Pelosi: Health Insurance Companies The Real "Villains"

[supernova]

Source: Huffington Post

Forget the Blue Dogs, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday. The real "villains" in the fight for health care reform are insurance companies.

....

"They are the villains in this. They have been part of the problem in a major way," Pelosi said of the insurance industry after her weekly press conference. "It's almost immoral, what they are doing," she said, referring to industry lobbying against a public insurance plan option. "Of course, they've been immoral all along. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening, and the public has to know about it."

The current system works so well for insurers that they don't even want subsidies, Pelosi claimed. "They've had a good thing going for a long time at the expense of the American people and the health of our country," she said, adding that it will be tough to keep them from getting their way. "This is the fight of our lives."

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/30/pelosi-health-insurance-c_n_247924.html

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Well, I might not agree with her that "progressives have been well represented" ( further down the article) but it's good to hear her finally nailing the insurance companies as they should be.

[Oregone]

1. Then why allow them to continue? Why mandate people to obtain their coverage?

[eyeontheprize]

4. She has to say this

because maybe then the base will think she understands.

[laconicsax]

6. 'Cause in fantasy land, that solves all the problems.

Problem: Healthcare industry uses health insurance as a way to squeeze every last cent from people covered.
Solution: Require that everyone buy insurance.

[redqueen]

13. You have noticed how many *Dems* are fighting even a public option, right?

Now, just imagine if it was single payer we were trying to push through.

[dflprincess]

19. My theory is that she's not getting as much money from them as other members of Congress

and that's what she is upset about. Otherwise she wouldn't be willing to force most of us to continue to support them.

I'm glad I found this thread - there's another one discussing this that's just singing her praises for this remark. It reminds me of Lincoln's comments about fooling the people.

[keopeli]

26. What's wrong with NOT getting as money from the Health Insurance industry giants as the others?

Seems like a good thing to me. Do you just think she wants more lobbyist money and doesn't care at all about Health Insurance Reform?

[dflprincess]

27. That would be my guess

if she cared about reform she'd be looking for a way to improve access to health care not a way to force us to continue to pump money into the for profits - and most of us will be stuck with the private insurers for a long time. Even if the public option becomes widely availabe, given the high out pocket expenses contained in HR3200 plus premium costs (depending on income) we can't pretend that forced access to health insurance will improve access to health care.

Pelosi has also indicated that she'd be willing to raise the income level affected by the proposed tax surcharge and lower the income limits for qualifying for premium and out of pocket subsidies - selling out the people who need a strong public option the most.

Obama says the private companies can't be trusted & Pelosi says they're immoral - yet they are both bending over backward to make sure the crooks stay involved in the system in a big way. That doesn't sound like reform.

[defendandprotect]

2. So will Dems take insurance companies off the allowing campaign donors??????

[Abq_Sarah]

28. You're kidding, right?

I guess I'd take this more seriously if she returned all the insurance $$$ she and others have received in the last couple of years.

[BR_Parkway]

3. Then throw the considerable weitht of your office behind the bill for Single Payer

Madame Speaker

[OHdem10]

5. Nancy, with all due respect, you can complain about Insurance

Companies.

Insurance companies do not cast a vote in the House. The Blue
Dogs cast votes. You cannot control the Insurance Companies
but you should as Leader exert some control over the Blue Dogs.

No intelligent American is going to buy the Insurance Company made
me do it.

Continue to excuse the Blue Dogs and we lose.

We all knew the Health Industry would pull out all stops, what
is wrong with Congress. They believed that Bull the Companies
spouted about wanting to be helpful.

Find some Blue Dog votes is your only hope.

[Oregone]

7. The "Blue Dogs" you so hate are the best thing the Democrats have going for them

Without the Blue Dogs, what excuse would they have for not expanding Medicare--for not seeking a single-payer solution? They would have to create a whole new breed--perhaps the Mangy Shitzu Democrats--who rabidly oppose all legislation based on no principle.

The infighting allows them to look progressive in contrast while supporting a relatively weak bill.

[Ignis]

25. Ouch.

I wish I could disagree. :(

[DailyGrind51]

21. No one forces a pol to take a bribe (aka campaign contribution)!

The one who cashes the check is as culpable as the one who writes it.

[windy252]

24. Quoted for Truth

"No intelligent American is going to buy the Insurance Company made
me do it."

[Dr_Willie_Feelgood]

33. Just a quick aside...

Re: your avatar...it is spelled m-o-r-O-n, not m-o-r-A-n. Unless you are telling someone named Moran to get a clue!

http://www.artmoran.com/

Or perhaps the irony is the point!

Anyhow, back to our regularly scheduled topic...

I want to be a believer in single payer. But the "Cask For Clunkers" kerfluffle does NOT give me any added confidence in the abilities of our public servents. Not that the clusterbleep we are dealing with is any treasure, but we seriously need to be able to toss the incompetents in public service out on their ear if it is to has a prayer of success.

