Providing For Consideration Of Senate Amendments To H.R. 4872, Health Care And Education Reconciliation Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, it has been 2 days since President Obama signed this bill into law. And after all the overheated, over-the-top rhetoric about government takeover, you would expect that the health insurance industry would have collapsed in the wake of that act.

Well, what have we seen from the stock market in the last few days? Aetna's stock is up, CIGNA's stock is up, United Health Care stock is flat. The fact of the matter is is what we have done is tried to reshape a private health insurance market so that people will have a coherent, understandable benefit that has a minimum level of consumer protection in a provision to make it affordable for working Americans, which will be a healthy, prosperous future for our health insurance industry, which the minority side indicates that that is something that they care about.

All they have to do is look at their own benefits, their own purchasing exchange, which, as Members of Congress, they participate in, with a choice of private health insurance plans, comprehensive benefits, no rescissions, no lifetime limits, no annual limits. That's what we are giving to the American people, what Members of Congress have. It's time to move forward and create an end to the days of have and have not.

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