[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 67 (Thursday, May 13, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H2922]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            GETTING ALL AMERICANS AFFORDABLE HEALTH COVERAGE

  (Mr. LAMPSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to this body's 
attention an editorial that was in the Houston Chronicle just a week or 
so ago by Dr. John Stobo, who is the president of the University of 
Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.
  Dr. Stobo talks of a 43-year-old emergency room patient with 
shortness of breath who had already had a doctor's visit where x-rays 
had been ordered. She could not get the x-rays because she could not 
afford them, did not have the health insurance, and her employer, a 
small business owner, did not provide it.
  She could not afford a second doctor's visit and is now diagnosed, 
when she made it to the emergency room, with lung cancer. Since she saw 
the doctor, the cancer spread aggressively; but if she had had that x-
ray 9 months earlier, her prognosis might have been more positive.
  It is an absolute moral scandal that Dr. Stobo's patient, along with 
43 million hard-working Americans, people with jobs, have no health 
insurance.
  A study by respected analysts Jack Handley and John Holahan estimates 
that basic health insurance for all uninsured Americans would cost $69 
billion a year if typical of the sort now held by middle- and low-
income Americans.
  We will consider legislation next week that will change this. Let us 
get all Americans affordable health insurance.

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