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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