Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “I thank Chairman Frank for your hard work on the legislation, and with all due respect to the gentleman from Alabama, I…”

“I thank Chairman Frank for your hard work on the legislation, and with all due respect to the gentleman from Alabama, I can appreciate what you are saying about the Senate and our negotiations with them, but the Congress of the United States is not a unicameral institution. The Founding Fathers created two Chambers, two bodies, and the opinions of this body are just as important as the opinions of the other body. And sending a strong message about the reset provisions and about the group life provisions for the policyholders that you say don't care about those provisions is why we have a bicameral Congress. The other issue that I want to raise is that the life insurance fairness provision in this legislation, which you have strongly supported consistently, can stand on its own. It is not dependent upon group life being included in this legislation overall and it has no ties to that provision. In the 109th Congress, we passed a bipartisan version of TRIA that included a provision that says that individuals will not be denied life insurance coverage based solely on where they might lawfully travel, and that is included in this provision again. Too often life insurance companies deny the applications of people who express the intent to travel internationally. That's particularly true when people say that they plan to travel to Israel because Israel and 26 other countries appear on the State Department's travel warning list.”