[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 101 (Monday, July 9, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H4673-H4677]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS HOUR
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 5, 2011, the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs.
Christensen) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the
minority leader.
General Leave
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5
legislative days to revise and extend their remarks in accordance with
the subject of the Special Order this evening.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands?
There was no objection.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I want to, again, begin by thanking the Democratic
leader for giving the Congressional Black Caucus this time to focus on
health care reform specifically, especially as the House is preparing
to continue their attempts to repeal what we know is a good bill and a
needed bill in this country.
Before I begin to yield time, I just want to recognize the 103rd
anniversary of the NAACP. They have long been premier champions of
health care and fought for health care as a right. They are committed
to eliminating the racial and ethnic disparities in our health care
system that plague people of color in the United States. Their 880
Campaign is based on the fact that over the past decade, because we
have not eliminated health disparities, over 880,000 African Americans
and other people of color have died premature deaths from preventable
causes. That does not need to happen. So we continue that fight in
health care reform. We have made great strides in it. And we look
forward to implementing that law, despite the attempts to repeal today.
I want to congratulate the NAACP on their 103rd anniversary this
evening, and I would like to yield such time as she may consume to the
gentlelady from Texas, Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson.
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you very much.
Two weeks ago, the United States Supreme Court justly and commendably
upheld the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that millions of Americans
will continue to have access to quality, affordable health care.
Despite this monumental victory for our country, for the 31st time
since its enactment, Republicans are attempting to repeal the health
care law, treating it as if this is just some kind of political game
played between the two parties.
While the Affordable Care Act will expand coverage for millions of
Americans, many Texans will be denied access by their Governor. And I'm
a Texan. Just today, Texas Governor Rick Perry announced his decision
not to expand Medicaid or implement a State health exchange under the
Affordable Care Act--nothing more than
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politics. However, during his announcement, Governor Perry failed to
provide an alternative plan to address the growing numbers of uninsured
Texans. Texas has the highest percentage of adults without health care
insurance, and rejecting Federal Medicaid funds would only worsen this
predicament for Texans. Without the Affordable Care Act, millions of
uninsured Americans will continue to seek primary care in our Nation's
overcrowded emergency rooms, leaving taxpayers to pay the tab, if they
own property. As a non-practicing registered nurse, I am all too
familiar with this scenario, which has placed a huge burden on our
Nation's hospital systems.
Mr. Speaker, this week's GOP messaging vote to repeal is nothing more
than political warfare in an election year. Instead of bringing job-
creating bills to the floor, Republican leadership insists on wasting
taxpayer dollars by debating a law which has been firmly upheld by the
Nation's highest court. While the Republicans have introduced numerous
measures to undermine and repeal the Affordable Care Act, they have
repeatedly failed to introduce one piece of legislation which could
serve as a viable alternative to the health care law.
I urge my colleagues to reject this effort to take away patient
protections for Americans. Instead, for once, let partisan politics
come in second and let the American people win this one.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congressman Johnson. Thank you for
beginning to lay out the issue before us this evening, as we know that
we've done landmark legislation in passing the Affordable Care Act. It
is now settled law and the Supreme Court has ruled and we have a lot of
other work that the American people need us to do.
At this time I would like to yield such time as she may consume to
the gentlelady from Florida, Congresswoman Corrine Brown.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Thank you very much for leading this discussion
on health care.
You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool
all of the people all of the time. And as we begin to discuss repealing
the health care law tomorrow, I would like to discuss just how exactly
the Affordable Care Act benefits all Americans. Although not a perfect
bill--and I've been elected in Congress for 20 years and I've never
seen a perfect bill, but a perfect beginning. And the reason why it's
not perfect is because you make compromises throughout the process.
This is a perfect start. Attempting to obtain universal health care has
been a primary goal of every single President and Congress since the
days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who fought for quality
access to health care and health care insurance reform for all
Americans. And now, 75 years later after the Supreme Court ruling just
over a week ago, our Nation has finally attained that goal. After 75
years, every single President has tried to implement some form of
universal health care.
