[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19550]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             HEALTH CARE REFORM AND THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Well, Mr. Speaker, we're being treated today to the 
mass choir from the insurance industry telling us that we must be 
afraid and we must go slowly. They've been singing that song since 
1935, and we have been trying and trying and the American people are 
deeper and deeper and deeper in trouble.
  Now the insurance choir is really worried, Mr. Speaker, because if we 
got a public option, they'd have to compete, and they can't stand it.
  For the last 12 years or 15 years since Mr. Clinton tried to bring us 
health care, they have done nothing, not one single thing. They ran the 
House for 12 years. Not a single proposal, not a single time did they 
come out here with any way to deal with the people who don't have 
health insurance. And now we come with a public option and they say, 
Oh, God, wait, wait, folks, don't be afraid, we will get to it some 
day.
  Now is the day.

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