Bill Nelson: “Something this important should not have a limit of 10 minutes. I accept the good nature of the prime sponsor of the…”

“Something this important should not have a limit of 10 minutes. I accept the good nature of the prime sponsor of the bill. Basically, we are here talking about making insurance available and affordable. After September 11, we ended up having something that was neither: not available nor affordable. As a matter of fact, one only has to look to the front page of the Washington Post today. This is chronicling what has happened: Insurance rates rise in DC. They soar downtown. Coverage more limited since September 11. That is the headline from today's Washington Post. It points out that in the downtown area, there is a hiking of rates. One example given by the Washington Post is 160 percent. I can give innumerable examples-- and I will in the course of this debate--of multiple hundreds of percent in rate hikes, and thus that brings us to this point of considering this legislation.”