Sheila Jackson Lee: “I rise to announce to the American public and to this body that, as we stand here today, over a year's time, 45,000…”

“I rise to announce to the American public and to this body that, as we stand here today, over a year's time, 45,000 Americans die because they don't have health insurance. They don't have health insurance because the premiums have literally spiraled beyond any imagination. So, today, we are rising to create an opportunity for Americans to live and for lives to be saved because competition is the engine, not only of the economy, but it is the engine of better health care for all Americans. Here is an example that shows how increased premiums are the complete opposite of commitment and service to our constituency: When the State of California passed a law in 1988 that eliminated the State antitrust exemption for the auto insurance industry, auto premiums for consumers in California rose 9.8 percent when the rest of the premiums in the Nation were going down. The Consumer Federation of America said that consumers would save over $50 billion in insurance premiums by repealing the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act.”