[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20234-20235]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                POVERTY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking and 
applauding our colleague, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who will lead the 
next hour for the concurrent resolution she has introduced and which I 
co-sponsor which everyone ought to support which affirms the obligation 
and leadership of the United States to improve the lives of the 37 
million Americans living in poverty, 13 million of which are children.
  The entire country and indeed the world got but a glimpse of the big 
picture as we watched in horror as the floods washed away the facade 
and exposed the poverty that exists in this the richest and most 
powerful Nation in the world. The added tragedy was the insensitivity 
and lack of urgency with which Katrina's victims were treated.
  The moral question we are faced with today and which every person in 
this country must answer is, what are we going to do about it? As 
leaders of this Nation, we have the obligation to begin that answer 
now.
  My colleagues and I tonight will be joining Congresswoman Lee to lead 
us in that response.
  What everyone else saw perhaps for the first time was not a surprise 
to us. We have come to this body, to task forces and committee 
meetings, here to the well of the House and to countless press 
conferences to tell the world that this level of poverty exists, that 
it disproportionately includes African Americans and other people of 
color. And we have called on the Congress and the White House through 
our budget proposals and legislative agenda to repair the breach in our 
human condition, largely to no avail.
  While the events of the last 2 weeks have spoken volumes in ways our 
words could not, we must not let what happened in Alabama, Mississippi, 
and even more so in Louisiana ever happen again. So as we appropriate 
dollars to fix the levees and other infrastructure that has been 
damaged or destroyed, we must also fix the social and economic 
infrastructure which failed so many and exacerbated the tragedy, and we 
must repair broken lives for the short and long term. That includes 
repairing a very deficient and dysfunctional health care delivery 
system in rural areas, the territories, and communities of color.
  Almost as a last warning before the storm hit and the flood waters 
surged came the new numbers from the Census Bureau on income, poverty, 
and health insurance status in this country. Louisiana, Mississippi, 
and Alabama are three of our poorest states. In these

[[Page 20235]]

states, about six in every ten African Americans are living at or below 
the Federal poverty line.
  In the wake of the storm and even before the waters began to recede 
came a second report as a reminder of how deep we have to reach into 
America's psyche to repair the damage. That report, Closing the Gap: 
Solutions to Race Based Health Disparities, assessed and analyzed the 
impact that social determinants, such as economic, social, 
environmental, and cultural inequities, have on health and health care. 
These inequities provide a medium in which poverty not only continues 
to exist but thrives.
  Poverty is perhaps the most closely aligned determinate of ill 
health. It then should follow that the elimination of poverty would go 
a long way to eliminating the long-standing health care inequities that 
result in health care disparities for African Americans and other 
people of color that are the shame of this wealthy Nation.
  It is my hope that this country, my country, will never forget 
Katrina and recognize that what was laid bare is only a fraction of 
what exists, particularly in the South but throughout this country.
  As leaders, I hope my colleagues will join us to ensure that the 
infrastructure is put in place so that nowhere across the United States 
will such a preventable travesty ever happen again.
  Part of that would be to pass our legislation to create health 
empowerment zones in communities such as those in which poverty and the 
concurrent ill health trapped their victims. This legislation would 
assist and empower them to address health care challenges and improve 
the public health infrastructure as well as mitigate the social, 
environmental, and economic determinants of health.
  It is part of a larger legislative initiative for which we also ask 
your support, the Heal America Act of 2005, a comprehensive bill, a 
sort of Marshall Plan for health that would reverse the dynamics that 
lead to the disproportionate death, disease, and disability which 
people of color suffer.
  Lastly, not allowing this to ever happen again includes not cutting 
Medicaid. Not only is it needed in this crisis, which has been 
described as in biblical proportions, but it is needed in the everyday 
crises that result in over 100,000 preventable premature deaths in 
people of color every year. My colleagues, this, too, is the annual 
unacknowledged catastrophe that we can and must prevent.
  Mr. Speaker, let us honor the memory of the victims of Katrina and 
the suffering of the survivors by eradicating poverty, by creating a 
fair, equitable and just health care system and by building a better 
America where there is the guarantee of life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness for all.

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