Pelosi, Democratic Leaders Remarks Today at News Conference on Legislative Accom...(e take I'd be pleased to take any questi...),Health

Q: [Inaudible. Question on schedule for appropriations bills.]

Majority Leader Hoyer. We have worked very hard to get the appropriation bills done on time; we accomplished that objective. We've been working with Senator Reid, the leader in the Senate with Chairman Inouye and the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. I know that he and Mr. Obey have been talking on a regular basis. They have passed four bills now. We will work on trying to get agreement on conferences on those four bills. I talked to Senator Murray -- She's part of the Senate leadership. At the last leadership meeting they are working very hard to getting another four or five or six bills to the floor in September. They may not get all eight of the remaining bills to the extent that they do. We hope to conference those and have as many bills passes prior to September 30th when the fiscal year ends. If it does not end, we may need a very short term CR. For the remaining bills, we hope there are very few of them, but for the remaining bills which we would then hope to complete certainly in October.

Q: [Inaudible. Question on CBO scoring preventive measures.]

Speaker Pelosi. They certainly should but they should also measure the benefits of prevention to our health care system. I appreciate your question. Certainly, you will be hearing a great deal from our Members about the health insurance industry and what it has done to the health of our country.

You have a situation where consumers in our country are at the mercy of the health care industry. You see CEOs of these industries making millions of dollars a year, indeed many of them a million of dollars a month, for their leadership in withholding benefits to people in need of help. But as far as we are concerned, we think that is why we need to
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