Pelosi: Private Insurers ‘Carpet Bombing’ Health Care Bill
EmailABC News’ Dean Norland reports:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today dismissed speculation that an agreement struck with moderate Democrats on health care legislation would cost support for the bill from liberal House Democrats when a bill reaches the floor this fall.
“We’re all part of the same party. We will have a bill that will come to the floor, and when it does, it will pass,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said at her weekly news conference.
The speaker said that House moderates, who are members of the Blue Dog Coalition, are not having an undue influence in writing the bill. “I don’t think there is any disproportionate influence when members speak out in favor of their constituents,” she said.
Pelosi explained that she wants a bill that will correct what she said insurance companies have done to the health of Americans.
“I think it’s very clear that we want a strong public option in the legislation. Insurance companies are out there in full force carpet bombing, shock and awe, against a public option,” Pelosi said.
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Of course the private insurers are fighting back. She’s trying to put them out of business!
Posted by: Gary | July 30, 2009, 2:35 pm 2:35 pm
Pelosi normally makes me cringe, but she is right on this one. Private insurers are part of the problem. Insurance should be for things above say $10k. Everything else should be free-market driven to drive down costs.
Posted by: Huh | July 30, 2009, 2:40 pm 2:40 pm
Many members of congress are real cynics. They put a line in the bill to exclude illegal immigrants from the program. These members then refuse amendments to make the exclusion operational. No requirement to provide proof of eligibility. No provision for a penalty for the fraud is included. This bill should be stopped until they get it right. There should be no more midnight unpublished un-discussed expenditure of trillions.
Posted by: merchantilist | July 30, 2009, 2:56 pm 2:56 pm
Polosi and the President are railing against private insurers but the average profit of the Insurance industry is only 3%. The current public programs are a major contributor to the increases in insurance premiums. The private sector is paying for the uninsured. The public option will only make it worse.
Posted by: Art Haas | July 30, 2009, 3:03 pm 3:03 pm
The concept of health care reform is a great idea. As usual the application needs a lot of work. American citizens who truly can’t afford health care need help but most of those are already covered under medicaid.
Citizens of other countries should pay cash or go home and let their taxpayers care for them. Preferably the latter. Americans who can afford their own health care should take care of themselves.
Then there is the issue of paying for it. The Democratic party’s mantra “tax the rich” doesn’t work and the Democrats know it. The rich control the businesses and they’ll simply raise prices to cover any tax increase. Insurance companies will raise rates if they’re taxed. There is no way to raise taxes on anyone without the cost getting passed on to the consumer. Working people.
At least taxing a worker’s health care benefits is honest.
Posted by: Oonogil | July 30, 2009, 3:07 pm 3:07 pm
Maybe the insurnace companies profit would be more than 3% if they didn’t rake off so much money from the top to give to themselves and their lobbyists. Insurance companies only answer to themselves and their limited number of national and international investors. The government answers to all the people of the USA.
Posted by: Waysie | July 30, 2009, 3:27 pm 3:27 pm
I’ll asupport this national health plan if Mrs. Pelosi and her comrades in congress take the same exact plan for them adn their families. If they don’t then no one should support it !!!
Posted by: hkdakota | July 30, 2009, 3:58 pm 3:58 pm
Perhaps she shouldn’t have developed the whole 1000+ page plan in a secret star chamber, excluding centrist democrats, repubs, independents, the industry and physicians…
Pelosi’s the empress that San Fran’s foisted on the country.
Posted by: mac819s | July 30, 2009, 4:12 pm 4:12 pm
Having bankrupted the Post Office, the Government now wants to move on to health care? I think not.
Posted by: Phil (KY) | July 30, 2009, 4:21 pm 4:21 pm
LOL,,so I wonder who she will claimed “lied” to her this time!
She is a joke, unfortunately for us, she is like Barney Frank. Both are from districts too foolish to vote them out. The best we can hope for is that the Dems themselves get sick of her BS and toss from the speakership!
Posted by: Mike_C | July 30, 2009, 4:23 pm 4:23 pm
“The public option will only make it worse.” – Not according to the CBO report released Saturday.
Posted by: Mark from atlanta | July 30, 2009, 4:26 pm 4:26 pm
“I’ll asupport this national health plan if Mrs. Pelosi and her comrades in congress take the same exact plan for them adn their families. If they don’t then no one should support it!!!” – The bill in congress provides for an insurance exchange so you can choose between private insurance companies. Federal employees including congress have similar choices. Whats your beef?
