Mr. BOND. Madam President, it is a great pleasure today to be able to welcome my new colleague from Missouri to this body. I think he will find, since we are not limited to 1 minute on this side of the Capitol, that remarks are not nearly as concise as they would be in the other body. But certainly his experience there will be of great value.

 

I have been proud and pleased to know Jim Talent and his wonderful family for many years in the State of Missouri. I knew him when he served as the Republican leader in the legislature. I worked with him closely when he was the chairman of the Small Business Committee in the House. There was a time when the State of Missouri had double duty in small business and it was a pleasure to work with him then.

 

I also know his children and his wonderful wife, Brenda. They are a great family. They make a great team. This fall I got to see a lot of them. They give him the courage and the support he needs to do an excellent job.

 

We also were very saddened that his father, who meant so much to him, did not live to see him achieve this victory in the end of the campaign. He lost his father and, while it was quite a blow to him, he persevered. It was a mark of the man that he came through these very difficult times.

 

 

I know this body will benefit from Jim Talent's contributions. He has been a champion for association health plans, which I think are essential for enabling small businesses to participate in the competitive marketplace, to secure health insurance for employees and their families. Jim has championed this idea on the House side. I know it is a top priority of the President and the Secretary of Labor, and it is good to have him leading this charge in the Senate now, along with Chairman Snowe and the other members of the Small Business Committee and people who are supportive of small business in the Senate.

 

 

Obviously, as has been said, the benefit of an AHP, or association health plan, is by allowing small businesses with similar interests across State lines, across the country, to come together in one pool; they can gain the efficiencies of purchasing in volume; They can gain the advantages of administering overhead, which can be spread across many businesses. For the same reason that you pay less for soda in cans if you buy it by the case, or multiple cases, than if you buy it one at a time, buying health care is much the same. No. 1, you get efficiencies of scale. You also have an opportunity to spread the risks. Those who have taken time to study health care know that the broader the pool, the broader the actuarial component is, the more reasonable the limits will be.