[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 36 (Friday, March 12, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1380-H1381]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, if I might, we heard just a moment ago 
from one of our esteemed colleagues from the Republican side that there 
were no savings in the health care bill. In fact, there are substantial 
savings, at least according to the Congressional Budget Office, and 
over time, the American deficit would be substantially reduced. Let me 
just tell you some of the reasons why. First of all, by extending 
coverage to most all Americans, you eliminate one of the most 
pernicious and most difficult cost increases in the system, and that is 
that the uninsured wind up in the emergency room, usually very, very 
sick, and that gets to be a very, very expensive matter. That cost is 
in the system and is passed on to both the Federal Government as well 
as to those people that are buying private insurance.
  Also there is a major effort in the legislation to extend the medical 
technology information systems. We know that that will reduce errors 
and omissions, and create not only better care but reduced cost. We 
know that the system will also have a Medicare panel look at ways of 
reducing the costs in the Medicare system. Finally, there are programs 
in the system and in the legislation to promote wellness. Healthy 
people are not expensive. If you are well, you are not going to be 
increasing the cost of the systems. There are many, many parts of this 
bill that will significantly reduce the cost, and therefore, this is a 
good piece of legislation.
  Finally, I want to speak to one of the issues that our Republican 
colleagues constantly put before us as a way of reducing costs, and 
this is the ability of the insurance companies to sell products across 
State lines. Now, I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 
years, 1991 to 1995 and again from 2003 to 2007. During that period of 
time, we had insurance companies that were not licensed for business in 
California, selling products illegally in the State of California. 
There was a reason why we had a procedure to make sure that insurance 
companies that were selling health insurance in California were 
licensed. We wanted to know that they were legitimate companies, that 
they actually would have the financial strength to pay claims, that 
their policy actually provided benefits, and that they were able to 
carry out the contract that they had made with people.

[[Page H1381]]

All too often, we found that companies that were selling policies 
illegally in California without the proper license were selling junk to 
the public.
  I remember a case in San Diego, a woman who was working, a lawyer, 
had lost her employment with a law firm. She went out and purchased an 
individual policy. It was cheap. It was actually too good to believe. 
She got sick, and she wound up with an enormous expenditure, and she 
had to actually file bankruptcy in order to cover that cost.
  So we know that if companies are simply selling across State lines 
without the proper underlying strength and without the proper 
regulation, it will not solve the problem. In fact, it will create a 
whole set of other problems. That is not the solution. What we need is 
a national program and, in fact, we have such a program in the proposal 
that will hopefully be before us next week. That proposal establishes a 
national benefit program. It establishes a mechanism for the pooling of 
risk and pooling of companies in what are called exchanges, either 
State, regional exchanges, or a national exchange. That is a procedure 
that is in the bill and does provide the kind of protections that every 
consumer needs and also provides some competition. Because one of those 
companies that will be operating in the exchange--at least the national 
exchange--will be a nonprofit company that will have a national reach 
and be able to have the actuarial strength of being able to spread the 
risk across the entire Nation and all parts of it.
  So I'm looking forward to next week. It's going to be a terrific 
week. We will finally deal with something that the Nation has wrestled 
with for a century, and that is how to expand health insurance to the 
entire population. We're well on the road.

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