Posted by: Mark from atlanta | July 30, 2009, 4:31 pm 4:31 pm
The system is broken. Insurance and pharmaceutical companies, doctors and dentist have been riding this grave train for the last 8 years. These companies are spending millions of dollars, every day, to fight healthcare reform. That, in itself, should speak volumes regarding this issue. The reason politicians are against this is because they are getting the pockets lined with lobbyist money. Greed and the lack of morals is at the root of this issue, pure and simple.
Posted by: dyno | July 30, 2009, 4:33 pm 4:33 pm
Insurance companies are evil, they will let you die to make a profit…and are aided by Republicans.
Posted by: Hege1321 | July 30, 2009, 4:37 pm 4:37 pm
HMOs are a republican created phony baloney market. They made a market out of billing. They basically work as a blank check to the health care industry. They eat up almost half the money spent on health care. Get rid of the HMOs and give the employees real jobs working in the health care industry digitizing medical records or something useful.
Posted by: rightbehind | July 30, 2009, 4:40 pm 4:40 pm
Art Haas:” The private sector is paying for the uninsured. The public option will only make it worse.”
You can’t be serious – many of the public options would ELIMINATE the private sector having to pay for the uninsured. That’s the whole POINT of the insurance mandates Republicans have been out ginning up fear against, that EVERYONE has to pay in. No more free-riders in the ER.
Posted by: jhw539 | July 30, 2009, 4:41 pm 4:41 pm
It was the private insurers who spent tens of millions of dollars to derail Hillary’s health care proposal over a decade ago, and just look at how much better off our health care system is today. Enough is enough. Run the private insurers out of business. If private insurance is a better solution, it will compete with, and win out over, the government-run option. Just like FedEx and UPS have beat the USPS. It makes no sense whatsoever to mindlessly maintain the status quo when it obviously STILL is not working.
Posted by: libertyrulz | July 30, 2009, 4:42 pm 4:42 pm
I completely agree with this. Where are the investigative reports regarding the lobbying by private insurers? Does anyone remember when health insurance was a non-profit business? We need true competition with more options (public, non-profit and private).
Posted by: Nichole | July 30, 2009, 4:43 pm 4:43 pm
Someone needs to kick these yahoos like Pelosi out of office in Washington. That is the real reform we need!!!!!!
Posted by: jpdarr | July 30, 2009, 4:46 pm 4:46 pm
I will take what any insurance carrier can provide over the Pelosi proposal. She is clueless as to what mainstream America wants and needs!!
Posted by: Bruce | July 30, 2009, 4:47 pm 4:47 pm
Having bankrupted the Post Office, the Government now wants to move on to health care? I think not.
Posted by: Phil (KY) | Jul 30, 2009 4:21:35 PM
The United States Postal Service has been in business for more than 213 years. It had always been in the black until the republican control house, senate, and oval office wrote a law in December of 2006 requiring it to pay in advance through the year 2017 for guess what? Healthcare insurance. What were projected profits in 2007 immediately went to red ink at the tune of 1.6 billion.
Posted by: rightbehind | July 30, 2009, 4:48 pm 4:48 pm
Ok, our government is in the car business…the banking business, and wants to get control of your health benefits. Which business or profession will be next?
Posted by: jpdarr | July 30, 2009, 4:48 pm 4:48 pm
You want a private room? Under the government plan!!!
Posted by: jpdarr | July 30, 2009, 4:51 pm 4:51 pm
Ask Pelosi what her health benefits are like…and will they change?
Posted by: jpdarr | July 30, 2009, 4:54 pm 4:54 pm
Whether it’s private or public, someone has to pay for it. If you continue with private insurance, premiums go up on businesses and individuals who pay for their insurance for those who don’t or can’t. If you go public, i.e., government, it will be businesses and taxpayers paying for those who don’t, business will cut employees to alleviate their costs, so that leaves us-the taxpayers. We need to be honest- if we have public insurance we will have to accept less health care so all can have it. If we as Americans, feel that is what we should do, than do it. But don’t try to sale me a bill of goods, that we can have it all. We can’t.
Posted by: Kathy | July 30, 2009, 4:55 pm 4:55 pm
illegal aliens and tort reform.if those elements were dealt with we wouldnt need this garbage plan.over the next 6 weeks the american public will say no way unless obama and pelosi are on the same plan as you and me. 6 weeks from now obama will be at 42% approval and the party will be all but over making way for checks and balance in 2010. obama should his true feelings last week.
