As the health care summit gets underway in an effort to overhaul the health care industry, Rep. Yvette Clarke voted Wednesday to pass a House bill that tightens the flexible business practices of health insurance companies, said an official.
“For too long, health insurance companies have not played by the rules. Now they must be held accountable,” said Rep. Clarke in a statement.
In New York’s 11th Congressional District, where Clarke, a Democrat, is serving her second term, the growth of uninsured residents was above 15 percent in the middle of the Great Recession, according to the official New York City Web site. This value was higher in the more affluent part of the district in Park Slope-Downtown neighborhood at 19 percent – career professionals who are losing their jobs in the weak job market are also losing their private insurance, outpacing those in lower-income neighborhoods like Flatbush where a higher percentage of people are on Medicaid, a government-funded health program for low-income individuals.
“Middle-class families are facing higher premiums, a lower quality of coverage and limited choices – all while the insurance companies are jacking up prices and turning record profits. Healthcare is a fundamental human right, rather than a commodity,” Clarke added.
Recently, however, some of her middle-class constituents in Park Slope – around the corner from Flatbush where there’s a strong concentration of Haitians, a group Clarke is strongly supporting on immigration measures in Washington – can’t seem to figure out what’s being done for them.
“I can’t think of a single thing this woman has done for the community, the state or the country. She seems like a nice enough person, but perhaps she is in over her head?” responded a Park Slope resident to a survey posted on the neighborhood’s Web site bulletin board Brooklynian.
The bill will enforce anti-trust laws on health insurers like other industries that are legally responsible for price fixing, dividing up territories among themselves and sabotaging their competitors in order to gain a monopoly in the marketplace.
But while Clarke’s vote on the bill is not surprising, given her liberal record, it appears to be a smart decision to appeal, at least, to Park Slope, Cobble Hill and other affluent regions of her district in an election year.
“I wasn’t nuts about the process of her election (and didn’t vote for her in the primary last time), but every time I’ve looked into her stance on a particular bill I’ve agreed with it, so I’ll vote for her,” said another one of her Park Slope constituents.