{time} 1930
In fact, millions of Americans have already come to rely on the wide-
ranging and lifesaving benefits of the Affordable Care Act. And let me
say that as far as Obama health care is concerned, let me clear
something up. It's President Barack Obama. And let me be clear, he does
care. Let me say again, President Barack Obama does care. He cares
deeply about the health and well-being of every American.
Before Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, nearly one in five
citizens in the wealthiest country on Earth had little or no hope of
affordable insurance or getting access to regular health care. And when
fully implemented, the Affordable Care Act will cover an additional 30
million Americans and 3.8 million African Americans who otherwise would
remain uninsured.
Already under the Affordable Care Act, 17 million children with
preexisting conditions can no longer be denied coverage, 105 million
Americans no longer have a lifetime limit on their coverage, 32 million
seniors received free preventive care in 2011, 54 million Americans in
private plans have received free preventive services, 6.6 million young
adults up to the age of 26 have attained insurance through their
parents' plan, 5.2 million seniors and disabled people saved an average
of $704 each on prescription drugs, 360,000 small businesses received
tax credits to help them afford coverage for 2 million workers, and 13
million families received insurance premium rebates averaging $151 in
2012.
In my congressional district of Florida, 6,900 young adults in the
district will receive health care insurance, 6,200 seniors received
prescription drug discounts worth $3.6 million, and the average savings
is $600 per senior. And 20,000 children and 80,000 adults now have
health care insurance that covers preventive services without co-pay,
co-insurance, or deductibles.
Every American who has benefited from this needs to let their local
Representatives, their Senator and their Governor know. We all have a
dog in this fight.
The Republican Party is constantly complaining about a tax and how
this law will raise taxes. But I'd like to reply to them the American
taxpayers are already paying a hidden tax right now. Every single time
one of the millions of our citizens who lacks health care insurance
receives emergency care, that cost is passed on to paying customers
through higher fees and premiums.
So the question is, how can we begin to bring our country's health
care costs down? And this law is the first step in achieving this.
In closing, as I always say, you can fool some of the people some of
the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I thank you, and I thank you for pointing out some
of the benefits and the numbers of Americans who are enjoying those
benefits already over these last 2 years. And those benefits, as you
said, extend to all Americans, whether they live in Democratic
districts or Republican districts. We want to make sure that people
continue to be able to insure their children with preexisting disease,
their young people up to age 26, to have our seniors and disabled and
anyone who is insured be able to get that important preventive care
without a co-pay, and begin to continue to strengthen the Medicare
program as we have in the Affordable Care Act.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. I have one question before I leave. The
question of tax penalty is a very debatable question. But my concern is
anyone that has insurance is not affected, veterans are not affected.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Absolutely.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. And you will not pay that penalty unless you do
not--if you can afford it and you don't have it, then you're going to
pay some minimum amount?
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Exactly.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Can you explain that to people who are
watching? Because, basically, it is just for those small, less than 1
percent, who do not try to get coverage.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. That's correct. And as you said, there is a
hardship provision so that if people just cannot afford it and fall in
the cracks between the Medicaid expansion and the exchange, they will
not have to pay. And it will be a very small percentage, one or two
percent, that CBO has said would actually end up paying the penalty,
and it's a very small penalty. Yes, for administrative purposes, it's
collected through the IRS; but it's a penalty. And very few people
would have to pay it.
As you said also in your statement, we pay anyway. And we pay more on
the other end for not having everyone insured.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. The question is if you go to the hospital--and
I was on the plane with one of the business persons and he was talking
about it, and I said, you know, you are already paying. If someone on
this plane passes out, they're going to the hospital, they're going to
service them, and it is called, what, cost shifting? So you are already
paying the cost of the most expensive way to provide health care. And
many people do it. They wait until Friday, 5 o'clock and they go to the
emergency room, which is the most expensive way to provide it.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. People who are not insured, or even people who are
underinsured or who have a high co-pay, they have not gone for
preventive care. Now they can get it without a co-pay. And without that
preventive care, they end up in the emergency rooms in
[[Page H4675]]
the hospital when the illness has worsened and the cost is more. We can
prevent that by having everyone insured and having everyone have
preventive care.
