I cannot remember how many pages were in the McCain-Feingold bill. I voted for it. I believed in it. I did not count the pages. I thought he was on the right track to change campaign financing in America. It was a bipartisan bill, and I supported it. Has that now become the measure in the Senate--we will count the pages, and if it goes over 1,000 pages, we are not going to pass the bill? I hope not because this bill, the underlying bill on health care reform, to make it more affordable and more accountable, took on one of the major industries in America, where the cost of health insurance has gone up 10, 15, 20 percent a year. We know the health insurance industry and the companies behind it are not going to go down without a fight. They are going to hire the lawyers and the lobbyists--and they did--to fight the passage of the bill and to fight its implementation in court and everyplace you turn because what is at stake is their money, their profit. What is at stake is the way they do business, and they know it.
Editor's note · Context
Senator Durbin discusses the importance of health care reform and the challenges posed by the health insurance industry.
Share
More from Dick Durbin
Today’s news is devastating for the 2,500 skilled union workers impacted by the closure of the Tyson plant in Joslin, especially at a time when American families are struggling with the rising cost of living.
Nominations hearings, like this one today, are an essential part of the Senate’s role in providing advice and consent on presidential nominees. This constitutional duty is a critical check on the Executive Branch. And it has never been…
Through these hearings, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is intentionally overcrowding dockets with little notice to immigrants in an effort to manufacture significant numbers of removal…
The President is dead set on attacking Americans’ right to vote and undermining our democracy by making baseless claims about ‘rigged’ elections, demanding unreasonable voter registration requirements, restricting mail-in voting, and…





