[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19143-19144]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 WE NEED TO PASS THE HEALTH REFORM BILL

  (Mrs. CAPPS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, recently a constituent called me distraught. 
She has health insurance, but that company is denying life-saving 
surgery for her daughter born with spina bifida. Why? Because when this 
mother took a new job recently, she got new health insurance, and this 
health insurance company says they don't have to pay for her daughter's 
surgery because spina bifida is a preexisting condition.
  Sadly, this is not an isolated story. Every one of us here has 
constituents who are going through similar situations. These are the 
people I am fighting for.
  Our health reform bill seeks to insure the nearly 50 million people 
who don't have any health insurance, but just as important is fixing 
the currently broken health insurance for people who have or think they 
have coverage. We will force insurance companies to

[[Page 19144]]

change these policies, and we will guarantee that every American has 
access to a plan that will always be there for them. This can be a 
private plan or the public plan, but there will always be an option
  And that's why we need to pass this health reform bill, and we need 
to do it now.

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