Let me add a personal twist to all of this about jobs. When I grew up in Chicago--I was the daughter of a furniture salesman and a Chicago public schoolteacher--the American Dream was alive and well. On my dad's modest income, we could…

So clearly, the money generated by rising premiums was not being used for medical or patient care, my point.

What we are witnessing once again today is an effort by the Republicans to do the bidding of the insurance companies at the expense of ordinary consumers.

I just wanted to correct one item that I think was mistaken that was mentioned in questioning.

I think this is utterly outrageous that we should be spending our time doing that when the American people are looking to us at this moment for help.

In 2010, Mr. Larsen, United Health, WellPoint, Humana, Cigna and Aetna made combined profits of $11.7 billion.

Our legislation said that preexisting conditions for children will not be a reason to exclude children from health care.

These are jobs that can be created right away. I'm from the Midwest, so we actually have a construction season; but for fixing schools, you can do that around the year, around the calendar. We can put these people to work within a few…

By law, insurance companies have to spend at least 80 percent of their premium dollars on medical care and health quality improvement as opposed to administrative costs, marketing, executive salaries and bonuses.

Some have actually lowered premiums, making it easier for consumers, that the number of insurance agents and brokers... has actually gone up.

This hearing is also going to focus on legislation to repeal the grandfathered health plan regulation, and doing so basic consumer protections like ending lifetime coverage limits and rescission of coverage will be undermined.

We are investing right now billions of dollars in oil and gas companies. We are investing, as my colleague Mr. Markey said, in a questionable technology, risky technology called nuclear.