[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 21326-21333]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        HEALTH CARE IN COLORADO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis) is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, over the last month, I've asked my 
constituents to share their health care stories with me so that I can 
share them with the Nation with regard to how we can improve upon our 
current health care system and some of the problems that exist that 
many Americans face every day.
  One of my constituents from Boulder asked that her name not be used. 
When she was 17, she was diagnosed with the HPV virus that causes 
cervical cancer. It wasn't an easy diagnosis to reach. She had the 
symptoms of a miscarriage but she wasn't pregnant. That was later 
verified by the doctors. The only other syndrome that matched her 
symptoms was cervical cancer. Because of her age and the fact that she 
hadn't been sexually active for long enough to develop lesions, her 
doctor said it was statistically impossible for her to have cervical 
lesions. She said it was most likely a problem with the pill.
  She returned every day of the week, had exams, and was given no 
information. She continually asked for a test to see if she had cancer 
or tumors, but her doctor refused the test and said it would be a waste 
of money and insurance probably wouldn't cover them. Even when she said 
she'd pay for the tests, she was denied them. She asked for a referral 
to a different doctor, and the doctor wouldn't give her a referral for 
the same reason. Statistically nothing is wrong, they said. It would be 
a waste of money.
  Finally, this young women asked her mom to come with her, and after 
making them wait for an hour until the office closed, the doctor had a 
conference with other doctors and finally gave her a referral. She got 
an appointment, found out what was wrong and had surgery to fix it. 
Thank goodness that her mother helped her out with the cost.
  Now, this young lady is having similar problems. She saw her new 
doctor to see what was wrong and decided they needed to run a few 
tests. She didn't tell her, however, that the six tests would add up to 
over $1,000 and her insurance only covered $300. When this young lady 
from Boulder, Colorado, was 20 years old, she went through what too 
many Americans are victims of and, unfortunately, she was raped and she 
contracted herpes. She started generic medication but it didn't work so 
she was prescribed Valtrex, which has no generic, and now it costs her 
out of pocket $200 a month just for that medication, which she can't 
afford most months.
  Mr. Speaker, it is for women such as this across our country that we 
need to pass health care reform so that people don't have to be told 
``no'' by their doctor, ``no'' by their insurance company, and they can 
get ongoing treatment for conditions that aren't their fault, might 
have been misdiagnosed, but they still have a healthy life ahead of 
them. And by passing health care reform now we can make sure that the 
next generation won't have to go through what this young lady in 
Boulder, Colorado, did.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to share with the House stories from our Second 
Congressional District in Colorado about real people's experience with 
health care.
  One gentleman in my district, a fellow by the name of Alex Medler, 
who is a friend of mine, gave permission for his story to be used on 
the floor of the House. He went through a very difficult experience 3 
years ago when his mother died of lung cancer. The average life 
expectancy of a person with lung cancer as advanced as hers was only 8

[[Page 21327]]

