[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 38 (Tuesday, March 16, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H1464]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. CONAWAY asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, later this week the Speaker is going to 
ask the House to take the final vote on health care reform, including 
the Senate health care bill. The Senate bill contains such rarified 
legislative compromises as the Cornhusker kickback, the Louisiana 
purchase, and Gator aid, and for the first time ever, it allows for 
Federal funding for abortions. Nevertheless, the Speaker has asked us 
to vote on it. I understand my Democratic colleagues are being assured 
that the Senate will take up the bill of fixes if the House will simply 
just pass their underlying reform bill.
  I offer a word of caution to my friends on the other side of the 
aisle: once you pass their bill, there is not a guarantee that can be 
made that will force the Senate Democrats to take up your fixed bill 
and pass it. The bill that passed out of the Senate satisfies 59 
sitting Senators, all of whom voted for it. The compromise that will 
pass out of this House will please far fewer. Simple logic tells us 
that the Senate Democrats do not have a real and abiding interest in 
bailing out House Democrats for having passed the Senate bill. Of 
course, simple logic has never really been a part of this debate.
  Madam Speaker, my Democratic colleagues are playing a game of chicken 
with the United States Senate. In the end, the President might just go 
ahead and sign this Senate bill into law, along with the Cornhusker 
kickback, Louisiana purchase, Gator aid and abortion funding, and every 
other twisted deal jumbled into this mess.

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