Political Quotes

“Let's talk about rates for a minute. We had testimony from customers of Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which is owned by Wellpoint. We also had the CEO of Wellpoint, a woman named Angela Braley, who I suppose it was somewhat rude for me to ask her how much money she made. But she was kind enough to answer, and said that she made $1.2 million a year, plus $8 million in stock options. That was how well she did. But then she went on, of course, to absolutely justify these rate increases for their private insurance market. Three people had testified before she got up there about what these rate increases meant to them. An individual, middle-aged guy, tended toward younger man, who had a preexisting condition. He had seen his rates go up about 75 percent, not quite the 90; but it was too much for him. A woman who, because her son had a preexisting condition, had such a high deductible they had never even made their deductible, and yet their rates were going to go up even higher. And another woman who had a preexisting condition, who was unable to keep her policy. And Ms. Braley is making all this money. The company, overall, was making literally billions of dollars in profit.”