[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 94 (Tuesday, July 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. WISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, perhaps it is symbolic that you have asked me 
not to bring out today my display cardboard pizza, because, in a 
symbolic sense, I may not have a pizza, but many Pizza Hut employees, 
we just learned over the weekend, do not have health insurance. Pizza 
Hut will pay health benefits to its employees in other countries where 
there are employer mandates, but they will not do the same here in the 
United States.
  Now, what Pizza Hut says is, yes, but you pay much more for a pizza 
in other countries. Is that not lot of tomato sauce, since we know the 
food cost is historically higher in other countries?
  We know in Japan, for instance, the dollar-yen valuation changes 
greatly increase the price of food, and finally, we know that foreign 
goods produced overseas have much lower health care costs built into 
their product than we do in ours even though they have comprehensive 
health care.
  Pizza Hut is saying these things, and when they tell you, 
incidentally, they are giving you extra bread sticks, just remember 
what they are also giving you is a 30-percent cost shift; that is 
right, we are paying 30 percent more for our health insurance to cover 
those employees who do not have health insurance.
  Recalculated, for instance, at the additional cost of labor, at the 
most, it would be 10 cents more on a $10 pizza, and that is without 
taking out for workers' comp savings and other significant savings as 
well.
  So when they tell you they cannot afford to provide it here in the 
United States, just tell them they are giving you a lot of pepperoni.

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