Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I do wish to comment about the health care debate. One Republican Senator said during this debate what we need is to ``get out of the way and allow the market to work.'' Well, we had an example of it working pretty well for the insurance industry a couple days ago. In fact, a large insurance company in California, insuring almost 1 million people, individuals, decided they would raise their rates this year 39 percent--1 year. I think it is fair to say it is a little above inflation. Well, when someone talks about get out of the way and let the market work, they are talking about doing nothing. That is what it means. ``Allowing the market to work'' is a code word for letting greedy insurance companies--companies that care more about profits than people--get richer while people who can already barely afford their coverage lose their coverage altogether. Cover this with the fact that these insurance companies--and this insurance company--are not subject to any antitrust laws. The only business in America not subject to antitrust laws other than Major League Baseball is the insurance industry. So one is raising its rates by 39 percent. That is many times more than the rate of inflation. And, it is reserving the right to raise them again whenever they feel like it. Instead of just once a year, they can raise it more than once a year if they want to. They can do whatever they want, and they do pretty much whatever they want. What does this mean?…”