[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 8956]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         MINORITY HEALTH MONTH

  (Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, last year with the help of Congressman 
J.C. Watts and many others, we passed a sense of Congress that April 
should be Minority Health Month.
  There have already been many conferences, briefings and other 
activities to call attention to the poor health, the lack of access and 
the wide disparities in the health of this country's minority 
populations. Whether it is heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes or 
AIDS, just to name a few, African Americans in particular, but all 
people of color, die and are disabled in numbers far disproportionate 
to their representation in our country.
  No country can achieve its full greatness when it continues to 
essentially ignore the plight of one-third of its citizens and 
residents, when the right of health care is denied to so many.
  Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King said that ``of all the forms of 
injustice, the denial of health care is the most shocking and 
inhumane.'' As we debate the budget, it would be shocking and inhumane 
to pass a tax cut of any size while almost 75 million people do not 
have full health insurance and while hundreds of people of color die 
every day prematurely from preventable causes.
  We are a better country than this. Let us prove it before we go home 
to face our constituents and celebrate the most important holy days of 
the Christian and Jewish faith. In health, as in education, no one 
should be left behind.

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