Pursuit Of Affordable Health Care For All Americans

Floor Speech

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure again to come to the floor to talk about the issue that is capturing all of the national attention and a lot of attention of this body, and that is our pursuit of affordable health care for all Americans.

There has been a lot of discussion about this so-called public option, this choice people would have when they are searching for insurance when they don't have it, the idea being that if you have a public alternative, an option that doesn't rely on profits, that doesn't rely on high overhead, that consumers would have a chance to choose it if they don't have insurance through their own employers.

Now, it is interesting, because just this week we got an enormous boost, those of us who care about having a public option in the final bill, and it came from, of all places, the health insurance lobby. In a rare moment of candor, in a rare moment of telling us exactly what it is that they are going to do, they have told us something that should come as no surprise to anyone that has health insurance. They said they are going to keep raising rates. They said we can pass whatever we want here in Washington, they are going to keep raising rates. As a matter of fact, by their calculation, by 111 percent.

Well, on one hand, I am stunned that they told the truth. On the other hand, I am not very surprised. Our rates have been going up twice if not three times the rate of our salaries every year. They have been going up about $1,000 for people who have health insurance. So the idea that they are thumping their chest and saying they are going to keep doing it is not a surprise. But the fact that they were so honest about making it very clear that we need competition for the health insurance companies is refreshing.

They have made it crystal clear. The private insurance companies have said, you know what? If you don't have competition for us, rates are going to keep going up.

The public option, by the way, is not a mysterious thing. A lot of my colleagues here in the House of Representatives have it. Yes. They have Medicare. And I checked. Not a single one of them that is eligible for the government public plan we have today has said no. Maybe it is because they are like the country, that says, you know what? Ninety-six percent of people say they like Medicare. They like the care they get. It only has 3.5 percent overhead, not the 30 percent overhead and profits that private insurance companies get.

They like it, but they don't want you to have it. They don't want you to have the plan that they have. So many Members of Congress who are 65 say, no, you can't have it if you are 55 or 45 or 35. It is only for us.

Well, that is not exactly true. It is for every single American who turns 65. It is a government-funded, single-payer, government-administered health care plan that every year we do a survey about, and 96 percent of people who are on Medicare say they like it.

You can do the following test: Knock on the door or go to a neighbor or stop someone at the diner who looks like they are 55. Ask them, would you like it if tomorrow you got Medicare? Watch their face light up. They would love it.

Now, we are not proposing that. The President is not proposing that. I know I would like to have a program like Medicare for all Americans. All that is being proposed in the public option is that people who don't have insurance through their work, people that don't have insurance through Medicare or Medicaid, that relatively small group of people, the 10 percent or so of the country, that when they go out and shop for insurance with the subsidies we are going to give them, one of the options is not the insurance companies that said in this report they are going to raise rates 111 percent. That is it. That is what the big bogeyman is all about.

Let me show you this chart here to give you a sense for how unfrightening that concept would be. This is the $2.6 trillion of money we spend every year on health care. $2.6 trillion. I ask my colleagues, do you think we can do a little better for $2.6 trillion. We are getting such a great bargain?

Well, let's take a look at this. These boxes here, Medicare, Medicaid, DOD, Veterans Affairs and Department of Health Services, are all single-payer, government-funded, government-administered health care plans. And every day I hear my Republican friends thumping their chest, you gotta protect the VA, you gotta protect Medicare.

Oh, yeah? But you don't want to extend it to the rest of the country. Why is that? What is the big fear? The fear is, they are in a wholly owned subsidiary of this group right here. This is the private insurance companies, the ones that wrote this report that says that rates are going to go up 111 percent.

Now, in this $854 billion, do you know how much of that is profits and overhead? Take a guess. Up to 30 percent. And what some us are saying is, if you want to find savings in the system, and you don't want to cut into health care, maybe it is a place to start. Can you do maybe with 10 percent? 12 percent? 15 percent? Up to 30 percent. That is savings that we can get right there. But we are trying to get savings using a free market model. Competition. Let's see if there is someone that can do it more efficiently than 30 percent overhead.

We know, for example, Medicare can do it with about 3.5 percent overhead. That is the public option, and my colleagues don't want them to have what they have, which is government-funded health care.

Source