large. here in washington we have the large -- we have a:z:z/ >> they asked to send this message. there are a mix of opinions. people say we need to be more involved in some people say we need to be less involved. i know that the iranians think that america needs to help but others think it might influence. the idea that we do not do anything because it is none of our business, that is not analytical place to be. question is, what can we do at s in our interest in to help the freedom fighters? host: great that the iranians our industry. -- in the street.

guest: i agreed that our focus should be on domestic issues. it is a hard story, though. this is the wacos, this is the where the regime works -- the hope is that this young generation who has not adhered themselves to the revolutionary movement will now be considered counter-revolutionaries, dissidents, they can be jailed. you can tweet me. i mentioned of the show a beyond this morning with you gentleman. host: good morning on the democrats'line. caller: first of all, i think there is a universal problem with oppressive governments like the shaws and everyone else.

president obama and the american people stand for not pressing people's voices. the second thing, the president's character -- i do not think there is any risk for over exposure. he is an authentic character. for the person who has authenticity there's an unlimited amount of interest. we want to see often to people before our eyes. the third thing really powerful is that iran is going through a new nationalism. it is not controlled by religious czars or even -- people like ahmadinejad. i would like to quote something from the book of rahm emmanuel

-- we believe the popper judy for all special privilege for none is america's special mission. -- the opportunity for all. i think if we stick with that we can see iran overcome its situation. another said that at every stage and under all circumstances the essence of the struggle is equalized the opportunity. host: thank you. guest: to be courted alongside fdr, rahm if use watching the show and i'm sure that he is, would be very pleased. i agree with the gentleman. i also want to say if you pay this despot into a corner -- if you remember during the cuban missile crisis, bobby

kennedy said let's not paint khrushchev into such a corner that he will react so violently -- that is what they did the deal in turkey. you have to get someone out or he would just lose it. there's no measure to the damage he can do to his own people. host: here is another message from twitter. let me turn to one domestic issue concerning sonya sotomayor and her nomination. these writers say that the poll found that most americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance and the government could do a better job of holding down health care costs than the

private sector has. your reaction? guest: i have not seen the internal on the pool yet. but it is remarkable how precisely the poll comports with the editorial position of "the new york times." we have all the with polling and you have to be careful with the freezing. i have dealt with health care since 1993 with the clinton health-care plan. that is not what i have seen in the pulling of the years and recently, but it depends how you phrase the question. -- with the polling over the years. there are polls recently that americans eat less of a crisis now than in 1993. it is now and the low 50s as opposed to the 60s. if anything there is less energy for radical change now banned in 1993, but we have to look at the

internal on those polls. this is also a moment where the public is concerned about deficits. the president is out there saying he is trying to get it under control. the program that will increase the deficit by $1 trillion or more in the next tenures may not be popular. so, do not cherry pick polls. host: let me go into detail about how the poll was conducted. here are more specifics. guest: this president even more than the clintons, when i came down to washington to work on the health care program, he has paid more to the economy. you and i both tony were part of the government health care plan, part of the federal employees health benefit program which everyone on the hill is and so

is the president and his entire family. if this is a public plan we benefited from a. it was the best health care i ever had. the government provided for applicants a huge assortment of terrific health care plans and because they had such an enormous pool of people applying for them they were able to pool the resources and get a really good health care rates. guest: if you are willing to spend enough you can get almost anything. but you and i did not quite have the best. elected congress and senators have it a little better. they were able to go to the hospitals in bethesda and get treated immediately with no paperwork. they just went there. it was taken care of. when you have 300 million people supporting the health care costs of a few thousand people here in washington of course you can buy the gold- conversion, but the problem is we do not have enough taxpayers

to pay for that kind of service. guest: because of the coming guys like you and i will not be retiring soooon so we can contie tomorrow, on washington journal, journalferrechio, corey boles, and bradley graham. washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.