Posted by: catman | July 30, 2009, 4:58 pm 4:58 pm
Ms Pelosi is right and this administration is right to reform this health care system. If you just search for an insurer online you will find out that there are lots and lots of them out there from A to Z, why? because this business is good. I think critics of this bill are all insured and doesn’t have any idea how those who are uninsured feel. How can we be proud of ourselves and of our country knowing that there are about 50 million fellow countrymen who doen’t have any healthcare, shame on us.
Posted by: PAUL | July 30, 2009, 5:29 pm 5:29 pm
paul…there is not 50 million fellow countrymen without insurance.12 to 15 million are ILLEGAL ALIENS.10 to 12 millin make over 75k….what a hoax
Posted by: catman | July 30, 2009, 5:37 pm 5:37 pm
Some people are just so misinformed about this issue on health care, I don’t know why they are so scared about all this, if you like your insurer you can keep it, I also like my insurer and I will keep it. This reform concerns about those who doen’t have any insurance and also bringing the cost down. So what’s the problem?
Posted by: Paul | July 30, 2009, 5:40 pm 5:40 pm
paul..people are not misinformed. they DO NOT TRUST THESE GUYS AFTER THE STIMULUS FIASCO AND CAP AND TRADE. to trust any claim that you can keep this or do that based on this bunchs tract record would be absolutely foolish. i saw how he handeled the gates situation and frankly thats the last straw.
Posted by: catman | July 30, 2009, 5:50 pm 5:50 pm
Gary | Jul 30, 2009 2:35:12 PM: I hope that we do put the private insurers out of business. I have NEVER felt that it is ever right for healthcare to be a profit based business. Profits and greed will ALWAYS trump quality healthcare. A single national health care system is the ONLY good solution to the problems that American is facing today. There are plenty of ways to continue providing the incentives to improve drugs and cures that American has been known for. But above all, the needs of the public health should ALWAYS over-ride the need for profits and thus greed. ALWAYS!
Posted by: dlboggan | July 30, 2009, 6:11 pm 6:11 pm
Frank | Jul 30, 2009 4:42:25 PM: Welcome to the United States of America. A great example of how a society should work with many aspects of socialism that you take advantage of EVERY DAY. You say, what? Why yes, the U.S. utilizes many aspects of socialism throughout many parts of your society. Many of you anti-socialists out there fail to understand how much of your world and the United States relies on the social good to maximize the good for the majority of society. You are reaping the results of that socialism every day and many times each day. Each time you get into your socially mandated safe cars and ride on that tax-paid highway and see the fire put out by your government paid fire departments, and protected by your local police. The water you drink out of your faucets, the military that protects you at home and overseas, and the list goes on and on with the socialist policies. Capitalism helps to make that process work from the other direction to help us pay for these required and desired needs. If we share in the support and cost of anything as a society, that is known as “socialism”. Note that both capitalism or socialism can be termed as parasites of society if either grows too large or out of control. Neither of them can succeed without the help of the other. You might call it a symbiotic relationship that works best for both when proper balance is achieved. Your government, appropriately sized and with proper checks and balances is part of this whole mechanism that we the people have voted and put into place. This, as put forth by President Lincoln , is “For the people, by the people and of the people”. Me thinks the doest protest too much that which you would not do well without. The American government is you and me and our neighbors.
Posted by: dlboggan | July 30, 2009, 6:15 pm 6:15 pm
I would go a step further than Pelosi. There can be no health care reform if for-profit organizations are allowed to exist. Also she does not touch on exorbitant pharmaceutical prices. If one were to eliminate payoffs to Congress, advertising to the public, and kickbacks to doctors, drug prices would be considerably reduced. For profit providers of medicines should be eliminated. The whole system, as it exists, is corrupt.
Posted by: allmymarbles | July 30, 2009, 6:31 pm 6:31 pm
Of course the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies are fighting this tooth and nail, and using every dirty tactic they can to protect their obscene profits and bonuses. They are the reason we need health care reform in the first place, because they are now fully in control of the health care industry, and they run it with corporate profit as their only guiding principle. American businesses, health providers, individuals and government entities all come up on the short end, and that is no concern to them. A national government-run plan is the only solution with the power to rein them in and hold them accountable for their irresponsible greed. They are a huge part of the reason businesses are moving good jobs out of this country and converting to part-time work forces, to avoid the crushing, unrealistic burden of today’s cost of insuring employees in the US. Insurance corporations today are the devil, a legalized racket.
