there you see it, the big hmo stocks up nicely, and wellpointe, well, and aetna, the hospital stocks up nicely and wellpointe and aetna in the hmo group were split, and humana got a lot of exposure to the health care advantage got hit a small amount. stocks have all done well recently, and missing earnings would not be a good thing for this intraday chart of schlumberger who, too, made a come back in the middle of the day. >>> in europe, another weak part of concerns of europe and how much support for greece in the european union, and those stocks came off of the loes and there is the international bank of greece as officials there including mr. jianger and mr. treasa made statements about greece being in the european union. >>> there is conagra foods and maria is talk about new stock highs, including conagra. and tiffany's were shy of earnings expectations because of the compensation costs were higher than expected and that is is a trend for a lot of the big retailer recently. mari maria, back to you. >>> thank you, bob. google takes a new approach to china, and jane wells with the

we have learned how to maximize the bonuses, the pay of ceos, the current wellpoint massive shows which is incredible. not to think that you are not just raising the premiums, but what kind of you would set off. and music they didn't think about that so they didn't formulate the problem as ms. it okay, we need to bring in more money. the health care system, and we'll talk about the current health care bill, is founded on three primary assumptions. one, government is the problem. number two, health care is a business, like any other business. and three, cost-cutting is the primary aim. now government is the problem goes way back to the founding of this republic. if you read robert rice, one of the primary this of this society, this country obviously given the experience we had in europe is that one of the myths he calls the bottom at the top that you can't trust those guys, the rich guys, the top who work on our behalf. that's just translate into modern times, you know, government is the problem. health care is a business. and economy said no. no, because we have a health care property y

of wellpoint the biggest insurance company, said we will not sacrifice profitability for membership.they make more money by raising their rates and dropping people from coverage. that's what a goldman sachs analyst said last week, too. >> i went to business school, too -- >> did you both do good, do well? >> i got through. and "fortune" magazine is the leading authority in the company on the ranging of industry profits and we're down at the bottom and those are the facts. what's happening is not companies dropping coverage. it's people being unably to afford coverage in a tough economy. that's absolutely true. working families, younger and healthier workers who may think it makes sense to take the risk and go without coverage. in a tough economy, they are choosing not to be covered. small businesses are choosing ki keep my doors open or can i afford to cover my workforce? and because of spiraling medical costs and a slowing economy they're caught in a vice. >> lehrer: i don't think we're going to resolve that one right now. let's resolve something else. secretary sebelius says you sp

health maintenance organizations, aetna, wellpoint, united health, they stand at some of the worst offendersese are the businesses that you expect to pay large dividends. these companies kept the dividends small in order to finance massive buybacks and gigantic scale on 2007 and 2008 and has in some cases insiders selling their stock at the same time the company was pieing. i have to tell you something, that is one of the ultimate, ultimate red flags. the buybacks are official to shareholders, the hmos proved that argument wrong. they're far less meaningful given that all three companies have the ability to yield 4% if they converted that buyback money to dividends. that's where the yield is accidentally high, making it far more attractive to any other stocks in the market. instead of paying big dividends, aetna, well point, and uhc blew billions of buybacks on amounts that amounted to nothing. why do they like buybacks so much? some of it is what i recard as almost sleight of hand. with the hmos, there are the worst companies of companies buying back shares in order to generate cheaper per

if you look at the original stories on the anthem-wellpoint increase, they said what they wanted, what they needed was comprehensive health care reform. regrettably, they have been working with other insurance companies to prevent that from happening. and i have here, and i could send it out. there is a report from wall street that says, should reform fail, wellpoint would be a primary beneficiary. that sort of sets the tone of where we are. our insurance company's going to win? -- are insurance company's going to win? or are we going to cut costs, put ourselves on a rational path, cut costs not only for families and small businesses, but for the federal government's burden? i think that is what is at stake. >> any other concerns? >> what do think their concerns might be? >> i do not want to get into doing that. i will let them air their concerns. >> [inaudible] >> it was open dialogue, frank? >> the president walked in with a letter from a constituent that he had gotten from ohio, that he had read. i think that set the tone. the rate increases set the tone for the reason for the meeti

and the swiss insurance companies started taking lessons from wellpoint and united health and his otherfor-profit insurance companies in the united states. they figured out, as are insurance companies have figured out, if you want to make a profit, then don't ever cover anybody who's ever been sick because they might make a claim. they followed us in doing the preexisting condition thing. the swiss insurance companies, like the american companies, started hiring large numbers of underwriters whose job is to stamp know, you know, to deny a claim because it's cheaper for them to send you a form letter saying tonight than to actually pay your claim and. and the swiss health insurance industry, by the mid '90s, looked a lot like ours. there were lots of denials, and people were unhappy. 5 percent of the people in switzerland couldn't get insurance at all because they had a preexisting condition. and this was decide that this was unacceptable. they said in a rich society, everybody, not 95%, but everybody should have health coverage. and so they had a national referendum. it was led by young

and i think i had last week here a report by some on wall street saying specifically that wellpoint, anthem, was set to be a winner if health care reform didn't pass. >> do you expect him to continue to comment on communications, conference calls, and so forth in other businesss? >> i think you can believe that the president will continue to do that if -- there are those on wall street that believe that insurance companies stand to gain in a big way if health care reform doesn't pass. because i think that's in the interest of millions of policyholders. that possess individual insurance on the individual market from these different companies and how it affects their bottom line. >> the president again went into a meeting secretary sebelius was having to discuss, as we read last week, a letter the president had received precisely by one of these companies and how that impacted a 50-year-old woman who was having to make a decision between whether or not to give up the house that had been in her family for several decades or continue to purchase health insurance, even though she had chan

