[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19554]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               LET'S COME TOGETHER TO REFORM HEALTH CARE

  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, let me tell you very clearly: 
Medicare in 1965 saved lives. Can you believe it has been six decades, 
60 years, since we have been able to come together around the common 
goal of getting a public option with health care reform? Now six 
decades later, America has debated this broken system, but we're closer 
than we've ever been before, and the American people understand 83 
percent, high numbers. They want a public health insurance option. They 
get it.
  Premiums have doubled over 9 years. You ask yourself the question, 
Can I afford to pay $1,800 a year more every year for a family of four? 
Health care reform will keep Americans from financial ruin. Go to the 
bankruptcy courts. Catastrophic illnesses have shoved Americans into 
these courts. They've lost all that they have. We have to stop it now. 
We want to leave doctors in charge of their patients and not the 
insurance companies, whose main opportunity is to say, N-O, no.
  The American people get it. The public health insurance option, that 
is what we're doing; and we're doing it now.

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