Michael Burgess: “All right, Madam Speaker, who loves insurance companies? Was it the party that gave them a constitutional mandate that…”

“All right, Madam Speaker, who loves insurance companies? Was it the party that gave them a constitutional mandate that drilled their stock prices through the roof last March 23? Maybe it was. We talk about new agencies and that the Republicans are misleading the American people on how many new agencies are created. Your own Congressional Research Service said the actual number of new agencies is in excess of 150 but the actual number is unknowable. They took a phrase from former Secretary Rumsfeld in that regard. What about the new agencies? What about the Office of Consumer Information of Insurance Oversight? Where did that come from? Authorized in the bill? I think not. Appropriations in the bill? Your guess is as good as mine, but they're out there today hiring people and renting space. The Independent Payment Advisory Board. Is that just a canard or is that a real phenomenon that threatens the financial solvency of every hospital, public or private, in this country? Exchanges. Good idea? Bad idea? We can have that debate. But it is the subsidies within the exchanges that are intolerably high and paid for by taking the money out of our seniors' Medicare system. These are the problems. These are the issues that should be debated.”