Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) speaks truth to power

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On the floor of the House on Wednesday afternoon during a debate over a planned vote to revoke the anti-trust exemption (McCarran-Ferguson Act) for health insurance monopolies, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) declared that "the Republican Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the insurance industry" (no, I do not write his speeches, but immitation is the sincerest form of flattery). Hey, the truth hurts. "Deal with it."

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) objected to Weiner's remarks and asked that he be chastised by taking down his remarks. Rep. Weiner agreed to withdraw his remarks and substitute other remarks, to which Rep. Lungren also objected, in effect obstructing his own efforts to chastise Rep. Weiner for chastising Republicans for their obstruction. Unrepentant, Rep. Weiner jumped out of the penalty box and returned to hard check the Republicans into the boards again. Take that hoser. I love this guy!

The House later voted to revoke the anti-trust exemption for health insurance monopolies on a vote of 406-19 after this Republican attempt to obstruct the measure. House Votes to Revoke Health Insurers’ U.S. Antitrust Exemption The measure now goes to the Senate.

Rachel Maddow has the play-by-play action from the floor:

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Rachel Maddow gets it exactly right in her post-game commentary. 'The Rachel Maddow Show' for Wednesday, February 24th

I was in Washington recently. And a center-right influential columnist, think-tank guy – I was talking with him about health reform, and he sort of rubbed his hands in glee and said he hopes that Anthony Weiner keeps going on TV a lot, because Anthony Weiner gives health reform a bad name.

He hopes Anthony Weiner keeps going on TV a lot because he makes health reform look bad. I don‘t know about that. I think the way Congressman Weiner talks about health reform shows what it looks like for Democrats to stand up on their hind legs and fight, to be bare knuckled about getting something passed, to say that bipartisanship is a farce if one side wants to pass something and the other one doesn‘t.

I think the [conventional] wisdom guys in Washington hate that. They‘re terrified of it. But I think it‘s what a lot of people, who voted in a huge blue tide of Democrats in the last two elections, have been waiting to hear.

And consider it in context, too, substantively. Profits at the top five largest for-profit insurance companies rose 56 percent last year.

They made $4.5 billion more in 2009 over what they made in 2008, while dropping more than 2.5 million people as customers.

And for those companies, that‘s great news. That‘s how it works. That‘s business. Don‘t blame them for that. Well, do if you want, but don‘t blame them entirely. This is business 101. It‘s how they profit.

It‘s not for-profit insurers‘ fault that they do everything they can to not pay out when people they insure get sick. It‘s not for-profit insurers‘ fault that they do everything they can to avoid giving insurance to people who actually need health care.

It‘s not for-profit insurers‘ fault that they hike premiums by anything they can get away with, by double digits every year, year after year, after year, so we‘re getting to the point where $1 in every $5 we spend on anything in this economy is spent on their dumb, evil health system and that‘s with 15 millions still uninsured.

I mean, times are great for Wellpoint, right? In 2008, 39 Wellpoint executives were getting paid more than $1 million a year. In 2007 and 2008, Wellpoint spent $27 million on retreats for their executives. And they‘ve got us over a barrel, 39 percent rate hikes here in California this year.

In Maine, Wellpoint‘s going for a 23 percent rate hike this year after five consecutive years of double-digit premium increases on those same policies. Wellpoint‘s hiking rates by up to 50 percent in Indiana this year. Twenty-nine percent hike in New York State for small businesses insured by Wellpoint.

Things are going great for Wellpoint. Don‘t blame them. It‘s not their fault. They‘re a private for-profit business. They do not care about this country. It is not their job to care about this country.

They‘re not a person. They do not have feelings. They‘re a corporation. They‘re a company. They are not a person. [The radical five on the U.S. Supreme Court beg to differ.] They‘re doing the job that is their fiduciary responsibility to do for their own shareholders. It is not their job to get health care for the American people.

It is their job to make as much money as possible off of the fact that American people, like all people, need health care, which is expensive, which we don‘t have the luxury of shopping for like we shop for cars or eggs or sneakers.

Because it‘s cancer. It‘s pregnancy. It‘s appendicitis. It‘s a compound fracture. It‘s a heart attack. It‘s diabetes. It‘s relief of pain at the time of death.

We have private for-profit companies who are trying to make as much profit as possible off our need for that care. And the point is not to blame them for them wanting to make a profit, but to not look at what they‘re doing and call it a health care system.

It‘s a profit-making system for companies that are not designed to meet your needs or my needs or our needs as a country. The better business health insurance companies do, the worse off the American people and the American economy are. The incentives are wrong.

Health insurance companies are the health care system in this country. By and large, that‘s what our system is. It‘s for-profit companies. And that means there is a problem in the system. The incentives are wrong.

It is individually rational for each private for-profit company that makes up this system to make decisions that are bad for the country. So we end up with a bad system.

Republican invitees to the health care summit tomorrow include Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan and Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn. Their proposals on health care are to get rid of the main system that saves the elderly in our country from the for-profit system that would eat them alive.

The Republican plan, the plan favored by the Republican negotiators, is to end Medicare, get rid of it. Go to a purely for-profit system. Let Wellpoint and all the goodness in Wellpoint‘s heart take care of the 85-year-olds among us who they want to buy private insurance on the open market.

Some Democrats, like Anthony Weiner, want the opposite. They want the Wellpoints of this world out of it all together. They want Medicare for all.

Let companies find their profits and make millionaires out of their executive and fund their dozens of multimillion dollar retreats at resorts from a sector of the economy that isn‘t health care, that isn‘t cancer and hospice and broken bones.

Republicans want it to be all Wellpoint, all for profit, no safety net, not even for old people – kill Medicare. That‘s who they‘re bringing to the health summit.

Up on their hind legs, Democratic fighters like Anthony Weiner want Medicare for all. Democrats aren‘t even letting him in the door to that summit tomorrow.

So to the White House, I say this. A lot more people are with Anthony Weiner and against the insurance companies than are with Marsha Blackburn and Paul Ryan who want to hand the insurance companies even more of our blood and treasure. You ignore the public option and the appeal of Medicare for all at your very grave peril.