Unfortunately, the Peter Principle is in overdrive when it comes to public service.

[dflprincess]

34. Just as an FYI - the "Get a brains morans" became popular

after this picture was taken at a Pro-Iraq war rally:

[Dr_Willie_Feelgood]

37. Ahhh...NOW it makes sense!

It's like someone who is on fire asking you to put out your cigarette!

:spray:

[enlightenment]

8. Weasel Words.

More meaningless tripe from our "representatives" as they stand safely on the boat while the alligators eat the populace.

[LaPera]

9. Thank you Speaker Pelosi! The greedy lying insurance corporations & their republican pigs

spending 1.3 million a day to defeat competition from a public option....just like the oil corporations it's ALL about greed & profits, with the insurance corporations - while distorting the truth & lying to the American people as the usual lying, hateful greedy republican corporate fascist are right on board doing the insurance industry's dirty work for them (and any corporation)!

[robinlynne]

10. "and for this reason I, Speaker of the House, will fight for single-payer healthcare"....right?

[Hepburn]

11. And you wish to allow them to continue to do business?

Why? :shrug:

[felinetta]

12. Insurance companies are ghouls.

[redqueen]

14. The Eeyore chorus on this thread is sickening. (nt)

[Oregone]

16. So is Congress

Monkey see, monkey do

[LuckyLib]

15. Which is precisely, Madame Speaker, why the insurance companies should be CUT OUT

of the process. Goodbye outrageous CEO salaries and bennies, goodbye bloated bureaucrats making health care decisions, goodbye excess profits. Single payer NOW!

[Greyhound]

17. She can't even make a simple statement of the obvious without equivocation.

"... have been a part of the problem..."

"it's almost immoral..."

"Progressives have been well represented," (but we're not going to listen to what they, or the American people, are saying).

stating that she has a desire without any commitment to it is simply pandering.

She is disgusting.

[Uncle Joe]

18. It is immoral and for profit "health" insurance corporations should be taken off the table.

Thanks for the thread, supernova

[Zorra]

20. Yowsah. Now that's real Democrat talk there. Listen to the Speaker, Bush Dogs.

She's telling it like it is, the plain and simple truth.

It's time to turn on your corporate masters and bite the hand that fed you all that poisonous influence cash.

[OHdem10]

22. Continue to be roiled up over Insurance Companies, the Blue Dogs

vote against us. We lose.

Do not hit me. but the difference between Republicans and Democrats
is Leadership.

The Republican Leader would tell recalcitrant members--Either you
vote with us or no support, no money from the party in your next
election. They find someway to get the votes they need.

It is lame to blame the Companies when all that has to happen
is a few Blue Dogs stand up and say I am voting in American People's
interest.

America is tired. The Clintons have already used It is the Insurance
Companies fault.

[dflprincess]

23. I don't think we're blaming the insurance companies but we are

questioning why, when Obama admits they are dishonest and Pelosi calls them immoral, keeping the for profits in the game is a major part of "reform".

[Abq_Sarah]

29. It's asinine to blame the insurance companies

When government sets the rules they operate under. Just who do they think they're fooling?

[supernova]

30. There's no mandate to turn a profit

from human misery, which is what the insurance companies do. They. are. GREEDY.

[Amonester]

31. "and the public has to know about it"

oh, the public knows about it, alright, and since a very, very long time

the problem is, what are YOU gonna DO about it??

(the public also knows about it for waaaaayyyyyy TOO long already)

(i.g., nothing, as usual...) :mad:

[Vidar]

32. Pelosi is right--which is not easy to say.

[davidthegnome]

35. But she isn't

The problem is not the insurance companies - as other posters have said, the problem is, unfortunately, our elected officials who rely on them for campaign funding and more. There is a ton of cash in this industry, it doesn't cost a great deal to buy your average politician. Especially not when that politician requires an absurd amount of money to stand a chance in the next election.

Which brings us to the root of the problem, of course. The people who put these nitwits in office in the first place (us). The system is corrupt, we can't expect it to fix itself, we, the Citizens of this Nation are the only ones who can.

That's why we don't have (and most likely won't have, for some time to come) any real chance at winning a true public option, let alone single payer. How do we get their attention? A few million people marching on Washington would do it.

But then, I'm probably sort of radical in my opinion that the system is too corrupt for us to work within it to achieve any true lasting benefit to the majority. I honestly think it has to be dismantled and put back together. Otherwise we will continue to put together half assed plans that, while helpful, will not make a headway into truly solving the problems.

Time for a purge, I think. Time to make lobbying illegal and unelect most of our elected officials, who sadly, in general, are about as useful as tits on a donkey.

[and-justice-for-all]

36. Words are great, action is better...nt