[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 1346]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I do wish to comment about the health care 
debate. One Republican Senator said during this debate what we need is 
to ``get out of the way and allow the market to work.'' Well, we had an 
example of it working pretty well for the insurance industry a couple 
days ago. In fact, a large insurance company in California, insuring 
almost 1 million people, individuals, decided they would raise their 
rates this year 39 percent--1 year. I think it is fair to say it is a 
little above inflation.
  Well, when someone talks about get out of the way and let the market 
work, they are talking about doing nothing. That is what it means. 
``Allowing the market to work'' is a code word for letting greedy 
insurance companies--companies that care more about profits than 
people--get richer while people who can already barely afford their 
coverage lose their coverage altogether.
  Cover this with the fact that these insurance companies--and this 
insurance company--are not subject to any antitrust laws. The only 
business in America not subject to antitrust laws other than Major 
League Baseball is the insurance industry. So one is raising its rates 
by 39 percent. That is many times more than the rate of inflation. And, 
it is reserving the right to raise them again whenever they feel like 
it. Instead of just once a year, they can raise it more than once a 
year if they want to. They can do whatever they want, and they do 
pretty much whatever they want.
  What does this mean? It means people will not be able to afford 
coverage at all in many instances. It means more people will be living 
one accident, one illness, one injury away from a pink slip or losing 
everything.
  It goes without saying, in the year 2008, 750,000 bankruptcies were 
filed in America. Eighty percent of those bankruptcies were because of 
health care costs, and almost 70 percent of those people who filed 
because of health care costs had health insurance.
  A lot of companies are hurting in this economy. But this California 
health care company is not one of them. Last year, its parent company 
raked in eight times what it made in the same quarter the year before. 
What is this all about?
  It is not the first time we have seen this happen. Just 2 months ago, 
another exceedingly profitable insurance company raised its rates with 
the full knowledge it would mean 650,000 people would not be able to 
afford the coverage.
  That is as many people who are in some of our States.
  That is what happens when we allow the health insurance market to 
work the way it does. That is what happens when we sit back and wait 
for insurance company executives to act out of the goodness of their 
hearts instead of acting in the interests of their wallets. That is why 
we need health reform like the bills already passed in the House and in 
the Senate that will rein in insurance company abuses and make coverage 
more affordable for millions of Americans and provide coverage for some 
30 million who have no health insurance.
  Health care costs take up a larger slice of our economy than ever 
before, and it is not slowing down. In less than a decade, it is going 
to be $1 of every $5 we spend. In less than a decade, half of a 
family's income will be spent on health care premiums.
  It doesn't have to be that way. Californians don't have to be priced 
out of a healthy life. We don't have to let greedy health insurance 
executives drag down our future, but that is what they are doing and 
have done.
  I, once again, urge Republicans to work with us in good faith to fix 
our broken system. The President has reached out: Come on down. Tell us 
what plans you have. I encourage those Republicans to listen to the 
American people, two-thirds of whom said last week they want Congress 
to finish the job we started with health care reform. I encourage every 
Senator to condemn this insurance company's greed. If they are not 
willing to do so, perhaps they would be willing to call the 
Californians who can no longer afford coverage and explain why 
corporate profits are more important than their health.

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