[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 99 (Wednesday, July 22, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H6077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  AMERICANS WANT CHOICE IN HEALTH CARE

  (Mr. HASTERT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of diatribe over here 
about health care, but the fact is that what the Republican Party is 
doing and what we are going to deliver to the American people is for 
the American people to make the choices of where they want to go on 
health care.
  Also, I think most American people want to be able, if they have a 
malady or an illness, to get to a doctor's office or get to a hospital. 
They do not want to take the bypass to the courtroom or, heaven forbid, 
have to go hire a lawyer before they go get their health care.
  Our friends on the other side of the aisle say one has to go to a 
lawyer, one has to go to a courtroom before they are going to get 
health care. Most people do not want that. They want to be expedited 
into the health care provider that they choose to get the health care 
that they want and to get it as cheaply and affordably and as quickly 
as possible.
  That is exactly what the Republican health care bill does. It 
expedites people into health care and into the hospital room, not into 
the courtroom. Our friends on the other side have the Patients' Bill of 
Rights, and really it is probably the lawyers' right to bill. We do not 
want to do that. We want to give people good, quick, accessible health 
care, and that is what this bill does.

                          ____________________