[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19577]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 PEOPLE ARE NOT WAITING IN LINE TO LEAVE THIS COUNTRY FOR HEALTH CARE; 
                       IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND

  (Mr. WAMP asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I have said it many times on this floor: 
Neither party has an exclusive on integrity or ideas. And these 
challenges are not Republican challenges or Democratic challenges; they 
are, in fact, American challenges.
  But I have to tell you a few years ago, a Republican President with a 
Republican Congress, he proposed sweeping changes to immigration 
policy, but those changes kind of flew in the face of the rule of law, 
they threatened our sovereignty, and Republicans said ``no.''
  Here we are today. All of us want our President to be successful. But 
the Democratic Party needs to look at the President and say, This is 
not what we need to protect our health care system. We need to change 
it. We need to reform it. We need to improve it. But we don't need 
government control of health care. It's too important.
  Eighty-five percent of the people in this country today are satisfied 
with their health care, and they are afraid that this new proposal will 
put that in jeopardy.
  This is a matter of life or death. People are not waiting in line to 
leave this country for health care; it's the other way around.

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