Notice of Continuing Emer- Gency with Respect to Sov- Ereignty of Lebanon—mes- Sage from the President of the United States

includes employer-based health care, where there couldn’t be an exclusion for preexisting conditions. There are the existing government programs, Medicare, Medicaid. Part of the money, if we get the version we are looking for, would be to help States cover everybody for Medicaid. Then the third thing, this would be new and would include a robust public option. The public option would be a program run by an agency in the government that would be not looking to generate a profit. In that case, would the public option that we have been talking about, would they be reaping a portion of those, what is that, $84 billion in profit? Would that be a cost measure within the public option, if we were able to achieve that? Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland. Well, I think that what would happen is that the public option would be so competitive. Keep in mind that the CEO of the public option, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, doesn’t make $9.8 million a year. It is a basic government salary, I don’t know, about $175,000 or $185,000 a year to run all of Medicare. Our CEO is a government employee who doesn’t make a ton of money, who is not reaping millions and millions of dollars in compensation. This is only compensation. Maybe next time I will bring the bonus chart. That would require a lot more zeros. But I think really there is so much overhead in the private insurance, and it is really sending costs up. All we want is a public option, and what the American people want is a public option, because something like 70-some percent of the American public actually support a public option, and what they want is something that competes with the private insurers. After all, Mr. ELLISON, I am not really sure what the private insurers are afraid of, because if they believe in the free marketplace, put the public option in there, let it compete in the free marketplace, and I will tell you what, the competition will be on and costs will be down. Mr. ELLISON. That is right. And lobbying expenditures, CEO compensation and profits will not be there. We will have to yield back and be back the next time. This has been the Progressive Hour.