The Time Is Now For Health Insurance Reform

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, President Obama in his speech to the Nation on Wednesday night really brought home the fact that we need to act on health care reform immediately before this Congress adjourns for the August recess, and the reason is simple: costs continue to go up.

The cost of health insurance, inflation is way out of line by comparison to any other developed country, and we still have about 40 million to 50 million Americans that have no health insurance. So we need to do both. We need to cover everyone as best we can, and we need to bring down the costs of health insurance.

The bottom line is that many of the organizations who opposed health insurance reform 15 years ago when I was here under President Clinton now support a plan that the insurance companies, the AMA, the doctors, PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry, all these groups have come together with President Obama because they realize that we can't continue with the status quo.

The time is now for health insurance reform, and we need to get together as both Democrats and Republicans to pass it.

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