[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 90 (Wednesday, July 13, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
 DEMOCRATS CONFRONTING HEALTH CARE ISSUES IN AN HONEST AND FORTHRIGHT 
                                 MANNER

  (Mr. COLEMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I think it appropriate that some of us, at 
least, begin to respond to some of the suggestions by the Republicans 
about the health care plans that have been placed before us for 
consideration. One of my colleagues from Texas just a few minutes ago 
suggested that, if Hillary Clinton was honest about all of this, she 
would have given us all these options, and then he said, I believe he 
said, if I am not mistaken, that then employers and employees could 
have gone out, paid for, bought, those plans. Interesting analysis.
  What is it that is missing? I suggest to my colleagues that a lot of 
people cannot go out and just pay for plans. That is part of the 
problem. ``Why in the world,'' I ask my colleagues, ``do you think we 
got 40 million Americans without health care coverage, most of them 
being children in America today?''
  I think it is wrong for anybody in this House to try to sweep under 
the rug how we are going to pay for health care, and I think that for 
the President and the Democrats to have confronted this issue in an 
honest and forthright plan with one proposal for payment by employers 
and employees for a new health care system for all Americans is not 
deceiving at all.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, it is the most honest thing that has been put 
forward in my years in the Congress here. It is about time somebody 
said how we are going to pay for things we say we want or we need.

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