Commerce, Justice, Science, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 - Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. I do. I thank the Senator from New Mexico for his remarks and Senator Brown for his leadership efforts here. I will say a few words.

If anyone in America does not understand what the function of a health insurance company is, let me give you the bad news. If you think the function is to provide health insurance for people, sorry, you are wrong. The function of a health insurance company is to make as much money as it possibly can. Do you know what. They do that very well. We have to acknowledge that. Insurers have increased premiums 87 percent over the past 6 years. Premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, increasing four times faster than wages.

Profit at 10 of the country's largest publicly traded health insurance companies in 2007 rose 428 percent from the year 2000 to 2007, from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

What we are seeing is that people are thrown off of health insurance because they committed the crime of getting sick, and they cannot get health insurance because of preexisting conditions. Well, that is the bad news. The good news is that CEO salaries are very high, and profits are doing very well.

At the very least--and I speak as somebody who believes in a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system--this country deserves a strong public option to give people the choice about whether they want a private insurance company.

With that, I yield back my time.

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