>> coming up next, health insurance policies, and then q&a and then live at 7:00 a.m. eastern, your calls and comments on washington journal. >> how is he spent funded? >> friedell nations? >> i think you get a little bit from the federal government. >> grants and stuff like that. >> maybe from sponsors? >> that might get some government funding. >> the worse? >> alice he sent them -- policies and funded, cable companies provided as a cable service -- as a public service. >> and now, a house hearing on business practices that allow health insurance is to deny or cancel health insurance. we will hear from individuals whose policy was canceled of

dealing with medical issues. this is about three hours 20 minutes. >> the hearing will come to order. today, we have a hearing. the chairman and ranking members will have opening statements and others will be recognized for three minutes. before we begin, i would like unanimous consent of the contents of our document under be entered into the record. without objection, this will be

available. >> i will begin opening statements and i will start with my opening statement for five minutes. every night across america, more than 45 million americans go to sleep without merit -- without health insurance. it is this fear that caused many hard-working americans who are not covered by an employer or government sponsored health care plan to purchase individual health insurance policies. of those americans fortunate enough to afford individual health care coverage, they are not immune from a nightmare scenario because of health insurance recision. here is what happened to one victim. he was a 59 year old restaurant owner that was diagnosed with non hodgkin's lymphoma. he underwent intensive chemotherapy. he was told that he had to have

a standstill transplant in order to survive. with coverage provided by his insurance policy, huber schedule to have the procedure performed but his insurance company told him it was or to cancel his insurance coverage for he could not pay for the transplant without health insurance. the surgery was canceled. the insurance company told him that it -- that when he applied for his insurance, he had not told the company about a test that had shown that he might have gallstones or weakness of a blunt the small wall. his doctor had never told him about these test results. he did not have any symptoms and these conditions do not have anything to do with his cancer, but the insurance company was " to rescind his policy, tearing up the contract as if it never happened. he made a desperate plea to the illinois attorney general's office, seeking help to get the

insurance company to reverse its decision. he told me, i was diagnosed with non hodgkin's lymphoma. it is a matter of extreme urgency that receive my transplant in three weeks. please help me so i can help by transplant rescheduled. the iowa attorney general's office wants an investigation and confirmed that his doctor had never even told him about the test findings and sent two letters to press the insurance company to reinstate his policy. the company relented and he got his transplant and was able to live through more years before passing away. he was one of the lucky ones. this committee has concluded an investigation and results are alarming. over the past five years, almost 40,000 insurance policyholders have had their policy rescinded by three insurance companies that will testify today.

from a preview of case files, they include an every case in which the policyholder submits a claim. resending policies based on policyholders failure to disclose a condition after doctors never told about it. resending policy is based on policyholders and rescinding coverage for all families -- for all family members based on the earlier to disclose the the medical condition of one family member. the investigation has also found

>> according to documents obtained by committee, one official was awarded a perfect score of 5 for exceptional performance based on having saved the company nearly $10 million through recisions. these practices revealed that when an insurance company receives a claim for an expensive, life-saving treatment, some of them will look for a way, anyway, to avoid having to pay for it. this is an eerily similar situation in what we found last year. investigation of long-term health care insurance policies where inscrupulous sales people would sell policies to seniors, then change or revoke the policies once the enrollee was locked into a plan and making payments. the companies who engage in these recision practices argue that they are entirely legal. and to an extent, they are.

but that goes against the whole point of insurance. when times are good, the insurance companies are happy to sign you up and take your money in the form of premiums. when times are bad and you're inflicted with cancer or some other life threatening disease, it is supposed to honor this commitment and stand with you in your time of need. instead, some of these companies use a technicality to justify breaking its promise at a time when patients are too weak to fight back. i'd also like to mention and compliment the staff on their supplemental information regarding the individual health insurance market. it's attached to my opening statement and will be part of the record. today we will hear from victims of this practice of recisions, as well as three of the leading companies that engage in it. we hope to learn more about this problem, so that we in congress, perhaps through a comprehensive national health care reform bill, can curb abuses and put an end to this unconscionable practice once and for all. i'd next like to turn to my

ranking member from oregon for an opening statement, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. before i give my opening statement, i just want to clarify something. you indicated in your opening statement you do plan to put this supplemental information in the record? >> yes, sir. i'll attach it as part of my opening statement. this is the supplemental information regarding the individual health insurance market dated june 16th. i realize a lot of members haven't had time to look at it. i know they were putting it together last night. in the last couple days they went through about 50,000 pages. it just helps members for questioning, so i wanted to put it in there, because it is supplemental. and members can use it in questioning witnesses. >> all right. i misunderstood what you were saying. i thought you told me you weren't going to put it in since the minority didn't see this until 9:20 this morning. >> i wasn't going to put it in as part of the document finder. i'll put it as part of my opening statement, and it's attributable to me.

