Insurance Providers Must “Step Up To The Plate” On Health Care Reform, Say Dems

By Laura Woodhead – Talk Radio News Service

Health insurance companies have to be part of the health care solution, said Democrats on the Senate Finance committee during a press conference Wednesday.

“Insurance companies are the people who are just rapaciously, greedily, unstoppably making money by underpaying the patient, by under paying the provider and by overpaying, therefore, themselves,” said Sen. Jay Rockerfeller (D- W.Va.)

Under the proposal currently being debated in the Senate Finance Committee, insurance companies would help pay for the health care plan in return for the expected 40 million new customers they should receive from reforming the health industry. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D- N.Y.) stressed that if the health care system was allowed to continue in its current state “even people who are covered are going to pay and pay and pay.”

“Between 2000 and 2007 the profits of the 10 largest health care insurers went from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion” Schumer said. “Our broken health care system is working very well for private health insurers but not for American consumers.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich. ) said it was impossible to ignore the need to fix a system that delivers such large profits to the insurance industry while it fails to provide for so many people.

“We are committed, our majority is committed, and this President is committed to change the status quo,” she said. “It does not work for people, it does not work for doctors and it is not working for the economy.”

Stabenow said it is the time for health insurance companies to “step up to the plate.”