Political Quotes

“Mr. Tonko, as I was listening to you, several thoughts came to mind. You were listing a series of activities that are clearly contrary to the normal competitive marketplace, price fixing and the like. There is also an issue in this health insurance sector called vertical integration, in which these large companies not only monopolize the market, but they have now reached into the various other aspects and vertically integrated, owning consulting companies, actuarial companies that provide them with the basic data where they can more easily manipulate that data, now moving into the pharmacy benefit programs and gaining control over the entire marketplace. That is one of the activities that would be able to be attacked by the Federal Attorney General if this law were to go into place. The monopolization of the market, as I described in California where Blue Cross has 80 percent of the individual market, leads to a terrible situation. And I would just like to bring us back to why we are doing all of this, why we are doing the health care reform that is now going to be taken up in the summit on Thursday of this week, why we are doing this particular bill. It is really about Gloria, that 12-year-old girl that I talked about who was born with a heart condition and also has diabetes.…”