[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 20, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H1396-H1397]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Al Green) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the Affordable Care Act is styled 
such for a reason. Let us look back to 2009, at the time we embarked 
upon passing the Affordable Care Act. At that time in 2009, we were 
spending $2.5 trillion per year on health care--$2.5 trillion. That is 
a lot of money, and it

[[Page H1397]]

is very difficult to understand $2.5 trillion. Well, $2.5 trillion is 
$79,000 per second. That's what we were spending on health care, 
$79,000 per second. I'll be quite candid with you: these numbers are so 
huge that sometimes I do confuse them myself. That's $79,000 per 
second.
  We were spending 17.6 percent of GDP on health care. It was projected 
that by 2018, we would be spending $4.4 trillion per year on health 
care. That would be $139,000 per second. As I said, big numbers. It's 
hard to always get them correct because they are so huge and they can 
be confusing. That's $139,000 per second.
  We had 45,000 persons per year dying because they didn't have proper 
health care. We had 21 million people who were working full time and 
did not have insurance. That is 21 million people. In my State of 
Texas, 6 million people were uninsured. Twenty percent of the State's 
children were uninsured. In Harris County in my State of Texas, 1.1 
million people were uninsured.
  It was time for this Congress to act, and act we did. By passing the 
Affordable Care Act, we have reduced the cost of health care over the 
long term. It doesn't happen immediately, because the rising cost, as 
I've explained to you, was exponentially huge. It was almost 
unimaginable. To bring it down doesn't mean it comes down instantly, 
but over the next 20 years we will save a trillion dollars.
  Here's what we've done. Aside from lowering the cost, which is 
important, we also impact lives. Preventive care is there. We also do 
away with preexisting conditions. For those who did not know, pregnancy 
is a preexisting condition. We also make sure that women are not 
discriminated against. Women won't be charged more simply because they 
are females, because they are women. We equalize health care as it 
relates to the genders. We close the doughnut hole as it relates to 
senior citizens. I might also add that in '09, we were spending about 
$100 billion a year on uninsured persons, much of that in emergency 
rooms where persons had to go to the emergency room to get the care 
that they did not have by virtue of not having insurance. They were 
getting their primary care in emergency rooms. They were also getting 
their pharmaceuticals through emergency rooms. It was a time to act, 
and act we did. We passed the Affordable Care Act.
  I will close with this. We live in the richest country in the world. 
One out of every 100 persons is a millionaire. In this country, if you 
are an enemy combatant and we should capture you and wound you in the 
process, we will give you aid and comfort. In this country, if you are 
a bank robber and you're robbing the bank and on the way out we should 
harm you, when we capture you, we will give you aid and comfort. In 
this country, if you're on death row and scheduled to meet your Maker 
next week and you get sick this week, we give you aid and comfort this 
week and we send you to meet your Maker next week. In this country, if 
we can give aid and comfort to the enemy combatant, if we can give aid 
and comfort to the criminal who robs the bank, if we can give aid and 
comfort to the person on death row, surely we can give aid and comfort 
to hardworking Americans who do not earn enough to afford insurance.
  The Affordable Care Act does this. It does not require people who 
cannot afford insurance to buy it, but it does say that every person 
who can should buy insurance.
  The Affordable Care Act is making a difference in the lives of 
people. Children can stay on their parents' policies until they're 26 
years of age. This was a good piece of legislation. I supported it then 
and I still support it now. The Affordable Care Act is affordable, and 
that is why we passed it.

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