I know people are saying that we are not reducing costs. You can't
reduce costs in the first couple of years. But if you look out that 10-
year period and even in the 10 years past that, you will see in many
ways that the cost will be reduced.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Last question. These Governors, Texas you
mentioned, Florida, these Governors are saying, we are not going to
take advantage of the expansion. As a private citizen, what can I do?
Because the President, just like the Governors, they can only propose.
But the legislators are the ones that dispose. The President brought
his proposal to Congress, but we had the ultimate decision as to what
the final bill would look like. And that is as true in the State houses
also.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. That is correct. And we will be working with our
State legislatures to make sure that they understand what is at stake.
And I'm sure that the voters in their districts who are already
enjoying those benefits and who are looking forward to finally having
insurance that they can afford for the first time will be talking to
them about what they feel is important.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Where are the health care providers and the
people that provide the additional services? How should they weigh in?
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I'm going to read some statements from some of the
primary care physicians at the end of this Special Order, but they're
beginning to weigh in. And based on what I was reading today, they are
weighing in pretty favorably. And they will benefit as well. It is
change, and change is difficult no matter what. But they will benefit
as well, and they are beginning to speak up.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. I want to thank you again for your leadership
on this matter. You've worked throughout the process in keeping us
informed. I think you're the only physician----
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I'm the first female physician. I'm the only
physician in the CBC, but there are other physicians in Congress.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. I understand. But you are the only female
physician in Congress.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I was the first. We have one other elected in this
Congress.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Well, you are certainly mine, and I thank you
for your leadership.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Physicians and other providers, the thing that we
don't talk about a lot is the jobs that will be created through this
Affordable Care Act. We did finally pass a transportation bill, and
thank God that will begin to create some jobs and save some jobs, but
the health care reform bill is also a job-creating bill. It's projected
it will create about 4 million jobs of all kinds over the 10-year
period. So we've been creating jobs as well in the Affordable Care Act.
I would like to yield such time as she might consume to the
gentlelady from Ohio, Congresswoman Fudge.
Ms. FUDGE. Thank you so much. I thank you for yielding, and I thank
the gentlelady for all of her work on the Affordable Care Act.
People seem to believe that this was something done in haste. They
don't understand that for almost a year or more, people like you,
people like members of the CBC worked very, very hard to make sure that
we could come up with legislation that would be not only a good piece
of legislation for the people of this country, but that would be
something that would befit this Congress.
{time} 1940
So I thank you for your work. You know that you have been our leader,
especially with the CBC, but as well as in this House. You have been
our leader on this, and I thank you for that.
Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues to express my strong support of
affordable health care for all Americans. The Supreme Court has spoken,
upholding landmark legislation that ensures all Americans have access
to affordable, quality health care.
Millions of Americans across the country are already realizing the
benefits of the Affordable Care Act, and the numbers are impressive:
Eighty-six million Americans have received free preventive
screenings, free physical exams, mammograms, and other cancer
screenings;
Seventeen million children with preexisting conditions can no longer
be denied coverage, and 6.6 million young adults now remain under their
parents' insurance plan until the age of 26;
Seventy thousand previously uninsured Americans with preexisting
conditions now have the security of coverage through the Pre-Existing
Condition Insurance program.
The act pays for actual care--this is something that people don't
understand. The act pays for actual care, not the overinflated salaries
of CEOs and executives. As a result, 12.8 million Americans will
receive more than $1.1 billion in rebates because their insurance
companies spent too much of their premium dollars on administrative
costs or CEO bonuses.
Let me repeat that in another way.
They are required to spend the bulk of your money--at least 80
percent--on actual care. If they don't spend it on actual care, then
you are reimbursed, and that is what is happening. So now we are going
to be rebated more than $1 billion.
Further, the law makes enormous headway toward closing the gap on
health disparities--of which my colleague knows so much. It includes
increased funding for community health centers, which are so often a
critical part of the health safety net in underserved communities.
