[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 25, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H598]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE ON THE RISE

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to draw attention today to an 
article that was on the front page of the New York Times that found 
through a recent survey that the number of uninsured in New York City 
is dramatically on the rise. I am talking about the national crisis of 
health insurance and the fact that increasingly more and more Americans 
have no health insurance. This of course was in New York City, but it 
has implications nationwide.
  Interestingly enough, the biggest problem is with children, children 
that have no health insurance. We know that the President has put 
forward a proposal to expand health insurance options for children so 
that more and more children are insured, and I think that this report, 
which I will call more attention to in the next few weeks, really 
explains why that is important.
  It says right here that most uninsured families in the city make 
between $15,000 and $45,000 a year. These are working people. And the 
report found the number of children without insurance has gone up twice 
as fast as the number of adults. This was a report that was put out by 
the New York City public advocate Mark Green, and in his report it also 
finds that the proportion of children who have no health insurance rose 
to almost 20 percent in 1995, up from 14 percent in 1990.
  The report is very informative because it really throws aside a lot 
of the myths that we have about who is not getting the health 
insurance. It is the working people, it is the children, it is the 
people that have a lot to contribute to this society, and we need to 
address it in this Congress.

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