because as you have indicated, it's on committee stationary. mr. barton had not had time to see it. i didn't want to say mr. barton approved it. so i made it part of my opening statement. >> i appreciate that. >> thank you. >> in the future i hope we can work those things out in advance as we have in most hearings in the past. >> i agree. >> today's hearing is the second in a series of hearings investigating the individual health insurance market. approximately 16 million americans have individual health insurance policies. once people apply and are issued their insurance cards, they breathe a sigh of relief and figure their health cares are covered. unfortunately that sigh of relief may turn into a frenzied panic if the friday before a monday a patient is to undergo a double mastectomy she receives a call from her insurance company saying her insurance has been canceled will no longer pay any claims. this is what happened to one of our witnesses here today, [ applause ] robin beaton. we'll also hear from mr. horton and mr. raddatz where the threat

or actual termination of insurance policies cause pain, frustration and great expense. we may be here to discuss valid uses for procedural aspects of recisions, medical underwriting, and other corporate practices. there are some actions we should no longer allow insurance companies to do. playing gotcha with policyholders who have serious illnesses and huge expenses must stop. insurance companies cannot wait until customers are sick or filing claims to verify their medical history and decide whether or not they want them as a customer. this is what they're supposed to be doing when they sign the member up. if the company does not conduct a review of unclear or incomplete information on the application, then the plan should not use subsequently acquired information as a basis for rescinding coverage. this practice is known as post-claims underwriting. the company should conduct its due diligence at the time the application is filled out and submitted prior to issuing coverage. recisions should not be a license to find loopholes by investigating someone's medical

history whenever they file a claim well after being accepted for coverage. not if the company hurried through the application process. not if the company blindly accepted most applicants. and not if the company gladly collected their money with no questions asked. this is inappropriate, and it should be stopped. i understand that companies just like the federal government need ways to protect themselves from insurance fraud. which does occur. some applicants willfully lie on the application to get insurance and pay lower premiums. this increases the cost of coverage for the insurers and other policyholders. when a company discovers this behavior and believes recision is the appropriate action, the burden must rest on the insurer. the company should prove the insured failed to disclose material information that he or she was aware of at the time of the contract that would have resulted in different contracts altogether. after all, the company has the money, employees and resources to meet that burden. they're the ones making the

assertion and they're the ones ultimately denying the coverage. it's not enough for companies just to send a letter to the insured stating an investigation into their files has begun and if they choose to, send in any additional information to the company. the company needs to attempt to communicate directly with the insured, his or her doctor, and review all pertinent information to prove the insured did make a material misstatement. the majority requested all case files that resulted in recision in 2007 in four states. four united this was 206 case files. for wellpoint this was 742 case files. to date the committee has received more than 650 of these case files. my staff had the opportunity to review several of these files, including working all weekend. in some there is a documentation or evidence that the insured intentionally withheld pertinent medical information that would have affected their coverage. in others it's unclear whether the applicant was even aware of

the condition or notation cited by an investigator in an old medical chart as evidence to rescind. today three individual policyholders will explain their stories and illustrate how they were unaware of conditions, symptoms or other possible diagnoses that were written in a medical chart that never expressed to the patient. you have to ask yourself, can the person make a material omission or a misstatement if he or she was not aware of a fact. i don't think so. but if i'm wrong, i want the companies to explain it to me. 2008, 2009, these companies entered into settlement agreements with rescinded policyholders and providers in some topping tens of millions of dollars. some of the companies remained in litigation with other rescinded policyholders. i also recognize some of these companies have initiated internal reforms. these include steps to improve their application process, improve communication with the insured during the investigation, and recision process, and offer independent