We should be focusing on creating jobs rather than voting to repeal a
law that is estimated to provide health care coverage to up to 32
million Americans. The highest court in the land has ruled, and the
American people won. Let's stop this foolishness and focus on jobs.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you.
Congresswoman Fudge, you're right. This is not a win for Democrats.
It's not a win for the President. This is a win for the American
people.
Thank you for bringing up the rebates, the $1.1 billion in rebates.
In addition to the rebates--because some insurance companies have spent
over their 80 percent that has to be provided in service--the Secretary
has been able, in at least 12 States already, to keep the increases in
premiums at 10 percent or less. That's another function of the
Affordable Care Act. And you know our constituents have been crying out
over the increases in premiums that they've been experiencing every
year, and now the Affordable Care Act gives the Secretary the authority
to keep those premiums within not more than a 10 percent increase.
Ms. FUDGE. Thank you, and I thank you again for your service.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you.
So as my colleagues have all said, the Supreme Court has upheld the
law. It is settled law. It's time for us to move on.
This is landmark legislation, landmark legislation like Social
Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP. We have a lot more work that
the American people need us to do:
We need to continue the middle-income tax cuts.
We need to pass the American Jobs Act.
We need to continue to address the issue of the mortgages that are
causing people to lose their homes. I was reading today in one of the
papers that African Americans are expected to bear the burden of the
mortgage fallout for many years to come, longer than everyone else.
And then we also have to implement the Affordable Care Act. We have
the exchanges. I know there is a lot of talk about the exchanges and
whether we'll be able to provide the subsidies, but what we ought to be
doing is working together to make sure that that very important part of
this law can be fully implemented.
We're talking about the working poor, people who are doing the right
thing, being responsible, working and trying to take care of their
families. It would be so unfair to them, now that they see within their
reach affordable health care, to take that away. We're going to pay for
it either now or we're going to pay for it later, as Congresswoman
Brown was saying. It's less to pay on this side and ensure that
everyone has access to the services that they need to keep them healthy
and to keep them from developing those catastrophic illnesses.
[[Page H4676]]
I want to talk a little bit about what the Congressional Black
Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian
American Caucus have done in crafting this health care bill.
Congresswoman Fudge is right. We didn't start just before the bill
was passed. We actually started before the debate began in the
Congress. We developed benchmarks.
We call ourselves the Tri-Caucus.
We decided very early that insurance would never be enough for our
communities that have been left out of the health care mainstream for
so long and that health equity had to be a goal of any bill that we
passed, so the Tri-Caucus worked together. We worked very hard. We met
with House and Senate leadership. We met with the White House several
times to ensure that the benchmarks that we set for our communities
were going to be met, so that, really, this bill would provide access
to quality health care for all Americans--not just a few, but for all
Americans.
We hear a lot about the consumer protections:
The fact that children cannot be denied insurance if they have a
preexisting disease, which is important to us;
The fact that our young people can stay on our insurance until 26
years old;
The fact that there are no lifetime and annual limits, and all of
those important provisions that we hear about all of the time.
But I want to talk a little bit about some of the health equity
provisions, because this bill prevents discrimination. It defines what
a health disparity is and a health disparity population, and it makes
sure that all of the research in the bill, all of the task forces, all
of the institutes, the comparative effectiveness research, all of those
include monitoring and having a goal of eliminating health disparities
in their mandate. There are incentive payments to providers if they can
demonstrate that they have eliminated health disparities.
Health disparities actually cost this Nation. In a study done by the
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, they've shown where,
just over a 3-year period, $1.24 trillion was lost in direct and
indirect costs just because of health disparities.
We expanded, of course, the coverage in the consumer protections--
Medicaid expansion, which we really urge all of the States to provide
for their citizens who are at 133 percent or under the Federal poverty
level.
The territories, despite the vote to repeal our funding, that funding
still stands. My territory is enjoying a great increase in funding. We
have not lifted the cap. We are not getting State-like treatment, but
for the very first time, many of the territories may be able to cover
at least up to 100 percent of the Federal poverty level with the
substantial increases that the Affordable Care Act provided.