weeks when she was diagnosed. But she was a fighter.
  Soon after her diagnosis, she began receiving treatment with modern 
hormone-like drugs. For whatever reason--whether it was the new drugs, 
good luck, or her sheer determination--she endured for 3 years after 
she was given 8 weeks to live.
  Alex still remembers very clearly a day when he was visiting his 
mother when she received yet another letter from the insurance company 
explaining that her treatments, which cost about $60,000 for just a few 
months of treatment, were not covered by insurance.
  Alex and his family knew that they would lose her soon, and they 
tried to spend their time together as a family enjoying her final days, 
giving her the opportunity to play with her grandchildren and spend 
time with her family. But every hour that she and Alex's father engaged 
in the battle with the heartless insurance companies over these issues 
was precious time and stress that could have been better spent, and 
their fear of not being able to afford treatment and her guilt of 
having so many resources spent on her behalf were not things that the 
family wanted to discuss when someone was facing the end of their life. 
They had much more important things on their minds and their hearts.
  This constituent, Alex Medler from Boulder, writes that improved 
health care in America should allow families the confidence and peace 
to focus on each other when it matters most, and it should move us away 
from having to fight with our insurance providers when we have better 
things to do.
  Well said, Alex, and I think that the House of Representatives can 
learn a lot from the experience that you've allowed to be shared before 
our body.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to share stories of real people from Colorado who 
shared with me their health care experiences so that I might share them 
with the House of Representatives to build the case and show what's 
happening in health care today and how we need to change it.
  One of my constituents, a woman from Northglenn who asked that her 
name not be used in sharing this story, told me that she's a 32-year-
old woman who pays $642 a month for health care. That doesn't even 
include her prescription drugs, which average $100 to $200 a month. She 
has a bad knee. So when her COBRA expired, she had to continue her 
health care plan and didn't qualify for less expensive plans. She only 
works part-time with her new job. Fortunately, right now her boyfriend 
is able to cover her overwhelming medical expenses or she believes she 
wouldn't have any health care at all.
  She had MRIs for her knees at $300 each, and more recently, her brain 
was diagnosed as having too much fluid in it and she had to have that 
drained. In the last 6 months, she said she spent $1,500 just in 
medical imaging out of pocket, and she can't afford to keep doing this.
  She writes, If there was another option for me, I would take it in a 
heartbeat. Please help.
  Those are words that we in Congress need to heed to provide another 
option for this woman from Northglenn and for millions of Americans 
like her who are caught between jobs, out of work, and lack care.
  Through the exchanges that are being created in this health care 
reform, we're creating a low-cost option for people who are self-
employed, for people who are unemployed, for people who work at small 
companies preventing pricing discrimination based on preexisting 
conditions that would bring health care to people like this woman from 
Northglenn. And it's her we need to keep in mind as we move with speed 
to pass health care reform in this body.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share stories with you of real people 
from Colorado who've had trouble with our health care system who shared 
their stories with me and who wanted me to convey to the House of 
Representatives and the country what they've been dealing with and how 
we have this tremendous opportunity to improve it.
  One of my constituents is Debbie from Boulder. Debbie's son was 
diagnosed in 2000 with Type 1 diabetes when he was just 4 years old. 
From that moment on, Debbie and her family knew that if at any time 
their health insurance ended, their son could not possibly be able to 
get health insurance again at a reasonable cost because of a 
preexisting condition. If Debbie's husband were to lose his job, he'd 
have to get COBRA or pay for insurance themselves out of pocket.
  They'll always worry under the current health care system that their 
son might not have continued coverage as an adult because it takes a 
very little break in coverage to be unable to receive coverage in the 
future.
  Debbie is hopeful that the public option will be available as a 
backup and as a competitor to the private insurance plans out there.

                              {time}  1530

  Debbie writes: the diabetes is such an expensive chronic disease, and 
without proper medication, diabetics will go under comas or seizures 
with the possibility of death. Debbie's son needs insulin daily and to 
have glucose testing and supplies to regulate. That's the minimum 
requirement. But without insurance, Debbie writes, that is an 
impossibility unless one is wealthy. Debbie has asked the United States 
Congress to pass the public option on health care reform to take some 
of the fear from her son's life and from her son's mother's daily 
worries.
  There are millions of families across the country like Debbie's, 
families that worry about a preexisting condition that wasn't their 
fault. It may have been genetic. It may have been a childhood illness. 
I had a friend who at age 41 had a heart attack. He lived healthfully, 
ate healthfully and he worked out. It still happened. For him to be 
uncoverable for the rest of his life, what kind of system do we have in 
this country where people like Debbie's son, who is diagnosed at age 4 
with diabetes, has a difficult life ahead of them in terms of getting 
coverage?
  What we offer under this bill is to ban discrimination in pricing and 
exclusions based on preexisting conditions. This would help Debbie's 
son and Debbie's family and ensure that everybody in this country has 
the health care that they need and the chance to succeed.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share stories from real people in 
Colorado about the urgent need for health care reform in this country. 
One of my constituents gave me a very powerful story. She asked that 
her name not be used. She lives in Louisville, Colorado. She and her 
husband sell health insurance through a small agency, and she confided 
to me that she knows firsthand how broken the system really is.
  She wants to see Congress pass real reform. She writes that she 
understands that that reform might make part of her own job obsolete. 
They make a good living selling insurance, and they think that their 
job isn't necessary. They help folks navigate a very complicated 
system. However, she knows that they can only help people who already 
have money.
  The U.S., she writes, rations health care based on income, and that 
is just wrong. Health care should not be profit based. She writes: 
greed is very American and has infiltrated the health care industry in 
a most dangerous way. I truly believe the only way to solve this mess 
is to make the insurance companies switch to nonprofit entities, much 
like Kaiser Permanente. I believe that what is happening is terrible. 
In our country, we worship the right to make a profit instead of the 
right to health care. Please work to change that.
  How powerful that a woman whose income derives from an industry, puts 
food on the table, sees what is happening in that industry, sees the 
wasted effort spent on sales, on marketing of an ever more complex 
system. With the proposed health care reform that we are talking about 
in Washington, we will simplify the system, give people one-stop 
shopping through the exchange, a low-cost option that small employers, 
unemployed and self-employed people can sign up for and have

