Lee Terry: “first of all, I want to state that I believe that we should cover our low-income uninsured children, and I do believe we…”

“first of all, I want to state that I believe that we should cover our low-income uninsured children, and I do believe we should make efforts to get them all in. If it was just that, we would be all in agreement. But that is not before us today. And I do believe that part of this attacks health insurance as we know it today. Number one, they defund Medicare Advantage, which is where people can opt out of Medicare and actually go into a managed program by a health insurance company. So they defund that, attacking that. Next is, for the first time, they are going to place a tax on health insurance policies, driving up the costs, so making it more unaffordable so more people drop out. Then probably just as egregious as the other, an amendment that was denied, a Republican amendment, that says if there is a child that is eligible by the requirements but already insured can't drop that insurance or their insurer can't drop them, forcing them to go into the State-run free health insurance. That was denied. So what we see here is a step-by-step process of making health insurance companies less effective and nationalizing health care.”