On the recordMarch 21, 2017
I am going to take just a moment. This is an excellent presentation. I think our constituents should be aware, and our colleagues, of your enormous knowledge as the former State insurance administrator in California, years of service to the people of California, and we are grateful for that analysis because you are right on the money, if you will, on the disaster or the questioning that comes about through two points: the existing bill, and then now an amendment which has been called meaningless that will be on the floor on Thursday, meaning that this bill has been amended by those who want to make it worse. We sat in the Budget Committee on Thursday with Ranking Member Yarmuth most of the day trying to debate these numbers. So I just want to make points about wellness, about some of the criteria that maybe is misrepresented as making the insurance product more expensive. To the Republicans, 10, 20 years ago, the product you had may not have been worth what you paid. In the product we have now, preexisting condition, stay on your parents insurance until you are 26, certain criteria that the insurance companies must have, by the nature of the market, premiums go up to take in the idea that there are ``better benefits.'' I would argue that those benefits should have been there, but they are better benefits. The other thing is that there was a formula which pushed millennials into the market or into the pool of people and persons that will purchase insurance.…