in newspapers and i think i had last week a report by some one on wall street saying specifically wellpointhich owns and some was set to be a winner if health care reform didn't pass. >> are we expecting to continue to comment on the communications conference call and so forth and other businesses? >> i think you can believe the president will continue to do that if there are those on wall street believe that insurance companies stand to gain in a big way if health care reform doesn't pass because that's in the interest of millions of policyholders that possessed individual insurance on the market from these different companies and how it affects the bottom line. the president again the president went to a meeting secretary sebelius was having to discuss that the president had received precisely by one of these companies and how that impacted a 50-year-old woman who was having to make the decision between whether or not to give up the house and her family for decades or purchase self insurance even though she had changed her deductible to try to get a more affordable rates. i think that is

and managed care, two favorites would be wellpoint and aetna. covered by scott bidele.y're less exposed to the reforms or lower pricing that is going to be implemented in medicare advantage. and will benefit this year specifically from higher pricing in commercial markets. of course, teva being the largest generic company, as many of these units in the pharma piece, anyway, are going to be dispensed via generic drugs, teva sells more pills than merck and pfizer combined so they clearly should be a beneficiary. on the device side we like medtronic and in pharma it's probably all beaten out at this point, for growth investors our favorite stock with be bristol. and financial stories based on value would be pfizer and merck. i think the biggest influence for pfizer and merck, quite frankly, is the direction of the economy. if we do get a fierce recovery, then, you know, pfizer and merck are not going to keep pace. if the market moves to being more defensive, then those stocks would certainly be favored. >> any conflicts of things that youown, or get your disclosures? >> so

>> when we began to question the wellpoint rate increase, which was filed in california, they withdrew that for at least two months. what happens at the end of two months, i am still not sure. i know the california insurance commissioner has opened an investigation and is asking for a lot of data. at the very least, a spotlight, having some transparency, having companies come forward is a helpful step for consumers. what we really need is comprehensive reform. that is part of what this discussion was about. >> what do you say to the people who still are very concerned that the savings out of this reform package, which i think is still calculated at $500 billion, is going to come at some of the cost to services people are already receiving? >> that has been part of the misinformation that has been circulated. again, we have seen some statements recently about the enormous profitability of medicare advantage plans. as you know, the cost savings is not to eliminate medicare advantage but to stop -- to stop overpaying insurance companies for delivering products to seniors. we are subsidizi

one company, wellpoint, is hiking rates by double digits in 11 states where the profits are 91%. with these soaring profits insurers continue to drop sick people from their rolls, spend less on care and because they have an exemption from the antitrust laws, they avoid competition. now that this bill is law, caps on coverage are eliminated. insurance companies are barred from dropping people from their plans even if they had paid their premiums, simply because, gosh, they got sick. the thing they bought health insurance for. and denying children health insurance coverage because of preexisting conditions is now illegal. parents can keep their children on their health policies until they're 26 years old. mr. president, i think of the people who work so hard on this. i see chairman baucus and chairman dodd on the floor who would not be here without the two of them. and i think that we -- we must continue and must be able to finish this final step. the people of vermont have given me the honor of representing them in the senate for 35 years. i've joined in many debates that were con

, at now, blue cross/blue shield of north carolina, blue cross/blue shield of massachusetts, and wellpoint is costing employers on the health care side as we heard earlier today. it is threatening the productivity and the future of our nation if we cannot address this and reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity. the cause is simple. the solutions will be multiple. there is an imbalance in the calories are children take in. our bodies are designed to takeouts in and if we do not burn them off restore them. over the course of the last three decades, our children have been exposed to an environment that causes them to be out of balance. the take more calories in than the balance. -- then they expend. the changes in the diet patterns, loss of the family sitting down to nutritious meals, the pervasiveness of television. cartoons used to be only on saturday mornings, and now they are on several channels 24 hours a day. the number of television is that families had in their homes, the safety of parks where kids can not now, either because the perception of reality, go out and play every day. ea

wellpoint increased raising rates in california even as they made $4.2 billion in profits last year and paid out million dollar compen packages to their top executives. these rate hikes would hit democratic and republican districts alike. and the other side would have us do nothing. we talk about the big banks making a killing off of taxpayers. well, insurance companies executives are literally getting million dollar compensation packages while our constituents are dying. health care reform is long overdue. the 31 million people this bill will cover are democrats, they're republicans, they're independents, they're greens and they're people with no party affiliation. this should not be a partisan issue. the cost of inaction are much too -- the cost of inaction -- excuse me -- are much too risky, much too costly and we must act now. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from alabama rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. the gentleman is recogniz

wellpoint has proposed to raise premiums by 30%.one of her two sons was born with a hole when his heart and with a hole when his heart and required suno carrierringconnec0 the president and ceo of wellpoint. accompanying her is cynthia smith. i look forward to their testimony as to why wellpoint is raising their premiums. tomorrow, the white house will be discussing health care proposals. included in this proposal is language that grants the authority to regulate rate increases. this hearing could not come at a better time. it provides a reminder that unless congress and the administration act, americans across the country will continue to experience large premium incruses and will be priced out of the market. with little or no health care coverage, we are all just one injury or illness away from bankruptcy next, i would yield to the gentleman from texas and welcome him as the ranking member. i look forward to working with them to route this congress. mr. burgess, your opening statement. >> thank you and the chairman for allowing us