30-Something Working Group

Floor Speech

30-Something Working Group

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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I thank the gentlewoman and I thank Representative Meek for convening here tonight.

Here is how I look at the issue of the public option. First of all, I think it has gotten a lot more attention in the debate than it takes up in the bill. There are a lot of very important pieces to this health care reform bill, and public option is one of them; but I look at it this way: I have faith in my constituents. I think that if we give them choice, they are going to make the right choice for themselves and for their families.

And just like in countries in Europe, where you may only have one choice, you have got to buy, take public insurance, in this country we also have only one choice as well: you have to take private insurance.

And this notion that we shouldn't give our constituents the choice, up to them, as to whether they want to stay on their private plan or for a variety of reasons, they think it might be better to be on a publicly offered plan, I think that shows a lack of faith in the American people.

And I think if it's good enough for every single Member of Congress, if it's good enough for every Federal employee and State employee in this country, if it's good enough for our veterans, if it's good enough for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, and if it's good enough for every single individual in this country over 65, well then maybe our constituents should have a choice of whether it's good enough for them or not.

So to me it just comes down to choice, as was mentioned about the lack of choice that's out there right now. If you are working, odds are that you might have one choice, maybe two choices, maybe three choices. But you are lucky if you have that many.

If you live in a State like Connecticut, we have one insurer that covers over 50 percent of the people in our State. That's 50 percent of the States in this Nation where one insurer has over half the market, 70 percent of States in this country have two insurers that cover 70-75 percent of the market. There is not enough choice out there as it stands right now.

So I just have faith that my constituents are going to be able to make the right choice for themselves.

And for all those people that say, you know, well, the government can't run anything, but the public option is going to run private insurers out of business, those arguments don't work together, right. Because if the government can't run anything, then they are not going to be able to run an insurance plan, nobody is going to join. But it should be up to people whether they do that. That's how you put competition back in a very, very broken marketplace.

And so to me, to me the one unifying theme that when I was home this August, as it has been throughout the entire time that I have been doing this job for the last 2 1/2 years, that has united the people who support this specific proposal and the people that are undecided and the people who don't like it is cost.

I mean, everybody agrees that the system costs too much right now. I mean, over and over again, I hear the same story that you, Mr. Meek, Mr. Ryan heard, business owners talking about a 20 percent increase last year in their health insurance premiums, individuals looking down the barrel in Connecticut of a 30 percent increase in our major insurance plan. Employees having seen wage increases be put off year after year after year because their employers are taking all the extra money they are making and putting it to health insurance premium increases.

And everybody understands that we need to tackle costs here. Well, guess what. The Congressional Budget Office, right, which Republicans and Democrats alike hate because they think it's too nonpartisan, that budget office, which we listened to, which guides our decisions here, says that the public option is going to save our health care system $100 billion, $100 billion because it's going to offer something cheaper to people and it's going to put pressure on the private insurers to bring their costs down.

So if we really care about costs, and this has to be part of the discussion, there is a lot of other things we can do here. We will talk about the insurance exchange which is going to force insurance companies to compete against each other, the tax credits we are going to give to businesses to try to have them offer insurance to their employees. But when all is said and done, we should be keeping every possible tool in the tool box that can bring the costs down. That's one of the things amongst many that can unite us in this building, in this Chamber and throughout this country.

And I think if there is one thing that I found when I was home, it is that when you really got down beyond some of the shouting, beyond the rhetoric, beyond the talking points that both sides were handing out, that there was actually a lot more that united us here.

And I think our job here, as we hit that witching hour on this bill, is to distill that down to something we can all be proud of when we go home.

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