Insurance Company Catch-22

Floor Speech

Ms. DeLAURO. This month a health insurance company tried to deny health coverage to a 4-month-old baby in Colorado. Why? Because they said he was too fat. An insurance company also, just this week, denied coverage to a 2-year-old girl. Why? Because they said she was too thin. Too fat, too thin, sounds like a no-win situation, a catch-22.

And, in fact, it was designed that way. An industry spokesman said they might reconsider covering those children if they got medical treatment and seemed healthy over a period of time. So in order to get health insurance, these children need to get treated without health insurance until they prove they're healthy enough to satisfy the insurance company. A cruel trick. And these companies pull it every day just to preserve their profit margins.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Our friends across the aisle have been using similar logic to defend these companies and to defeat health insurance reform. They tell us that a public option will mean government-run health insurance, and that must be stopped. They tell us our health reform plan will endanger Medicare which is, of course, a public option. Which is it: too fat, too thin, too much government or not enough?

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