Posted by: iamwomaninMI | July 30, 2009, 7:20 pm 7:20 pm
The cost of Health Insurance is directly related to the cost of medical expenses. Has anyone bothered to look at the cost of an MRI, CatScan and other medical procedures. As for the President and his plan he needs to get off his Socialist band wagon and remember his is an American and do right by the American people.
Posted by: David Steinbrink | July 30, 2009, 7:53 pm 7:53 pm
Title alternative: “Pelosi and rabid
progressives ‘carpet bombing’ health
care as you know it and for the most part like to take over more control
of the economy and your individual
freedoms.” Let the over-the-top
leftie rant daily. The noose tightens.
Posted by: Trajan | July 30, 2009, 10:09 pm 10:09 pm
Has anyone (legislators included)bothered to read the 1000+ page bill? This bill is positively draconian—definitely NOT the change we need. The problem with healthcare is deeper than the insurance companies…it goes back to the American Medical Association (cartel), pharmasutical companies, and the notion that true “healthcare” has anything to do with medicine and surgery. How about another helping of vegetables? Laying off the fast-food? A bit of exercise?
Posted by: Brenda | July 30, 2009, 11:09 pm 11:09 pm
The insurance companies, pharmacutical companies, and their STOCK HOLDERS, are those that do not want health care reform and why should they…who would line their POCKETS then…
Posted by: KETTLE2 | July 30, 2009, 11:29 pm 11:29 pm
“EVERYONE has to pay in. No more free-riders in the ER”
Does that mean people who are now paying no federal taxes will start having to pay taxes? And how will you collect taxes from illegals who are not on the tax rolls at all? It must only mean that people who already pay taxes will be compelled to pay more. But Obama promised 95 % of us would see a tax decrease. So “EVERYONE” must just applies “the wealthy” who should be glad to have their money taken and given, in the form of health care, to “the poor.”
I’m thinking of a 9 letter word that start with “S” that describes this… SOCIALISM!
Posted by: Don | July 31, 2009, 3:16 am 3:16 am
U go girl !
Posted by: Ed Reynolds | July 31, 2009, 6:49 am 6:49 am
Public otion which will lead to single payor insurance will hurt the insurance industry. As I see it we have two options for universal coverage. First option is to change nothing but pay for insurance out of tax dollars for those who are’t presently covered. Insurance companies stay in the driver’s seat. Option two is any program where the government is paying doctors and hospitals out of pocket. Taxes must increase for those who are already covered to fund coverage of the uninsureds. Insurance companies already compete with each other and they operate fairly efficiently. The government has no competitor to keep their expenses in check. Another bureaucracy is the last thing we need to add to an already dangerously deficit budget. The taxpayers will absorb the cost of administrating a universal healthcare program if the government is running the show, but the rates we pay to insurance companies will increase if we cover the uninsured and cover things that are now excluded. Either way costs go up up up. There’s no way out that will make everyone happy.
Posted by: mmonroeliveson | July 31, 2009, 9:45 am 9:45 am
The after thought to my 9:45 post would logigally and pragmatically be to go after the causes of high insurance rates and do some regulation in those areas while funding or supplementing insurance for the uninsured. A new government bureaucracy would have to be formed to administer the program but it’s still far better than a government takeover.
Posted by: mmonroeliveson | July 31, 2009, 10:24 am 10:24 am
Some of the largest Health insurance companies are non profit ie.. Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan
of Southern California what is Pelosi talking about. Her ignorance of the health care industry will prevent any change to the way government administers health care. Pelosi shut-up and stay home
Posted by: Bob | August 1, 2009, 9:03 am 9:03 am
The CBO only changed it’s story after a meeting with OBAMA in the Whitehouse…wonder what that talk was about. Prior to that discussion everything the CBO put out said the public option would ruin private health insurance and would cost over the trillion budgeted. After the “magic meeting…the story is differnt. Obama reminds me of the Godfather, he runs his agenda like Al Capone ran his.
Posted by: sdsman | August 5, 2009, 9:09 pm 9:09 pm
In an America with an overweight problem health is always a concern these days.
Posted by: Emile Quin | October 19, 2011, 1:20 am 1:20 am