mr. speaker , i thank my colleague for yielding me this time to speak on the substitute that has been offered . 
now , if we think that having states regulate insurance in a small group market is a problem with state-mandated benefits , this is the mother of all complicated programs to offer health insurance , because what are we going to do ? 
we are going to have the federal government do it . 
now , none of us really believes that the federal government ought to be in the business of running big-risk pools and offering plans to small businesses . 
secondly , the bill is estimated , and it has changed from last year ; last year there was a $ 50 billion authorization , but it is still going to cost an awful lot of money to do this bill . 
one of the most damaging parts , though , is that each employer who would take part in this plan that is being offered would still be subjected to the state mandates on health insurance in their particular state . 
there are 1 , 500 state-mandated health benefits around the country . 
it also requires that the employer must pay at least 50 percent of the premium . 
in most cases , i would imagine the employer would pay far more than that of the premium ; but maybe it is a small company , maybe it is five or six employees , and maybe together they decide , we want to qualify for this , but we will each pick up our own share of the cost . 
why would we want to prohibit them from including themselves in this by this type of a requirement ? 
it also says that every employer must offer this to every employee who has worked at the company for 3 months . 
that seems like a very short period of time , especially in some industries where you have an awful lot of turnover where they would typically require that you wait 6 months before you would qualify . 
all this would do would be to drive up the cost . 
but one of the most amazing parts of this substitute , we would subsidize this from the federal government and , for employers with 25 or fewer employees , we would give them a subsidy to help entice them into this program . 
and , if you qualified , you qualify for a 10-year period . 
now , some small company with less than 25 employees may qualify , may get the subsidy and may , over a course of several years , become highly successful . 
but under this particular substitute , they would still qualify for the subsidy . 
i do not think any of us believe that the federal government ought to be operating a health insurance company . 
there are a lot of mechanisms in the private market for this association health plan program to work . 
and , again , why do we want to make the perfect the enemy of the good ? 
the underlying bill that we have will , in fact , work . 
it will allow millions of americans to get better-quality coverage at much more competitive prices than what they get today . 
so let us allow the underlying bill to go forward . 
let us defeat the substitute . 
