[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 26905]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  (Mr. PASCRELL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, after months of fire and fury and endless 
rhetoric, after months of staged protests and shouting down honest 
debate about health reform, after months and months of promising a real 
plan for the reform we all agreed we need, I stand before this Congress 
literally astounded by the health reform plan offered by the loyal 
opposition.
  After all this time, this is the best you could produce? It seems 
that you have backtracked. Now you don't believe in health reform. 
Instead, the Republicans have embraced a plan that will drive up the 
cost of health insurance for the sickest and most vulnerable, a plan 
that will start a race to the bottom where insurers drop the sick and 
flock to States with the weakest regulations. Yes, that's exactly what 
I said.
  A plan that bails out the insurance companies, relieving them of any 
responsibility to cover the individuals that need insurance the most. 
You are going backwards instead of forwards.
  I must admit that I congratulate them for somehow turning the status 
quo into 230 pages of legislative text. I contend there is only one 
real reform plan, and we will be voting on it in a few days.

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