[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 104 (Tuesday, August 2, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 THE MITCHELL-CLINTON HEALTH CARE BILL

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, the distinguished majority leader has 
presented his health care bill. And it seems to me that basically what 
the distinguished majority leader has done is taken the Clinton health 
care bill, stripped away the title page, and made it 1,341 pages long, 
and we now have the Mitchell-Clinton health care bill. We have a bill 
that expands the Government bureaucracy, a bill that expands spending, 
a bill that taxes health insurance benefits, and a bill that contains 
many of the basic Clinton components. And the basic Clinton component 
is to have the Government take over and run the health care system.

  We can pass a good health care bill in this Congress, but for us to 
pass that bill, the President, Senator Mitchell, and majority leader 
Gephardt are going to have to give up on one dream that they have but a 
dream that is not shared by the American people, and that is a dream 
that the Government is going to run the health care system in this 
country. That dream is never going to come true.
  The American people are against it in overwhelming numbers, and they 
are not willing to turn over the greatest health care system in the 
history of the world to the Federal Government, or to any other 
government, for that matter.
  So if the President wants a bill, if Senator Mitchell wants a bill, 
if majority leader Gephardt wants a bill, they are going to have to 
give up on the central tenet of their bill, and that is a Government-
run health care system. That is not going to happen in this Congress, 
and God willing it is never going to happen in any Congress in the 
history of the United States of America.

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