Menendez on Health Insurance Companies

I watched Senator Menendez' Briefing on Health Insurance Companies this evening. I wasn't sure which side of the Health Care "Reform" issue he was on until I started watching the you tube video...It was a pretty good guess right at the beginning that he wanted the government to get involved, when he's standing there with a big chart next to him showing "Health Insurance Profits" from 2000-2007. I guess the chart was showing that they had made a 428% increase during that time, and something about $32.9 billion, though I never heard him address it, or its "facts", specifically.

Senator Menendez starts right out letting us know that "Truman understood the meaning of community...that we have obligations to each other to be part of the solution." Senator Menendez, the government is NOT community. If we have an obligation to each other it is as citizens who are part of that community, not the government interfering with that community.

Then the Senator spoke harshly of Private Insurance Companies and the fact that they "use their 'market power' to boost their bottom line...." ....As if such a thing is such a condemnation...

Then he points out that it is necessary for "insurance companies to be...more responsive to their policy holders." It made me think of our representatives in Congress, and how responsive most of them are NOT!

Senator Menendez then reassured us (or at least tried to) that the "public option is to drive competition" (as opposed to drive out competition...not seeing how that would work out, sorry!)

And he ended by stating that "If you like what you have, you get to keep it." I see. But of course he fails to tell us that page 16 of the 1000+ page bill currently in the House makes it fairly clear that we may be able to keep what we have, if we have it when all this starts, but don't count on getting something new after that, at least not from outside the Government. Did you miss that part, Senator Menendez, or did you not think we needed to know that?