[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17832]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE

  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Americans want quality, affordable health care. Fifty 
million Americans are uninsured. H.R. 3200 will still leave 17 million 
Americans uninsured. Now, how is that possible? Because it keeps in 
place a for-profit insurance system which siphons off at least $400 
billion every year which could be used to make sure all Americans, not 
just most Americans, receive quality health care.
  H.R. 3200 will not solve the problem of underinsurance. Sixty percent 
of all bankruptcies in America are due to people not being able to pay 
hospital bills. Of those, 80 percent are insured. People just can't 
afford the rising premiums, copays, and deductibles which are the basis 
of insurance company profits.
  The only way to break the insurance companies' hold on our system is 
to guarantee affordable, quality health care to all Americans through a 
universal single-payer, not-for-profit health care system.

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