[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 30 (Tuesday, March 11, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H853]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 UNITED STATES ONLY ADVANCED NATION NOT TO PROVIDE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL 
                               ITS PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Davis] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, today, like every day in America, 
788 babies will be born at a low birthweight. They will start life at 
risk. We rank 18th in the industrialized world in the percentage of 
babies born at dangerously low birth weight.
  Let me put it another way: No industrialized country in the world 
does worse. Our infant mortality rate is 8.4 per 1,000 live births. We 
rank 18th in the industrialized world in infant mortality.
  Sometimes it takes a poet to put our feelings into words when we hear 
such statistics. Gwendolyn Brooks, poet laureate of Illinois, penned 
this question: ``What shall I give my children who are poor, who are 
judged the least wise of the land?''
  Mr. Speaker, we keep asking the question, ``What shall we give our 
children?'' We are the only advanced Nation in the world that does not 
provide health care for all of its people.
  According to the GAO, some 10 million children, 1 in 7 in the United 
States, are uninsured, the highest level since 1987, before Medicaid 
expansions for children and pregnant women. One child in four in the 
United States is now covered by Medicaid. The percentage of children 
with private insurance reached the lowest level in 8 years: 65.6 
percent.
  How do we describe the emotion of seeing a child suffering a severe 
asthma attack; turning blue while their chest and stomach attempts to 
breathe? Yet more than half of the uninsured children with asthma will 
not see a doctor this year. Some of them will die from asthma, a 
preventable disease.
  How do we describe the cries of a child with an ear infection? Only a 
parent knows the feeling of helplessness that comes when you cannot 
relieve your child's pain. Yet one-third of the uninsured children with 
recurrent ear infections never see a doctor. Many suffer permanent 
hearing loss.
  Only 75 percent of preschoolers are getting the recommended 
vaccinations. Some 1 million still need one or more doses. In many of 
our big cities, like Chicago, the immunization rate is less than 65 
percent.
  What shall we give our children?
  Twelve percent of child deaths are excess deaths. Excess is the 
medical term meaning that these deaths were preventable. How can a 
Nation such as ours accept 12 percent excessive deaths?
  What shall we give our children?
  Almost 45 percent of all 3- and 4-year-olds from low-income families 
participate in center-based care. By every measure of health care 
status, low birth weight, prematurity, infant mortality, likelihood of 
injury, malnutrition, incidence of infectious disease, poor children 
fare worse than any others. However, only Head Start routinely provides 
preventive health and dental care treatment.
  It is estimated that the $54 billion cut from the safety net last 
year will push more than 1 million additional children into poverty and 
millions more will be pushed even deeper into poverty.
  The poet June Jordan warned us ``Our children will not survive our 
habits of thinking, our failures of the spirit.'' If all of the promise 
of democracy is to mean anything, if all of the incredible wealth we 
have accumulated is to mean anything, if all of the work, the struggle, 
the suffering, the dreaming, the devotion that make this country what 
it is today is to mean anything, then we must answer the question: 
``What shall we give our children?''
  Let us give them a chance. Let us at least make their health a right 
and not a privilege. Let us make sure that in this Congress every child 
will have access to quality health care when he or she is sick, 
regardless of the ability of their parents to pay. Let us make sure 
that every mother receives prenatal care regardless of ability to pay. 
Let us make sure that every child receives preventive care regardless 
of the ability of their parents to pay.

                              {time}  1830

  A guarantee of quality accessible health care for every child cannot 
be the full answer to the question, but we must give our children 
nothing less.

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