third-party review of recision decisions if requested by the policyholder. i want to know what appropriate actions congress can take and what else these companies can do better to insure that all americans have access to health care coverage. health care reform is coming. and we need to have a better understanding of the individual health insurance market and its practices. we need to figure out first and foremost how to make quality health insurance affordable and reliable while keeping protections in place to combat insurance fraud. i hope as this process moves forward we work in a bipartisan way to provide a system that achieves the ultimate goal of getting those who need medical care the attention they need. thank you. >> mr. waxman, an opening statement, please? >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. today we're going to hear the results of a year-long congressional investigation into abuses in the individual insurance market. we began this investigation last year when i served as chairman of the house oversight committee, and we continued it

this year with chairman stupak's leadership as the chairman of the oversight subcommittee of energy and commerce. as part of this investigation, we conducted a 50-state survey of insurance commissioners. and we sent document requests to some of the largest companies that offer individual health insurance. we received more than 116,000 pages of documents, and our staff talked with many policyholders who had their insurance policies canceled after they became ill. some of them are here today to testify. and i thank them very much for being here. overall, what we've found is that the market for individual health insurance in the united states is fundamentally flawed. one of the biggest problems is that most states allow individual health insurance policies to deny coverage to

people with pre-existing conditions. so if you lose your job, and you can't qualify for a government program like medicare or medicaid, it's nearly impossible to get health insurance if you're sick or have an illness. this creates a perverse incentive. in the united states, insurance companies compete based on who is best at avoiding people who need life-saving health care. and this incentive manifests itself in a wide variety of controversial practices by the insurance companies. when we know that if people apply for insurance policies, and they put down that they have some pre-existing condition, they're going to be denied. but what we've found is that when people with individual policies become ill, and then they submit their claims for expensive treatments, that insurance company launches an investigation.

they scour the policyholder's original insurance application, and the person's medical records to find any discrepancy, any omission, or any misstatement that could allow them to cancel the policy. they try to find something, anything, so they can say that this individual was not truthful in that original application. it doesn't even have to relate to the medical care the person is seeking, and often it doesn't. they might need chemotherapy for lymphoma, but when the insurance companies find that your coverage was based on a failure to disclose gall stones, they want to cancel your policy, after the fact. it may come as a surprise to most people, but the insurance companies believe they are entitled to cancel the policies even when these omissions or discrepancies are completely unintentional. and they believe that they have the right to cancel policies

even when someone else, like an agent, who sold the policy was responsible for the discrepancy in the first place. in addition, they can terminate coverage not just for the primary policyholder, but they go to terminate the policies for the entire family, including innocent children who did nothing wrong. some insurance companies launched these investigations every single time a policyholder becomes ill with a certain condition. in other words, if you happen to have ovarian cancer, you should prepare -- be prepared to be investigated. it's the same with other conditions, such as leukemia. in the written statements for today, the three insurance companies downplap the significance of these practices, arguing that recisions are relatively rare. but these three companies save more than $300 million over the

past five years as a result of recisions. and i'm sure they view this amount as significant. more importantly, however, these terminations are extremely significant to the tens of thousands of people who needed health care and couldn't get it during these five years because their policies were rescinded. in my opinion, of course, the solution to these problems is to pass comprehensive health reform legislation, and based on the written testimony, i think the three insurance companies testifying here today agree with that assessment. but until that happens, insurance companies deny people coverage, if they have a pre-existing condition, and then afterwards if they gave them the coverage for insurance, they want to see if there's some reason they can rescind it after the fact, after they've already given out the insurance to see if they can re sipped that policy. i think it's shocking.

it's inexcusable. it's a system that we have in place, and we've got to stop. mr. chairman, i'm pleased that you're holding this hearing and i thank you for the time allotted me. >> mr. barton, for opening statement, please? >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is my month for witnesses from texas. last week we had the owner of carlisle chevrolet. today we have miss robin beaton, who is a citizen of walksahatchie. so i want to extend to her the very best wishes and let her and the other two panelists on this first panel know that there's nothing to be afraid of. you speak for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of american citizens. and the country is very interested through the auspices of this hearing to hear your story. we appreciate all three of you being here. this is an important hearing.