We also have limited funding to set up exchanges, and the consumer
protections and capacity building grants applied to the territories,
which really need them.
We included the Indian Health Improvement Act.
We expanded community health centers and school-based health centers
within the bill.
We provide for community health worker grants. In communities that
have not had the benefit of robust health care services, it's important
that people that they trust in the community can help them understand
this law and help to make that connection to the health services that
will be provided. That's what the community health worker grants would
do.
They have community transformation grants.
We tried to include a program that we've been working on called
Health Empowerment Zones. We didn't quite get that, but we have funding
for communities where those health services have not been available, to
be able to prepare that community and to begin to build some
infrastructure so that every community can have the benefits of this
bill.
{time} 1950
We mandated that not-for-profit hospitals create a community health
needs assessment every 3 years, and we created a Community Preventive
Services Task Force.
Having community-focused, community-developed, community-driven,
community-implemented programs is where we're going to see the biggest
improvement in health care, especially in communities of color and
communities that are poor and our rural communities in our territory.
The bill ensures that Federal health care programs collect and report
data on race, ethnicity, sex, primary language, and disability status.
We address health care disparities in Medicaid and SCHIP by
standardizing data collection requirements.
Again, in comparative effectiveness, we were able to make sure that
that research will include racial and ethnic subgroups, women and
people with co-morbidities. We establish a National Health Care
Workforce Commission that requires reporting. For the very first time
in this country, we have a national strategy at prevention, and we have
a national strategy to eliminate health disparities, for the very first
time, all from the Affordable Care Act.
We increase the National Health Service Corps and loan repayment
programs, expanded Centers of Excellence, and we made sure to invest in
Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving
Institutions.
We're going to have to greatly expand our health care workforce on
all levels to take care of the 30-plus million new people who will be
coming into the system, and we want to make sure that that workforce
reflects the diversity of our country, and that the now
underrepresented minorities have a chance to get some of those jobs and
be able to provide some of those services for the communities that they
come from.
We provide support for cultural competence training for health care
professionals, grants to the health care workforce, to provide
culturally and linguistically appropriate services. We require the
dissemination of information adapted to a variety of cultural,
linguistic, and educational backgrounds so that everyone can understand
what it is we're trying to do and be able to access the services.
Mental health and substance abuse parity was included. We included
dental services in the basic package for children. We would have wished
that it could be in the basic package for all people, but we were able
to get it in children.
We establish a prevention and public health fund, and I know the
Republican leadership has been trying to repeal that fund, to deplete
that fund, but this is an attempt to change the paradigm of how we deal
with health care in this country, not to just be dealing with the
acute, expensive, long-term care, but to focus on prevention. An ounce
of prevention is still worth a pound of cure.
We strengthened and expanded the Office of Women's Health. We
elevated the Office of Minority Health to the Office of the Secretary.
We've created new Offices of Minority Health in the Food and Drug
Administration, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service, SAMHSA, and
other agencies where it's really critical that we have that input that
really zeros in on the health care of the minorities who are the people
who are really underserved and create some of the costs that we're
trying to reduce. If we can take care of all of the people in this
country, the costs will go down.
We elevated the Center on Minority and Health Disparities to a
national institute at NIH, and they're doing great work with all of our
universities across the country.
What we've come to understand is that when you're dealing with
health, especially when you're looking from a community level, you
can't just focus on disease. You have to look at the environment that
people live in. And for the very first time we have a National
Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council headed by our
Surgeon General.
That council brings about 17 agencies of government together to plan
and to look at the impact of their programs, policies, initiatives that
help, and to really plan how we can create an environment in our
communities and in our country that supports wellness and supports
prevention and supports good health, so that people can walk in their
neighborhoods, so that they could have fresh fruit and vegetables in
their
[[Page H4677]]
neighborhoods and other things like that so we can deal with the
obesity problem, so we can deal with smoking cessation, and all the
things that contribute to poor health and really increase the costs.
When we look at communities and focus on community prevention, that's
where we're going to reduce the cost of health care.
