The Progressive Message

Floor Speech

Mr. ELLISON. Good evening, Mr. Speaker. I'm about to grab some boards but I will claim the hour, and we'll get started.

Well, Mr. Speaker, welcome to the progressive message. This is the hour that the Progressive Caucus comes forward to offer a progressive vision for America where we put down markers, and we signal to the American people that there is a progressive vision, there is a way forward, and that way forward does include principles like generosity, like inclusion, like vision, like openness, like fairness, like sharing, not a vision of fear, not a vision as, Oh, my goodness, what's going to happen, we have to throw someone off the bus, but a vision of saying, You know what, we can include people, we can have peace, we can have a society where people are treated equally and fairly.

In fact, a few weeks ago we had a Special Order where the premise was, why the progressives? And we detailed how important it was to take note of the great contributions that progressives have made to America.

So, with that, I just want to introduce the wonderful array of leaders we
have with us tonight, and I have to start with the co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, the person who's given more 5-minute speeches than anybody ever on the issue of peace, including Iraq but not limited to Iraq, also Afghanistan, demilitarization, the whole nine, none other than our own co-Chair LYNN WOOLSEY, and I yield to the gentlelady from California.

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Mr. ELLISON. For the record, I will not vote for any health care that does not include a public option. I will not do it. That's a guaranteed ``no'' vote.

And I cannot be dissuaded from that. And I also want to say I am a dedicated single-payer advocate. I am going to continue to raise this issue. I have before. But the fact is politics is the art of the possible, and we do have the limitation, as the gentlelady from California mentioned, of not having 100 percent of all the Congress yet being Progressives. And so we have to do what we have to do. And I have absolute faith that with the public option along the lines of Medicaid, Medicare, or the VA, that it will outcompete what these other guys are doing. And if they can't outcompete them, that is fine, but the fact is I believe that they will.

Let me yield to the gentlelady. Do you want to respond to this question that 2,275 people asked from www.progressivecongress.org? Do you want to answer that question, what is wrong with just having the single-payer? Or do you want to pass it?

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Mr. ELLISON. The fact is that many insurance companies, I think the whole industry identifies when a person goes to a doctor and needs to actually use that coverage, they call that a medical loss. They see that as a loss to them. That is messing with their money when somebody says, Hey, I actually need to use the coverage that I'm paying you an arm and a leg for. That is why some of these companies go out of business. It is not designed to do that.

The fact is we talked about how medical expense costs families tremendously and also ends up people having to declare bankruptcy so often. The fact is that is one side of the coin.

The other side of the coin is the overwhelming amount of profit that the industry makes. And I just want to point out that in an industry where you have CEOs making $1.6 billion like Bill McGuire of United Health Group made, how can you get that kind of money unless a whole lot of people are not getting the health care that they should get? How can you have these exorbitant profits that people are turning over and still cover everybody? Well, you can't do it. You either have to cut people out of coverage, you have to deny claims, and then you can pay exorbitant profits. Or you have to actually run a decent system that extends coverage, but in that case you don't have people making googobs of money, and so you really do have to make a basic and essential choice.

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Mr. ELLISON. Well, if the gentlelady yields back, let me tell you. Cost containment, remember, any time I charge you and you paid me, I now made some money, right? I'm not against making money. This is America, and we have a free enterprise system. But there is such a thing as abuse.

Let me point out, profits at 10 of the country's largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent--I'd say that's pretty good--from 2000 to 2007. In 2007, alone, the chief executive officers at these companies collected a combined total compensation of $118.6 million, an average of $11.9 million each. And if it's an average, you know some made more and some made less. And the fact is that that is 468 times more than the $25,000 a year that an average American worker makes. So the fact is, these folks are making 468 times more than the average wage of an average worker in the United States. And we're wondering why we've got problems. There's no wonder why we have problems. That's why we need a universal, single-payer system. But if we can't get it now, let's get a system where you keep your insurance, and we have a public option.

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