John Tierney: “I oppose this amendment for some very good reasons on that. Let me explain what the medical loss ratio is. That is what…”

“I oppose this amendment for some very good reasons on that. Let me explain what the medical loss ratio is. That is what the people in these private insurance companies call providing health care for the premium dollar you provide. For every time they give you a health service for your premium dollar, they think of it as a medical loss. The medical loss ratio is the amount of your dollar that they actually spend on health care versus CEO salaries, bonuses, stock dividends that are out of control, lobbyist costs that they might incur, advertisements, and so on down the line. The purpose of the medical loss ratio provision is in fact to make sure that they spend a higher percentage of your premium dollar on actual health care. In 1993, the average used to be about 95 cents of every dollar would be spent by private health insurance companies on health services. Now, however, recent studies indicate that some of these private insurance companies are spending as little as 60 cents of every health care dollar on actual health services and the rest on lobbyists--probably some of whom are down here arguing to kill this provision--on high CEO salaries and bonuses and advertisements, and so on down the line. The MLR, the medical loss ratio provision in this bill, says an insurance company for individuals or small company plans has to spend at least 80 cents of every premium dollar on health care.”