[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20213-20214]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1900
                      HEALTH CARE AND JOSHUA LOYA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Olson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OLSON. Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that sharing real stories from 
people in our communities is the best opportunity to put a human face 
on the task before us with respect to reforming health care.
  We have spoken about costs, tax increases and job losses. We've 
spoken about access to care and about government-run options. These are 
all deeply important factors in this equation, and we have a duty to 
the American people to debate them fully, but there is also a human 
element that cuts through the debate and the rhetoric and that 
perfectly crystallizes what is at stake here.
  My Republican colleagues and I have tried to impress on the other 
side the importance of maintaining the doctor-patient decision-making 
process. I think that Joshua Loya's story says it all.
  Brittany Kraft is a constituent of mine from Pearland, Texas. She was 
24 weeks pregnant in March of 2002 when her unborn son was diagnosed 
with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. She was told that he would not be 
born alive. Her cardiologist consulted with groups of surgeons around 
the country, but none could offer the help that she needed. Brittany 
was advised that her child could be put to sleep in utero, and she 
could go directly to the hospital for a stillbirth. She was unwilling 
to accept this as her only option, and she decided to fight for her 
unborn baby.
  Brittany made copies of the fetal echocardiograms and sent them to 
the top five pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons she could find. Only 
one, Dr. Ed Bove at the University of Michigan's Mott Children's 
Hospital, said if Brittany came to Michigan, they would do everything 
they could to save her unborn child.
  On June 26, 2002, Joshua Ruben Loya was born. He was immediately 
intubated and wired. He was in critical condition, and doctors felt 
that he was not a good candidate for the corrective surgeries 
available. He was listed for a heart transplant the day after he was 
born, and after 16 life-threatening days, at 3 in the morning, Brittany 
got the call that there was a heart for Joshua.
  Almost 7 years later, you would never know what Brittany and Joshua 
went through. He is a happy, growing boy, with medical needs but with 
no limitations on a good day. He can run, play, sing, laugh, and dance. 
Unfortunately, he is immune-suppressed, and will be for the rest of his 
life. He takes eight medications twice daily, and must adhere to a very 
strict schedule to control the levels of medication in his system. Too 
little and he is at risk of rejecting his heart. Too much and the 
medications trigger kidney failure and disable his immune system, 
making him even more vulnerable to every germ around.
  I tell Joshua's story because, quite frankly, if the health care 
plans being promoted by the administration and by my Democratic 
colleagues were to become law, I'm not confident that Josh would be 
here today. I know that his mother is deeply concerned that, with 
government-run health care, she might not have had the choice to 
deliver her baby or to have access to the life-saving medical 
procedures needed to keep him healthy and alive.
  In a massive government-run bureaucracy, Americans may not have the 
freedom to make the individual decisions that Brittany Kraft made to 
bring little Joshua into this world. She was in a position to not 
accept the word of a doctor and was able to search across the Nation 
for a better chance at life for her unborn son.
  While some maintain that Americans like Brittany can stay on their 
private plans to keep government out of Joshua's health care, they are 
not considering the far-reaching implications of the government plan. A 
government-run plan means bureaucrats make the decisions and that 
private insurers will be forced to follow suit to remain competitive.
  There is valid concern that otherwise healthy people will flock to 
the cheaper government plan and that sick people will try to stay on 
private plans, putting private insurers out of business.
  Joshua's story puts all of this in a crystal-clear context for me, 
and I urge all of my colleagues to remember Josh Loya as we go back 
home for the August recess and talk to our constituents about health 
care reform. Any reform must include freedom for individuals and for 
their doctors to make their own personal health decisions.

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