[[Page 21328]]

a multitude of options on a single menu without the need for sales 
executives or sales associates to market to people. We are bringing the 
choices right to their doorstep and creating savings in the process 
that will go back into covering more Americans and provide a better 
quality of health care for everyone.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with the House of Representatives 
powerful stories from Colorado, from real people who shared with me 
their experiences with health care and what we can do better to improve 
health care through health care reform.
  Renee from Northglen, Colorado, shared with me that she lived in 
Canada for 10 years with her husband. They had been transferred there 
as part of his job. Renee's experience in Canada is that the health 
care system worked extremely well, and she had even been diagnosed and 
dealt with major illnesses while she was there. Renee was impressed 
that she had an amazing doctor, that she was able to choose from a 
multitude of doctors of her own free will. And she had that same doctor 
for her entire 10 years in Canada.
  When Renee and her husband moved back to Colorado, they went into 
business on their own. They started a small business that employed 
seven staff. It's always a financial struggle to pay high premiums, but 
they made those personal sacrifices to keep their employees insured and 
do the right thing as employers. But then the insurance company dropped 
them, and they picked up another, and they had to change physicians. 
This happens across our country every day.
  It happened another time, and once again, a new physician, a new 
history, a new relationship. In the last 10 years that they have been 
in the United States, she and her small company have been through about 
six different insurance programs.
  Unfortunately, that is all too common. If the U.S. could come up with 
a coherent insurance plan that lowers premiums, Renee, as a small 
businesswoman, writes, the economy will start picking up steam again 
with the extra capital that businesses will gain by lower premiums. 
Renee further writes that the scare-mongering that is put out by the 
insurance lobby is mind-numbing. The horror stories of other countries' 
systems is sheer ignorance. Our situation in the United States is far 
worse, and more people die because of a lack of health care.
  It is real experiences of real Americans like Renee that will win out 
at the end of the day and help convince America that we need health 
care reform to help people like Renee see the same doctor for 10 years, 
save small businesses money by creating exchanges which allow small 
businesses to enter larger risk pools, banning pricing discrimination 
based on preexisting conditions and tax credits to businesses for 
covering the employees.
  I call upon the House of Representatives to pass health care reform 
and help Renee's business and her own personal health in establishing a 
relationship with a doctor for a period of time.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share stories of real people in Colorado 
and their experiences with our health care system and suggestions and 
recommendations for how we can improve it through health care reform.
  Debbie Weingardt from Bloomfield shared a story with me that I want 
to share with you in the House today. Debbie was run over as a 
pedestrian in a car accident. She broke her back in three places, and 
both knees and shoulders had to be redone with surgery, and she pushed 
her husband out of the way and was further injured in that process. She 
was laid up for 3 years in bed and had to have seven surgeries. She 
then lost her insurance. With these conditions, she writes, I can't get 
reinsured. We need this health care reform.
  Mr. Speaker, there are millions of Americans like Debbie who have 
been in accidents, had preexisting conditions. One of the things we 
accomplish in this health care reform bill is we ban pricing 
discrimination and exclusions based on preexisting conditions. We allow 
people like Debbie to access health care through an exchange with a 
maximum out-of-pocket, with a low deductible, be able to afford the 
health care they need to live a productive life and not have to worry 
every moment about losing their home, their assets, and their families 
to medical costs and difficulties.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you stories of real people 
from Colorado making the case for why we need health care reform in 
this country. I have a constituent who lives in Westminster, Colorado. 
He asked that his name not be used. He shared with me that 10 years ago 
after his son and daughter were married and they began starting a 
family, they are both small businesses people, own and operate their 
own business, neither one has employees, and both incomes barely pay 
their bills. They found that insurance was unavailable for them. They 
were in their childbearing years, didn't have large amounts of 
disposable income and didn't have enough equity in their businesses.
  So, like a lot of Americans starting out trying to build a company or 
an idea from scratch, they scraped together what they could. They saved 
nickels and dimes in an effort to collect enough money to afford to 
have the baby and the family that they wanted.
  Fortunately, they saved part of the necessary $10,000 for hospital 
expenses, and the hospital agreed to give them a payment plan, kind of 
like buying a car. They had a beautiful little girl. Shortly 
thereafter, they had a second child, a boy. The oldest child is about 
4, and they still haven't been able to pay off their debts to the 
hospital for their two children. Those debts continue to hang over 
their heads. They pay a monthly bill that is attached with enormous 
interest. The irony in this story is that the businesses are now doing 
better. They have employees and their equity positions have blossomed.
  Now the insurance sales people call begging them to accept their 
coverage. They take the obvious position of refusing to sell when the 
chance of payout is high and begging the sale when it's obvious they 
will be selling to young healthy individuals who have the wherewithal 
to pay all their bills.
  The gentleman from Westminster who shared this story believes that we 
need to make sure that future generations of Americans don't face the 
same difficulties that his daughter and son-in-law faced in raising 
their family, to be born into a legacy of debt before you even speak 
your first words.
  Under the proposed health care reforms, we can ensure that small 
businesses and self-employed individuals have access to low-cost 
exchanges. Small businesses receive tax credits to help them afford the 
cost of health care. Depending on people's income level, for a family 
of four, up to $73,000 a year in income, that family, that is about 400 
percent of poverty, that family will receive affordability credits, or 
vouchers, to be able to use at the insurance provider of their choice.
  By helping put insurance in reach of more American families, we can 
help improve the peace of mind and health outcomes for families like 
this family in Westminster, nationally.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with my colleagues in the House of 
Representatives stories from real people in Colorado about why we need 
health care reform today. Pat from Westminster writes in that I feel 
strongly we must have a public option for health care. Health care 
reform is intended to provide health care, not profits, for insurance 
companies. Pat writes that Pat had public option plans for most of her 
life, and all of them delivered excellent health care. She worked for 
the military overseas and had excellent care. She worked for the 
Federal Government in the United States and had the coverage provided 
through the Office of Personnel Management. She now has Medicare in 
addition to the OPM plan, excellent coverage. She has never been denied 
necessary care, and she has been given care that was far better than 
what she expected.
  As a result, today she is 70. She is in much better condition and 
health than

