[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 24740]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      PROVIDING MORE FREEDOM AND BETTER HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICANS

  (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I respect the President of the United States 
of America. I pray for this President often in my private devotions. 
But after months of extraordinary public opposition to a government 
takeover of health care, opposition that spontaneously drew more than 1 
million people to the West Front of this Capitol just one month ago, 
President Obama spoke words this weekend that were, frankly, hard to 
take.
  He said in his radio address, ``What is remarkable is not that we 
have had a spirited debate about health insurance reform, but the 
unprecedented consensus that has come together behind it.''
  Unprecedented consensus that has come together behind a government 
takeover of health care? Well, maybe here in Washington, D.C., but not 
across America.
  There is an unprecedented consensus. The American people are fed up 
with runaway Federal spending and government takeovers. And now that 
the committee work is done and both chambers of the House and Senate 
are headed to the back rooms to write up health care reform, let's home 
and let's pray that the unprecedented consensus that will shape this 
bill will be based upon the consensus of the American people for more 
freedom and lower health care costs, and not the consensus in 
Washington for more government and higher taxes.

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