[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 155 (Monday, November 4, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7782-S7783]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HEALTH CARE
Mr. REID. Mr. President, yesterday I read an excellent column in the
New York Times by Nicholas Kristof, the complete text of which I ask
unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Nov. 2, 2013]
This is Why We Need Obamacare
(By Nicholas D. Kristof)
The biggest health care crisis in America right now is not
the inexcusably messy rollout of Obamacare.
No, far more serious is the kind of catastrophe facing
people like Richard Streeter, 47, a truck driver and
recreational vehicle repairman in Eugene, Ore. His problem
isn't Obamacare, but a tumor in his colon that may kill him
because Obamacare didn't come quite soon enough.
Streeter had health insurance for decades, but beginning in
2008 his employer no longer offered it as an option. He says
he tried to buy individual health insurance but, as a
lifelong smoker in his late 40s, couldn't find anything
affordable--so he took a terrible chance and did without.
At the beginning of this year, Streeter began to notice
blood in his bowel movements and discomfort in his rectum.
Because he didn't have health insurance, he put off going to
the doctor and reassured himself it was just irritation from
sitting too many hours.
``I thought it was driving a truck and being on your
keister all day,'' he told me. Finally, the pain became
excruciating, and he went to a cut-rate clinic where a
doctor, without examining him, suggested it might be
hemorrhoids.
By September, Streeter couldn't stand the pain any longer.
He went to another doctor, who suggested a colonoscopy. The
cheapest provider he could find was Dr. J. Scott Gibson, a
softhearted gastroenterologist who told him that if he didn't
have insurance he would do it for $300 down and $300 more
whenever he had the money.
Streeter made the 100-mile drive to Dr. Gibson's office in
McMinnville, Ore.--and received devastating news. Dr. Gibson
had found advanced colon cancer.
``It was heartbreaking to see the pain on his face,'' Dr.
Gibson told me. ``It got me very angry with people who insist
that Obamacare is a train wreck, when the real train wreck is
what people are experiencing every day because they can't
afford care.''
Dr. Gibson says that Streeter is the second patient he has
had this year who put off getting medical attention because
of lack of health insurance and now has advanced colon
cancer.
So, to those Republicans protesting Obamacare: You're right
that there are appalling problems with the website, but they
will be fixed. Likewise, you're right that President Obama
misled voters when he said that everyone could keep their
insurance plan because that's now manifestly not true
(although they will be able to get new and better plans,
sometimes for less money).
But how about showing empathy also for a far larger and
more desperate group: The nearly 50 million Americans without
insurance who play health care Russian roulette as a result.
FamiliesUSA, a health care advocacy group that supports
Obamacare, estimated last year that an American dies every 20
minutes for lack of insurance.
It has been a year since my college roommate, Scott
Androes, died of prostate cancer, in part because he didn't
have insurance and thus didn't see a doctor promptly. Scott
fully acknowledged that he had made a terrible mistake in
economizing on insurance, but, in a civilized country, is
this a mistake that people should die from?
``Website problems are a nuisance,'' Dr. Gibson said.
``Life and death is when you need care and can't afford to
get it.''
The Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council
this year ranked the United States health care system last or
near last in several categories among 17 countries studied.
The Commonwealth Fund put the United States dead last of
seven industrialized countries in health care performance.
And Bloomberg journalists ranked the United States health
care system No. 46 in efficiency worldwide, behind Romania
and Iran.
The reason is simple: While some Americans get superb care,
tens of millions without insurance get marginal care. That's
one reason life expectancy is relatively low in America, and
child mortality is twice as high as in some European
countries. Now that's a scandal.
Yet about half the states are refusing to expand Medicaid
to cover more uninsured people--because they don't trust
Obamacare and want it to fail. The result will be more
catastrophes like Streeter's.
``I am tired of being the messenger of death,'' said Dr.
Gibson. ``Sometimes it's unavoidable. But when people come in
who might have been saved if they could have afforded care
early on, then to have to tell them that they have a
potentially fatal illness--I'm very tired of that.''
Streeter met with a radiologist on Thursday and is bracing
for an arduous and impoverishing battle with the cancer.
There's just one bright spot: He signed up for health care
insurance under Obamacare, to take effect on Jan. 1.
For him, the tragedy isn't that the Obamacare rollout has
been full of glitches, but that it may have come too late to
save his life.
Mr. REID. The editorial tells the story of a number of people, but
one is about Richard Streeter, a truck driver who is very ill with
colon cancer. Why? Because he couldn't afford insurance; he couldn't
afford health insurance. Kristof writes:
The biggest health care crisis in America right now is not
the inexcusably messy rollout of ObamaCare. No, far more
serious is the kind of catastrophe facing people like Richard
Streeter.
Mr. Streeter is a resident of Eugene, OR. His problem is not
ObamaCare but a tumor in his colon that is going to kill him unless
there is a miracle. He could have been treated had he had health
insurance. For him, ObamaCare did not come quite soon enough.
Kristof's column is an important reminder that the rollout of
ObamaCare is about more than a defective Web site, it is about saving
lives, lots of lives. Kristof is reminding Republicans that they should
have empathy for ``the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance
who play health care Russian roulette [every day] as a result.''
He urges them, the Republicans, to remember that every 20 minutes an
American dies. Why? They lack health insurance.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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