[[Page 21329]]

many of her contemporaries. She exercises daily and goes dancing 
several times weekly. Life is good, and it is due in large part, she 
writes, to good health and dental care with a lifetime as a member of a 
public option, maligned frequently by our colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle as government-run health care, as socialized medicine.
  We have a constituent, Pat, from Westminster who writes in and who 
says thank goodness for her public plan. If only more people would have 
the opportunity to participate in this kind of public plan, a lot of 
America's ills would dissipate. People would be healthier, and we would 
save money in providing care to all Americans.
  It is stories of people like Pat that can inspire us to pass the 
public option as part of comprehensive health care reform.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you and the House of 
Representatives real stories of people from Colorado and their 
experiences with our health care system. I have a constituent in 
Silverthorne, Colorado. He asked that his name not be used, and he 
shared with me that his health insurance premiums between 2007 and 2008 
went up from $900 a month to $1,500 a month. Both he and his wife are 
healthy. They rarely use insurance. But his wife just turned 60, so 
United Health Care said that was the primary reason for the increase.
  This family in Silverthorne could not continue to carry their 
coverage, so they are currently uninsured waiting several years until 
Medicare kicks in. While he was covered, he decided he needed a full 
physical. He hadn't had one in 5 years. His policy provided up to one 
physical a year. He called to make sure it was covered and was told it 
was. He asked, Are you sure it's covered? Are you sure it's covered? 
They said, Don't worry. It's covered. Go get your physical. Then like a 
lot of what happens with Americans dealing with insurance companies, 
bait and switch, sure enough, they got billed for most of the cost, 
about $550 for a physical, and the insurance company only paid $120.
  So this gentleman from Silverthorne called to protest. He said, You 
told me you covered the tests. Why didn't you cover the test? How, I 
asked, could I have a physical without tests? That's part of it. By 
definition, a physical is a series of tests.
  This gentleman from Silverthorne further writes that he has so many 
friends with similar stories, he hopes that he never has to sign up 
with an insurance company again.
  Through comprehensive health care reform, we can allow people like 
this gentleman from Silverthorne and his wife, who worry in their 
golden years before they're eligible for Medicare, what are they going 
to do, losing their benefits at 58 years old, 60 years old, 62 years 
old. By having a low-cost exchange and a public option, effectively, 
people like this gentleman from Silverthorne can buy into Medicare 
early.

