[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 22 (Thursday, March 3, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           HEALTH CARE CRISIS

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I, too, wish the Republicans well on their 
retreat to discuss health care, and I do hope that they come back from 
that health care conference energized, willing to work to improve 
health care in America.
  Madam President, there are some who are saying there is no health 
care crisis. I want to talk about two people who indicate to me that 
they are representative of many, many hundreds of thousands if not 
millions of people who are sick and certainly cry out that there is a 
health care crisis.
  Madam President, I want to put a face on this principle we talk 
about, health care.
  The first face that I want to establish is a 27-year-old woman from 
Reno, NV. Her name is Erin Dowell. I first met Erin about a month ago 
here in Washington. She was here testifying about the high cost of 
medical care.
  When I first met her in Washington, she was a vibrant, energetic, 
extremely attractive red-headed woman, who was so full of life. She had 
at that time leukemia, a specific kind of leukemia. She told me how she 
had gone through the medical process, costing upward of $300,000.
  When I visited with her, she was broke. She was one of those 
Americans caught in the system. She had an industrial injury and, as a 
result of that, she lost her health insurance. The week that she was 
ready to go back to work, she found that she had leukemia.
  Well, Madam President, I wish I could report to the people of Nevada, 
this Senate, and the people of America that Erin, who I saw back here 
so energetic, so vibrant, was still that way. But she is not.
  Two weeks after I met her here in Washington, I went to Reno and I 
went to her home to visit her. She at that time was bedridden. She at 
that time had come out of remission and was extremely ill. She was 
laying on a sofa, covered with an electric blanket. The vibrancy I saw 
in her here was gone, and in Reno it looked as if she were a different 
person.
  We visited and she was afraid. We held hands and talked. Her family 
was around her.
  You see, the reason this story is so tragic is that she could have 
had a bone marrow transplant. She had a perfect donor. But that can 
only take place when she is in remission. Through the bureaucratic mess 
that she found herself in, created by the Government and insurance 
companies, she was unable to have her bone narrow transplant when she 
was in remission.
  I wish I could report to everyone that she is still at home, but she 
is not. She is in the hospital.
  I talked to her sister Kelly last night. She had an extremely bad 
week. She is in intensive care. She has had problems with her heart. I 
hope Erin lives. I do not know if Erin will live. I do not know if she 
will ever come out of the exacerbated condition she is in. I do not 
know that. No one knows that. If she does not, she will die. She knows 
that. We have talked about it.
  But it is an example, Madam President, of how our system is not 
working. It is really too bad that this woman has had to go through 
what she has gone through. I hope that other people next year will not 
have to go through what she has been through.
  I wish that she were the only case like this in the entire of 
America, but she is not. There are lots of Erin Dowells in America 
today.
  I am going to work and I am going to hope that Erin will come out of 
the serious condition she is in, will be removed from intensive care 
and get back into an acute care bed and finally be able to go home, 
and, hopefully, the leukemia will go into remission and that she will 
be able to have this bone marrow transplant. There is a perfect match 
waiting to give this life-saving sustenance to Erin. I hope it works 
out.
  I hope others do not have to go through what she has gone through. 
But unless we change the system, there will be many other Erin Dowells.
  The same week I was in Reno, Madam President, I did a radio interview 
that lasted half an hour. The man that did the interview--I had known 
him for a long time--asked me if I could wait after the interview. He 
had something personal he wanted to talk to me about. I am not going to 
embarrass him by announcing his name, but let me give you the facts.
  He said, ``Harry, I make $13,000 a year here at this radio station. I 
have been offered raises. I cannot take them because, if I took a 
raise, we would be over the limit and my wife, who has 18 months to 
live, would be cut off medically.''
  Madam President, the two situations I have just related are only two. 
All of our senatorial offices, every congressional office, has stories 
just like this, stories that tear at your heartstrings.
  So it is very troubling to me to find people who say: ``There is no 
health care crisis. What's wrong with the system? Why fix something 
that is not broke?''
  Well, I am here to say, from my perspective, the system is broke and 
we need to do something to fix it. We cannot go on like we are going 
on.
  You know, it is fine for us. We have health insurance, like other 
Federal employees. And millions of people in America are satisfied with 
their health insurance benefits. But millions and millions have no 
health insurance. Millions and millions are going to lose the health 
insurance they have. We need to fix the system. It is something that 
cannot be fixed by tinkering at the edges.
  So, Madam President, when some say there is no health care crisis, 
have them call me and I will talk to them about Erin, I will talk to 
them about my friend at the radio station.
  For Erin's sake and the sake of others in America like her, we must 
act and we must act this year. We must, Madam President, have health 
care reform.
  Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, let me commend the senior Senator from 
Nevada for his powerful statement. There is no more compelling argument 
to be made than to talk about the faces of real Americans who are 
experiencing the crisis that we talk about daily on the floor so 
routinely.
  There is nothing routine about the crisis that those Nevada patients 
are experiencing. There is nothing routine about the agony and 
uncertainty and the extraordinary difficulty that they feel each and 
every day, not only that they feel but their families feel and that all 
of us who are touched by the lives of these people must feel.
  The Senator has raised, again, a very compelling reason why health 
reform is so critical this year.

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