[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24739-24740]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  BRINGING DOWN HEALTH INSURANCE COSTS

  (Mr. YARMUTH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, a lot of us have gotten a good chuckle over 
the last few days over the PricewaterhouseCoopers study of the impact 
of the Senate Finance Committee health reform bill on health insurance 
premiums. I mean, after all, after only a few days, they had to come 
out and say, well, we really didn't analyze the whole bill, and in fact 
if some of the cost reform measures were put into place, we would save 
money.
  But they missed the important point. The most important point is that 
the Senate Finance Committee bill doesn't include the public option 
that provides

[[Page 24740]]

real competition for America's health insurance companies. The House 
bill, H.R. 3200, does include that public option competitive force.
  As I was home over the weekend, I talked to many people who just 
opened their renewal forms from their insurance companies and saw 
increases projected of 20, 25 and 30 percent. That is why the public 
option is so important.
  We can bring down health insurance costs and we can provide 
competitive pressure on the health insurance companies if we adopt the 
public option in the House bill.

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