mr. speaker , i think the rules committee has made a terrible mistake here , and not the usual rules committee sort of mistake , because they have actually allowed to come to the floor a substitute that is so clearly superior to the ahp bill it is amazing .  now , let my friends on the other side understand , i am not against ahps .  i am an original cosponsor of the gentleman from texas ( mr. johnson 's ) legislation .  ahps would be an improvement over current market conditions , which are appalling .  but this plan put forward by the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. kind )  and the gentleman from new jersey ( mr. andrews )  is better than ahps , and let me describe some of the ways .  first , the gentleman from louisiana ( mr. boustany )  mentioned choice earlier .  under the ahp approach , the average small business might be able to offer their employees one or two insurance plans , and that employee of the small business would have no idea whether their doctor was going to be a apart of one of those plans .  but under the federal employee approach , such as the one that we enjoy in this house of representatives , they could have 10 or 20 or more plans to choose from , and the likelihood that their physician , their caregiver , would be part of one or more of those plans increases substantially .  so when you are talking about unleashing the free market to work for the individual , the federal employee health benefits-type plan , and this would not infringe on federal employees ' benefits , but it would set up a parallel organization that small businesses could benefit from , the opportunities for the small businesses of america are magnificent under this approach .  another key aspect of this is the substitute approach is more likely to work .  ahps are largely a thought experiment .  they have never really worked anywhere .  but the federal employee health benefit system has worked well for decades , 30 or 40 years of a magnificent track record of experience .  it has got bipartisan support .  men and women of goodwill on both sides of the aisle know that this sort of approach works ; it lowers the sales load , it increases the risk pool to the maximum size which you need for lower group rates .  it really is the fairest and best way to approach this nagging small business problem that we have had .  it is also going to be more affordable , because while it lowers the sales load and increases the size of the risk pool , it is fairer to all industries .  there are probably going to be a lot of insurance companies that want to offer insurance to software companies , because those employees tend to be young and healthy .  how many are going to be eager to insure older rust belt industries ?  the tax credit approach that my friend has mentioned has had to be adjusted for purposes of this substitute , but we need to acknowledge , as my friend from new jersey ( mr. andrews )  mentioned , health care is already seriously subsidized in this country .  all we are trying to do is make that subsidy fairer .  i think also the substitute approach would make the system higher quality .  first of all , under ahps , there would be minimal solvency requirements .  by completely overturning all state regulation , as ahps would do , that is a truly radical approach , and while my friends on the other side may be radicals in this regard , i think they are going further than they realize .  these insurance plans need to be thoroughly solvent .  you need to have adequate capital requirements so that you know the insurance is going to be there when you need it .  i think you would have better benefits under this plan , too , because you would have more proven traditional insurance policies that i think more folks who work for small businesses are accustomed to .  let me admit , mr. speaker , in closing , our approach is less famous .  why ?  because we do not have every pac and trade association in washington , d.c .  favoring this because they stand to personally benefit from promoting ahps to their members .  they are desperate for non-dues revenue for those associations .  for any tourist who comes to washington , if you do not think these pacs and trade associations are rich enough , come visit again .  you will see skyscrapers full of these folks all over town , and they would love to make money as insurance salesmen to all the small businesses in america .  that is not doing justice for our folks back home .  as i say , ahps are an improvement , but they are not as good as the kind-andrews approach .  please vote for kind-andrews .  