[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 95 (Monday, July 15, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1255-E1256]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE UNINSURED

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 15, 2002

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, last week, on July 11, 2002, several of my 
colleagues, Ms. Baldwin, Ms. Lee, Mr. McDermott, and Ms. Carson, 
declared that it was time for this Congress to place universal health 
care at the top of the nation's political agenda. This declaration, I 
believe, was a defining moment for the universal health care movement 
in America. Not since 1994 have we seen such a visible and strong 
nationwide movement for universal health care.
  Two years ago, in an attempt to create momentum and a unified 
strategy to achieve universal health care in Congress, I founded, along 
with Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, 
the Hispanic Caucus, and the Asian Pacific American Caucus, the 
``Congressional Universal Health Care Task Force,'' which now has 44 
Members. For over two years we have sponsored briefings on Capital 
Hill, attended town meetings on universal health care in cities across 
the country, and learned from health care experts about different ways 
to achieve universal health care.
  Mr. Speaker, I introduced House Concurrent Resolution 99 with several 
of my colleagues from the ``Congressional Universal Health Care Task 
Force,'' in order to build the momentum for passage of universal health 
care legislation by 2004.
  We currently have 86 co-sponsors for this bill. There are over 325 
national, state, and local organizations who support it as well. House 
Concurrent Resolution 99 does not specify how to pay for universal 
health care, nor does it spell out how a health care for all system 
would be administered. Instead, the resolution explicitly states what 
universal health care should be--affordable, comprehensive, and 
accessible for all Americans.
  America is on the road to universal health care. How can we as 
members of Congress justify the fact that we have one of the best 
health insurance plans available, yet we allow 40 million Americans to 
have no health insurance coverage at all? Mr. Speaker, we cannot defend 
something that is clearly indefensible.
  In the world's wealthiest country, my colleagues somehow can sleep at 
night knowing that right now in America, there are millions of 
patients, many of the children and families, that are having serious 
heart problems, lung problems, headaches, dental problems, mental 
illness, or other maladies, but are delaying treatment, not because 
they do not care about their health, but because the system does not 
care about them.
  We now know empirically, based on the recent Institute of Medicine's 
2002 report on the uninsured, that 18,000 Americans die each year 
because they were uninsured. If we truly care about the health and well 
being of working families, and those with serious illnesses who are too 
sick to work, we would ensure that all Americans would have peace of 
mind, as they do in Europe and Canada, to accessible, affordable, high 
quality, and comprehensive health care for all guaranteed by law.
  In Michigan, thousands of uninsured HIV/AIDS patients can not afford 
the necessary cocktail of life sustaining drugs due to budget cut backs 
of government subsidized HIV/AIDS prescription drug programs. Can we 
continue to allow the uninsured chronically ill, those who have serious 
physical or mental health problems to go without needed health care for 
long periods of time, jeopardizing their lives, and needlessly 
suffering due to having untreated illnesses? For Congress to ignore 
these health care injustices and continue to ``wish our health crisis 
away'' is both immoral and cold hearted.
  Plain and simple, if you do not have health insurance, you will 
receive ``second class medicine,'' as Consumer Reports magazine 
highlighted in an in depth story published last year. This is 
particularly true if you are African American or Hispanic. Might I 
remind you that the first question a nurse or hospital intake 
administrator asks the patient is not, ``May I help you,'' but rather, 
``Do you have health insurance?'' Health care in America for the most 
part is a business, and therefore, health care providers and physicians 
that are making money do not have an incentive to provide charity care.
  The Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported that the majority of 
the uninsured do not receive comprehensive charity care in hospital 
emergency rooms or community clinics. Because there is no such thing as 
``universal charity care'' in this country, we need universal health 
care and we need it now. Most uninsured patients with serious illnesses 
need long term health care treatment, prescription drugs, or medical 
equipment. Currently, millions of uninsured chronically ill patients 
must suffer the indignities of spending days and weeks searching for 
charity care. They often borrow money from relatives or friends just to 
purchase prescription drugs or to see a doctor. This is wrong and we 
all know it.
  For the past two years, the ``Congressional Universal Health Care 
Task Force'' has sponsored several briefings with my colleagues from 
the Congressional Black Caucus, Progressive Caucus, Hispanic Caucuses, 
and the Asian Pacific American Caucus on the uninsured crisis in 
America. We have heard story after story of untold suffering by 
uninsured or under-insured Americans. We have also heard from numerous 
physicians who saw patients after their illness were full blown, many 
of them who died, because they delayed treatment only because they were 
uninsured. I urge Members of Congress to read ``As Sick As it Gets,'' 
by Rudolph Mueller, M.D., a ground breaking book about the shocking 
reality of America's healthcare system. The book documents case after 
case of Dr. Mueller's patients who tragically became chronically ill, 
or died, as a result of delaying health care only because they were 
uninsured.
  The Task Force has heard from numerous Americans whose credit was 
ruined for life, and went into bankruptcy due to thousands of dollars 
of unpaid medical bills. There are approximately 200,000 bankruptcies 
in America each year due to unpaid medical bills. Individuals and 
families should not have to experience the pain and humiliation of 
declaring bankruptcy just because they got sick. I heard testimony last 
year from two Washington D.C. residents, a husband and wife with 
cancer, both high school teachers, who declared bankruptcy due to the 
high costs of chemotherapy. They were both insured at the time, but had 
to rely on their credit cards to cover the costs of treatment, due to 
inadequate private health insurance coverage. Their daughter, who has 
Hepatitis C, called dozens of doctors but was denied access because she 
was uninsured. She is having a difficult time returning to work, 
because she needs long term therapy and treatment in order to be 
productive again. This is a national disgrace.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not believe, unlike many of my colleagues, that 
universal health care means the federal government provides vouchers so 
Americans can purchase costly and inferior or private health insurance, 
that in most cases, will not adequately cover one's health care needs, 
especially if an individual

