[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 22691]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I was watching the Senate Finance 
Committee yesterday, and I was pleased to see that they were moving 
along in adopting health care reform and in moving it out of committee. 
It couldn't be too soon.
  The bottom line is that we've heard more reports about how more and 
more people have no insurance in this country and that insurance is 
increasingly becoming unaffordable. I know that the Democrats in both 
the House and the Senate and, hopefully, some Republicans, are moving 
forward with health care reform. We are trying to get it done by the 
end of this year, and it really is important.
  People need to have affordable insurance. They need to have choices. 
I think we need a strong public option as well because that will create 
competition with private insurance. It will bring down costs, and it 
will allow more people to find affordable insurance.
  The problem is not getting any better. It's getting worse every day, 
and health insurance reform needs to be done here in the House, in the 
Senate, and it needs to be sent to the President as quickly as possible 
so we can deal with this major problem that we face in this country. I 
would like to see it done in a bipartisan way.

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