Political Quotes

“as I mentioned a little earlier today, we talked about the insurance industry and its role in this issue. But let us be very clear. We need the structural reforms contained in the HEALTH Act, H.R. 5, in order to continue to provide access to quality care for our constituents and patients of the United States. We also need to incent insurance companies to write policies in our States, which they will not do indefinitely in this current environment. And I remember a few years ago when people said, when the crisis was acute in Pennsylvania, they said the problem is the insurance companies invested money foolishly in the stock market. Well, a lot of people lost money in the stock market a few years ago. At that time the insurance companies in my State had about 8 to 10 percent of their money in equities. Most of it was in investment-grade bonds, which did rather well. But that really was not the cause of the problem. But let me tell you about the city of Philadelphia. In my State, many people want to get their cases heard in a Philadelphia courtroom. Why? Because the juries pay more. According to Jury Verdict Research, at that time the average jury verdict award in Philadelphia was over a million dollars, and the average everywhere else in the State was under a half million. No wonder people wanted to go to Philadelphia. In fact, President Bush even cited Philadelphia in a speech he made in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where trauma centers were closing down.…”