this hearing is I think they're the main ones that are having difficulties with it.

I remember Senator Sanders' comment that there are 35 million people who are still uninsured.

Those fundamental underpinning consumer protections that are built into the act must remain in place. They can't be compromised.

I appreciate that, and I think Mr. Harte was talking about the things that you have a little bit more pre-planning on than your concussion or her car wreck.

I very strongly believe that the United States should join every other major industrialized country with a national healthcare program.

I think the end result is that we're not getting good value for what we are spending.