[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 18643-18644]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1830
                    REFORMING OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Giffords) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. GIFFORDS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the most 
important domestic policy issue that faces our country, and that is the 
reforming of our health care system, this great debate that this 
country is having right now.
  Before coming to the United States Congress, I served as a State 
Legislator, both in the House and in the Senate in the State of 
Arizona, so I had a chance to hear from people all over, from Tombstone 
all the way up to Flagstaff about the challenges that they faced with 
health care.
  Before I was a State Legislator, I was the CEO of my family's tire 
business. And running El Campo Tires, I had a chance to make some 
important decisions for my employees, and that included making sure 
that they had good health benefits. Unlike many of my competitors, I 
offered health care upon hire. But year after year I saw double-digit 
increases when it came to paying for our insurance premium. Now, we 
weren't a very large company, but I thought it was important to provide 
those health care benefits. It was probably detrimental to the company, 
but I thought that was really critical.
  We see right now in the United States, as a country, that we spend 
too much for health care per capita. We spend well more than any other 
country. Yet we have 47 million Americans right now that have no health 
insurance. We have probably 20 million additional Americans that are 
underinsured, and millions and millions every day that worry that the 
insurance that they have won't cover them, that it won't be enough. 
Nationwide, premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, which have 
basically increased three times faster than real wages across the 
United States.
  I represent Arizona's Eighth Congressional District and it's unique 
because it's burdened in different ways than other parts of the 
country. This is a border district, one of 10 border districts. A large 
amount of the geography is rural, where it's very hard to get 
physicians or nurses to go out there. Many parts of the district are 
low income. We also have fewer doctors per capita than other parts of 
the country. From 2001 to 2006, the out-of-pocket expenses in my 
district went up by 32 percent; and in 2008, there were 950 health care 
related personal bankruptcies in my district. So we cannot continue to 
perpetuate the status quo. The time for health care reform is right 
now. Arizonans need reform that's going to protect us from being denied 
coverage based on a pre-existing health condition that they might have. 
Arizonans need reform that guarantees care, even if we lose our job or 
if we move or if our spouse loses his or her job. Arizonans need reform 
that fosters competition, which is critical to our free market system, 
across the insurance companies and delivers us, the customers, the 
consumers, the lowest cost and the best service available. Arizonans 
need reform that puts the power of health care decisions back into the 
hands of the patient and back into the hands of their physicians. 
Reform is not an option, and most Americans simply know that.

[[Page 18644]]

  As the health care legislation is being crafted and being discussed 
right now, we know that it has to be done responsibly. We know we need 
to pay for it. We can't continue to put today's expenses on to the 
shoulders of our children and our grandchildren. It is also critical 
that Americans know that if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. 
You should be able to make sure that your costs go down and not go up 
like they're continuing to do. There are savings to be had in our 
current system. We all know that. So we have to focus on squeezing 
those costs, every drop. We can do this, and we must do this. So it's 
really time to make sure, not that we do it fast, but that we do it 
right because our economy's at stake. Our children, our grandchildren, 
and America's prosperity are at stake right now with this health reform 
issue.
  So thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the time, and for my constituents back 
home, the importance that they know that we're going to work to make 
sure we get this health care legislation right.

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