The calendar says they will be in session for 120 days, but when you subtract Mondays and Fridays, which are travel days, that drops to 74, so it's a very short playing field. At some point, you have to see what's politically achievable.

If Oxley had more control over that process and the timing, I just don't think we would have the law that resulted.

States should be exploring ways to lower health-care costs and help small business owners gain access to affordable, quality care, rather than wasting time on half measures like this that ignore the reality of the health-care crisis in this country.

Why are we going to put this yoke on corporate America's neck? This is a problem for everybody in the country.

This will accomplish very little, and this totally misses the mark, which is to take appropriate steps to slow the kind of double-digit health care increases we've seen. This is so far off the mark it's incredible.

We will actively encourage our members to stop providing health care as a voluntary benefit because it makes no sense.