[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 15] [House] [Pages 20193-20194] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]McCAIN DEREGULATION AGENDA WOULD BE DISASTROUS FOR MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS (Mr. PERLMUTTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.) Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, while years of deregulation policies have caused the biggest financial crisis in decades, Senator McCain is touting himself as the greatest deregulator. The Senator has called government regulations unnecessary and burdensome, and has said they should be eliminated. Now he wants to extend his deregulation agenda to the health insurance industry, writing in an opinion op-ed this month, that, ``Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of State-based regulation.'' For 8 years now, the Bush administration has turned a blind eye to all the trading, lending and borrowing that is now responsible for the Wall Street crisis. Senator McCain now wants to extend that same strategy to the health insurance industry? Our Nation's health care system has enough problems, and we don't need to exacerbate them by [[Page 20194]] implementing Senator McCain's dangerous new deregulation idea. ____________________