[[Page E1256]]

or family has a chronic illness. Universal health care is not a system 
where health decisions are made by HMO bureaucrats instead of 
physicians. Furthermore, it is not a system where the patient receives 
some kind of health insurance coverage through an HMO or a private 
health insurance plan, but does not have the freedom to choose their 
physician.
  It is my hope that we will achieve universal health care one day by 
extending, strengthening, and expanding Medicare to all Americans. 
Medicare has a 2-3 percent administrative over-head, versus the 20-30 
percent administrative overhead costs of an HMO or private health 
insurance plan. The CBO in 1991 reported that we would save $ 100 
billion dollars a year if we established a public health insurance 
program for all Americans. Many health care economists contend that a 
tax payer financed national health insurance program would cost the 
average family of three a total of $739 dollars a year for all of their 
health care costs, as opposed to the thousands of dollars needlessly 
wasted on premiums, co-pays, and high deductibles of a private health 
insurance plan. If we continue to support the idea that health care 
must be run like a business, and we continue to worship at the alter of 
private health insurance, it will be difficult if not impossible to 
cover the skyrocketing costs of primary care, prescription drugs, 
mental health services, and long term care through a private health 
insurance dominated system.
  National health insurance would save billions of dollars through 
reduced emergency room visits, reduced chronic illnesses, and a 
dramatic reduction in uncompensated care for public hospitals which 
treat the uninsured after they have developed full blown chronic 
illnesses. Prevention is the key here. All Americans would have access 
to affordable primary care, and therefore, illnesses such as 
hypertension, cancer, heart conditions, pre-natal health conditions, 
respiratory, or kidney problems would be dramatically reduced due to 
having access to regularly scheduled checkups.
  Mr. Speaker, every sector of the American public is calling for 
health care coverage for all. Citizens, business, labor, the faith 
community, civil rights organizations, community clinics, public 
hospitals, the media, physicians, state and local officials; all are 
calling for health care for all. The time has come for Congress to act 
on the crisis of the uninsured. Let's join the rest of the 
industrialized West, and ensure that all Americans receive high quality 
and affordable health care.
  I urge my colleagues to co-sponsor House Concurrent Resolution 99. 
Let's show the American people that we truly care about their health. 
We can not allow another 18,000 Americans to die next year because they 
are uninsured.

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