[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4731-4732]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   THE REALITY OF HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. FLAKE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, when the President signed the health care 
reform bill into law, he noted, ``The overheated rhetoric of reform 
will finally confront the reality of reform.'' He's right.
  Here is the reality: Insurance companies will now be required to 
accept children with preexisting conditions and carry adults up to the 
age of 26 on their parents' policies. New policies will have to cover 
preventative care without copays. Such requirements

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may or may not be in the public interest, but health insurance that is 
no longer a hedge against risk cannot accurately be called health 
insurance. Health insurance companies are now more like public 
utilities.
  Keep in mind that individual mandates requiring the purchase of 
insurance to broaden the pool will not kick in for 4 years. New 
competition is not required, nor is there any serious effort to deal 
with legal liability. In other words, there is no downward pressure on 
cost, only upward pressure.
  Madam Speaker, in this body we can pass all the laws that we want, 
but we cannot suspend the laws of economics, nor can we phase them in. 
Americans should now be prepared for higher premiums.
  That, Madam Speaker, is the reality of reform.

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