So, I wanted to just say a word about Medicare because I am so tired
of hearing about $500 billion taken out of--cut from Medicare. Now,
that's a misinterpretation of what really happened. That $500 billion
comes from cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in part.
I was reading in an article in the paper just today that Medicare
could probably save $70 billion just in 1 year, in 2010, by really
zeroing in on waste, fraud, and abuse and implementing some of the
recommendations of the General Accountability Office--they could save
$70 billion in 1 year. Multiply that by ten, I think it comes up to
$700 billion, which is more than the $500 billion that the Republicans
keep saying we took out of Medicare.
We didn't. We made payments fairer, remember, by making the payments
more equitable across the board. So we may have lowered some of the
reimbursement rates for Medicare Advantage, but we were able to still
keep some of the better, more effective Medicare Advantage programs in
place.
We began to close the doughnut hole. We took some of that money to
close the doughnut hole so that over the 10-year period there will be
no time that a senior or a person with disability will have to pay the
full cost of their medication.
We are providing preventive care with no copayments and an annual
physical exam with no copayment. And in addition to all of that, with
that $500 billion, we extended the life of Medicare by 8 years.
So I just want to clear that up. We did not take $500 billion out of
Medicare. We used it to reinvest into Medicare, to make it stronger, to
provide more services and more benefits for the beneficiaries.
Of course, health care reform will take an investment, but it will
reduce costs over time. We'll reduce disparities, we'll have better
end-of-life care with planning by individuals and their families, we'll
have that community-based prevention, obesity prevention, smoking
cessation and health policy and every policy that I talked about. And
all of that will reduce the cost of health care.
I just want to close by just reading a few statements from some
physicians. I'm a primary care physician, a family physician myself.
And Medscape today published an article from a primary care round
table. And I know the doctors who spoke here said many, many things. I
just want to quote a sentence or two from several of them.
Charles P. Vega, M.D. At the end of his statement he says:
The Supreme Court decision breathes life into the health
care reform movement at a critical time, and we need to take
advantage of this fortune, not only to implement the most
important parts of the Affordable Care Act, but also to start
building towards the next logical steps in health care
reform, beginning with an efficient public option that
emphasizes smart, quality care.
And Dr. Robert W. Morrow says:
And now we're in a regulatory space where the health of the
public could take precedence over the profits of the
commercial health plans. And why not?
Dr. Roy M. Poses, M.D., says of the Supreme Court ruling:
The news is not bad. We're probably, on balance, somewhat
better off with some health care insurance reform than none.
However, we're still a long way from meaningfully addressing
concentration and abuse of power in health care. There will
be no rest for the weary bloggers of the Health Care Renewal.
Another doctor, Dr. Li, says:
My take is that the plan is not as good as what's being
touted by the left, but it's far better than what's being
said by the right.
And Dr. Robert M. Centor says:
Clearly, upholding the individual mandate allows the U.S.
to approach universal health care. Universal health care is
such a worthy goal that we must applaud this victory.
Dr. Mark Williams says:
For me the Supreme Court ruling on the ACA implies at least
a period of relative clarity and less uncertainty, despite
much political rhetoric. In short, we now have some time for
planning and innovation.
And he also says:
Healthcare is too precious to be considered a business or a
marketplace commodity. Whatever system we choose must commit
itself to the needs of the population and the global
community, not simply to our own personal needs. It must be
based on needs and not simply on service expansion.
And lastly, from my own American Academy of Family Practice, they
say:
Having the mandate upheld is consistent with what has been
AAFP policy for over 20 years. We have advocated for health
care coverage for everyone and access to at least basic
health services, including good primary care with prevention
and chronic illness care. You can argue whether the mandate
is the only means to get there, but at least in the analyses
that I've seen, it was one of the best identified ways to get
everyone covered.
And so, the American people, when you ask them about the different
provisions of the law, an overwhelming majority really supports the
provisions that we've been able to provide for them in health care
reform.
{time} 2000
Many physicians are touting the Supreme Court decision and the law. I
think, if we can all forget about the political rhetoric of repeal and
just work together to make sure that it's implemented in the best way
possible, we will really be doing what the American people have sent us
here to do.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________