                              {time}  1545

  That's one of the proposals of the public option, the version of the 
public option that's in the bill passed out of the Education and Labor 
Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, essentially a program with 
a provider network very similar to Medicare. It allows people like this 
person from Silverthorne, Colorado, my congressional district, to buy 
into Medicare a few years early at a low cost and be able to avoid 
going without health care during a time in his life that is a critical 
time to have health care.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with the House of Representatives 
stories of real people from Colorado and the issues that they've had 
with our current health care system and why we need to reform it.
  One of my constituents from Westminster, Colorado--she asked that her 
name not be used--shared a very powerful story with me. She shared the 
story of her daughter who has multiple sclerosis, MS, so she can't get 
health care insurance at any cost. It took her over 3 years to be 
approved for disability through her Social Security, and she had to 
wait another year until she could apply for Medicare. During that time 
she couldn't obtain any insurance, including Medicaid.
  This constituent from Westminster told me, Something really needs to 
change so that everyone can receive the health care they need no matter 
what. Many people who are employed only have 80/20 health care after 
several thousands of dollars are spent on deductibles.
  This story repeats itself too often all across our country. People 
who suffer from preexisting conditions, it could have been genetic, a 
childhood illness--I have a friend who is 41 years old; he did 
everything right, lived a healthy lifestyle, ate well, he still had a 
heart attack at 41. That will be a preexisting condition for the rest 
of his life. So, too, this woman's daughter from Westminster who deals 
with MS will be insurable only at an extremely high cost for her life 
and only after going through a several-year process that resulted in 
her getting disability. One of the important accomplishments of the 
proposed health care reform is we ban pricing discrimination and 
exclusion based on preexisting conditions.
  I call upon the House to pass health care reform that helps people 
like this family from Westminster have affordable health care 
throughout their lives.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you real stories from people 
of Colorado who have shared with me their stories to inform the House 
of Representatives and let my colleagues know how critical it is that 
we pass health care reform.
  One of my constituents lives in Boulder. She asked that her name not 
be used in talking about this story. She is employed and she has health 
care. She considers herself one of the lucky ones. Nevertheless, she 
has a firsthand viewpoint of how the system is broken.
  She carefully planned for the hip surgery that her daughter needed. 
She paid what she thought were the out-of-pocket costs, $15,000. She 
was okay with that. She had that, she paid that, but still the bills 
came. This woman has a doctorate, a Ph.D. and yet she spent hours 
trying to understand the amazing array of EOBs--explanation of 
benefits--statements and bills that barraged her. She had to learn the 
nuances of the system, and that her main out-of-pocket costs didn't 
really cover the bilge cost.
  In other words, despite all of her research and being able to afford 
and put aside $15,000, she found that she is still responsible for the 
balance, over $5,000. Heaven help those, she says, who don't have the 
time, resources or patience to sort through all this mess. She writes 
that she fully supports President Obama's health care reform and 
believes that we need to pass health care reform immediately.
  This is a woman with a Ph.D. Can you imagine somebody who is just 
learning English, who hasn't graduated high school, dealing with the 
complexity and barrage of forms that I dare most Members of Congress to 
be able to understand and comprehend? Through health care reform, we 
can simplify that. By creating the exchange, we provide one-stop 
shopping for people who are self-employed, unemployed, a low-cost 
option, tax credits, affordability credits to help people get the 
health care they need to afford the treatments they need. That's why we 
need to pass health care reform, to move our country forward, cover 
uninsured Americans, and make our country more competitive.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you and the House of 
Representatives real stories of Americans who are struggling with our 
health care system today.
  Gary Kline from Broomfield asked that I share his story on the floor 
of the House of Representatives. He told me his parents never had 
health care insurance. His father was self-employed and didn't make 
very much money. His mother needed three surgeries in 2004 just after 
she turned 65. Fortunately, she was old enough to qualify for Medicare; 
otherwise, Gary writes, his parents would likely be bankrupt today 
after a lifetime of hard work and running their own business and 
raising

