VIDEO: DNC Chairman Kaine on Insurance Companies and the Republicans Who Refuse to Hold Them Accountable

In a new video released today, DNC Chairman Tim Kaine takes to task insurance companies and the Republicans who defend them even in the face ofjaw-dropping premium increases and discriminatory practices that deny care to those who need it the most. As Kaine notes, while the President and Democrats are pursuing reform that ends the worst practices of insurance companies, reduces costs for families and businesses large and small and extends coverage to 31 million uninsured Americans – insurance companies are pouring millions into efforts to derail reform and preserve their record profits. What’s worse - Republicans are standing with them in an effort to block reform.

Yesterday, the nation’s largest insurers kicked-off a meeting at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC to plot how they will attempt to thwart the President’s proposed health insurance reforms. Also yesterday, a leading economist praised the President’s reforms, noting that they draw broadly from Republican and Democratic ideas for controlling costs and represent “the most significant action on medical spending ever proposed in the United States.” If insurance companies were truly committed to reducing costs for their consumers, they would embrace these reforms. Instead, they are spending millions on lobbyists and misleading ad campaigns aimed at spreading fear and killing the President’s proposed reforms. Why? Because the insurance companies know that the President’s reforms put consumers back in control of their health care by placing long over-due restrictions on insurance companies’ ability to impose ad hoc rate hikes and drop patients when they get sick.

And, while Democrats and the President are standing up for the American people, Republicans are promising to campaign to repeal reform after it becomes law. As Chairman Kaine says in his video, “if Republican leaders want to campaign on the belief that there is nothing wrong with the way insurance companies currently do business, then that’s a fight we’re ready to have.”

As Chairman Kaine states in the video, the President’s reforms put an end to insurance company practices that put their profits over Americans’ care. The final march for reform has begun and Republicans must decide who they will march with – the American people or the insurance providers.