[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25790]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, my friends on the majority side 
have stood before this body today asking about the Republican 
alternative, where it is. Well, I would ask my friends on the majority 
side, where is their bill? The three committees in the House of 
Representatives each passed different bills back in the summer. Those 
bills haven't been merged. The Senate passed a conceptual document. 
Legislative language is not yet public on that bill.
  We will have a Republican alternative, and I can tell you right now 
what will not be in it. There won't be individual mandates that 
millions of Americans can't afford. There won't be employee mandates 
that thousands of small businesses can't afford. There won't be a 
health care choices administration that tells the private insurance 
sector what kind of coverage they have to provide. And there won't be a 
comparative research bureaucracy that could easily lead to rationing of 
care.
  There will be a national pool that covers all preexisting conditions. 
There will be subsidies for low-income Americans. There will be some 
sort of a compensation package for our health care providers. So I 
would ask my majority: Where is their bill?

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