Frank Pallone: “I want to keep saying over and over again, that is why we are here talking about this because it directly affects our…”

“I want to keep saying over and over again, that is why we are here talking about this because it directly affects our constituents. But I wanted to go back to the GAO report that the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) mentioned. Because I mean, he just brought that out so well. I mean, the problem here with this tax bill that the President is going to veto, we are giving all this money to the HMOs and they are already costing the Federal Government more than the traditional Medicare fee-for-service. And I can think of at least three reasons why. First of all, what do they do with that money? They are taking it and they are paying for political ads against the people that do not support their interests. They are using the money to pay for the administrative costs of their CEOs' bill salaries, vacations, who knows what. The other thing that I was thinking about, too, is advertising. In my district I have been to some of these meetings where they do all of this huge advertising in the papers. I remember once there was a local diner and they had all the seniors come to the diner and they were giving them lobster dinners if they came to the diner to sign up for the HMO.”