Frank Pallone: “I listened to the chairman of our committee from Louisiana, and it bothers me because he is not looking at the bill. He…”

“I listened to the chairman of our committee from Louisiana, and it bothers me because he is not looking at the bill. He is not talking about the Republican bill that is on the floor of this House. This is not a Medicare bill. This is not a Medicare program. There is nothing in this bill that is going to help the average American senior. If you look at it, first of all, we know that it does not provide Medicare coverage, no guarantees. What it does is to give some money and throw some money to private insurance companies in the hope that somehow they are going to provide a Medicare benefit. The insurance companies have said they are not going to provide the benefit. If they were providing the benefit, we would not need a Federal program. Let us imagine that somewhere, somehow, I do not believe it, but somewhere, somehow some private insurance company is willing to provide the plan the way the chairman describes. Why in the world would anybody buy into such a plan?”