Frank Pallone: “The reason, and I am going to be very partisan about it, the reason is because the Republican leadership refuses to…”

“The reason, and I am going to be very partisan about it, the reason is because the Republican leadership refuses to bring this bill up. We all remember very well that in the last session of Congress the only way we were able to get a vote on the issue at all was because of a discharge petition. We actually had to get the majority of Members of the House, or close to it, on a discharge petition, because they would not consider the bill in committee. They would not have any discussion or hearings on it. Only through the forced mechanism, if you will, of the discharge petition were we able to bring it up. It is true that there are some Republicans on the other side that support us, but their leadership will not bring it up. I go back to what we discussed earlier, which is that the reason for that I am convinced is because of the insurance industry. It is the money and the power and the influence of the insurance industry on the Republican leadership that makes it impossible for this to come up, or that is the reason it is not coming up.”