[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 109 (Tuesday, August 9, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         THE DREADED ``I'' WORD

  (Mr. MAZZOLI asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MAZZOLI. Mr. Speaker, Washington is abuzz in dreaded words. We 
have the ``T'' word, tax, and everybody runs in terror from taxes. We 
have the ``D'' word, which is deficit. Everybody runs in terror from 
deficits. And now we have another dreaded word called the ``I word, 
incremental, and it has to do with health care reform.
  People say you cannot reform this system incrementally, little by 
little, step by step. You have to take the big plunge. And, yet all of 
us who tinker on cars know that when you have a problem with a car, you 
start from a kind of conservative approach. You see what might be 
visibly wrong, a wire that is not plugged in, a screw that is not 
tightened, before we pull the engine. When we practice medicine, we 
take an aspirin first, then we see the physician, and maybe, hopefully 
not, but maybe surgery thereafter. But we take things step by step.
  I think that Washington is incorrect in being stampeded or scared to 
death by the word ``incremental'' as to health care reform. It seems to 
me we ought to start with the problems of portability, start with the 
problems of preexisting coverage, start with the problem of cost of 
coverage, but somehow start at the start, and then work to the eventual 
conclusion, not just take the whole thing whole hog.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that this is one time when the summer is not 
characterized by a dread of this word ``incremental.''

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