[[Page 21330]]

their kids. Gary writes that other people shouldn't have to go through 
bankruptcy in order to be able to afford medical care.
  There are millions of people like Gary and his family across this 
country. One of the things that we accomplish in this bill is we hope 
to reduce medical bankruptcies. We require that any policy will have no 
more, ever, than a $10,000 out-of-pocket per year for a family to help 
reduce the number of bankruptcies. Many will have less. Through the 
exchanges that are being created we will have a competitive, low-cost 
option for people who are self-employed like Gary's father, people who 
are unemployed, people who are between jobs. They will have access at 
one low cost to a large risk pool. There will be no pricing 
discrimination based on preexisting conditions, no exclusions based on 
preexisting conditions.
  What if Gary's mother needed three surgeries in 2002 when she was 63 
years old? It would have driven the family to bankruptcy. It's for 
families like this across our country, like Gary's in Broomfield, that 
we need to pass health care reform today, and I call upon my colleagues 
to join me in passing President Obama's health care reform package.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you and the House of 
Representatives stories about real Coloradans and their experiences 
with our health care system today and why we need to reform it.
  Claudia from Boulder shared her story with me. She is 72 years old 
and she's on Medicare. Claudia believes that anyone on Medicare should 
support health care reform so that the rest of our citizens have the 
same access to medical support that the elderly have today. Those 
elderly people who don't support reform, Claudia writes, should examine 
how they would survive without Medicare.
  In the exchange that's being created and the public option, we 
effectively allow people to buy into Medicare before they're eligible 
by age. You know, people sometimes approach me and they say, I'm scared 
of what a single-payer system would mean or I'm scared of what 
socialized medicine is. You know, all of these concepts already exist 
in our country to varying degrees. We have a socialized medicine 
system, which means government-owned hospitals, government-employed 
doctors ; that is our VA system that exists today. It serves our 
veterans who served us so well. We have a single-payer system, that's 
Medicare, that Claudia told us about, that is a single-payer system for 
seniors and covers every senior. And we have a mish-mash of private 
systems as well for people who are not yet Medicare eligible and have 
not served our country.
  What this bill will help accomplish is making health care more 
affordable. Nobody will have to take the Medicare option to buy in 
early or the public option. Many will choose private options, but low-
income individuals will get affordability credits to buy the option of 
their choice. Small businesses and people who are self-employed will 
get tax credits to help them afford quality health care.
  Claudia is right; anybody on Medicare today should take a look in the 
mirror and say, Thank goodness I don't have to worry about my medical 
care. Can't we do that for the rest of America? And I call upon my 
colleagues in the House of Representatives to join Claudia in her call 
for comprehensive health care reform.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with the House of Representatives 
real stories from people in Colorado about why we need health care 
reform and their experiences in their lives and what they have learned 
that I can share with the House of Representatives.
  Danny Reed from Thornton shared with me a story that I want to share 
with you here on the floor of the House of Representatives. The issue 
that he raised is with his out-of-pocket premiums, an issue that is no 
stranger to many of us.
  Danny considers himself lucky with his health, as well as the health 
of his wife and his two kids. Now his kids have grown and they're in 
college, but through all the years of paying $311 every 2 weeks with a 
$30 copay, Danny noted that that really adds up. Danny can't even 
remember the last time he or his wife have been to a doctor, and his 
kids get their sports checkups every year now. Now his daughter is old 
enough and she has her own insurance, so Danny was able to take her off 
of his, but it turns out that he doesn't even save any money by doing 
that. Under this particular plan that Danny has and the conditions that 
he faces, somebody who has more kids would pay the same as he does with 
one kid, because they say it's family coverage, but they get tax breaks 
because of the child through the child's credit income.
  Danny, like a lot of Americans, is tired of paying these high prices 
and he worries about the ins and outs of his son playing college 
football. He has to find a way, like a lot of Americans, to keep more 
money per paycheck. As he puts it, he says, Good luck with this mess. 
And this is a mess that affects so many American families. Even 
families like Danny Reed's family that has health care insurance is 
still suffering from huge out-of-pocket costs, money away from college 
tuitions, money away from upgrading the house or buying a car for the 
kids or when their car breaks down, money away from anything else that 
they might spend it on. The very type of expenditures we need to get 
our economy going again and creating demand, Danny and his family can't 
make because all their extra money is going to health care.
  Finally, with comprehensive health care reform, we will help get 
these costs under control. We create a low-cost option in the exchange 
where people can shop--a pricing pressure to stop this upward 
escalation of insurance fees, real competition for the insurance 
industry that will help Danny's family and millions of American 
families like Danny's keep more of the money that they earn through 
their hard work and spend it on their own priorities rather than see it 
leak off every week, every month, every year towards health care that 
they seldom see.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you stories that my 
constituents in Colorado have shared with me and asked me to make 
statements on their behalf on the floor of the House of Representatives 
to urge my colleagues to support health care reform.
  Larry Woods from Louisville, Colorado, shared with me the story that 
even though his wife has a good job, the health care coverage consists 
of paying $200 a month towards an $875 bill, $675 a month out of 
pocket. Because Larry's small business serves residential home 
developers whose current needs in this recession are nearly 
nonexistent, Larry and his wife need to economize on almost everything, 
like a lot of families in this recession. They don't have a great 
policy, and their out-of-pocket costs for health care are the largest 
fraction of their spending. It exceeds Larry and his wife's costs for 
their mortgage, and it exceeds their food bill. Larry's policy only 
covers generic medications, and more than once they have simply not 
been able to buy the medication that was prescribed and there were no 
good alternatives.
  There are millions of families like Larry's struggling to get by with 
the out-of-pocket costs of health care. They have insurance, he is not 
among the uninsured, and yet, still money is leaving their family as 
they economize in this recession for out-of-pocket costs for the health 
care they need.
  Through comprehensive health care reform, we are creating a low-cost 
exchange that will allow access to a multitude of plans, creating real 
competition in the marketplace. The public option will ensure that 
every insurance company faces real competition in every marketplace, 
driving efficiency, making sure that of every dollar spent on 
insurance, more of that comes back to the customer in benefits rather 
than going out the door in excessive CEO salaries or excessive 
shareholder profits.

                              {time}  1600

  For families like Larry, we need to pass comprehensive health care 
reform.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[[Page 21331]]

  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you and the House of 
Representatives real stories from people of Colorado, their own 
personal stories of why we need health care reform in this country.
  A constituent of mine, Bill Semple, from Boulder, Colorado, shared a 
compelling story with me that I feel will help encourage my colleagues 
in the House of Representatives to support health care reform.
  Bill writes that he has known for a long time that the problems in 
our multipayer system are resistant to change, but he feels we just 
need to change it. His story that he shares is his professional 
experience as a psychotherapist. Bill is a psychotherapist in private 
practice and he has a lot of experience billing health insurance 
companies.
  He shared with me that health insurance companies haven't raised 
their allowable limits for outpatient psychotherapy for 15 to 20 years 
because they have behavioral carve-outs to policies. This adds another 
layer of bureaucratic expense, another 20 percent to their already 30 
percent, a total of about 50 percent overhead.
  Bill spends hours hassling with them. Any mistakes that they make 
always seem to be in their favor. This is time away from his practice, 
away from seeing patients, away from his family just dealing with 
health insurance. And, by the way, those people on the other end of the 
line working for the health insurance companies, they are being paid 
salaries. They are costing money too. So when you are paying your 
premium, some of that is also going to those very people that are 
arguing with providers over what is covered and what isn't covered.
  Bill shared with me that frequently the insurers only have to pay 
what kicks in after a sky-high deductible for the year is met. 
Preferred provider networks, in Bill's opinion, really have phantom 
lists. They look good, but they are often made up of providers who are 
gone, moved out of town or deceased, or who aren't really even 
accepting that particular insurer.
  Bill shared with me that single-payer financing is best, but second 
best is a robust public option that people can buy into regardless of 
their status.
  I hear a lot of frustration, not just from families affected by loss 
of health care, by worrying about losing their health care, but from 
providers in our current system; doctors overwhelmed with paperwork, 
taking money, time and resources away from their practice, away from 
patient health, simply to fill out paperwork for insurance companies 
and battle them over what is reimbursed.
  By creating real competition in the insurance industry, we will give 
providers the ability to pick insurers that are easier to work with, 
that have streamlined procedures. The exchange will allow for a 
standardized procedure across the insurers, and practitioners like Bill 
Semple and many others across the country will have cost savings that 
they can pass along to their customers.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you and the House of 
Representatives real stories of Coloradans who have a lot of experience 
dealing with the ins and outs of health care that our body here in the 
House of Representatives could learn from.
  One of my constituents in Westminster, who asked that his name not be 
used, wanted me to share his story with you. His story relates to the 
diabetes that he suffers from, like so many millions of other 
Americans. His insurance insists that he use generic brands of control 
medicines for his condition. He participated in a study in which he 
found that he could reduce high triglycerides by 75 percent if using 
the primary drug for treatment. As a matter of fact, his readings 
improved so much during the trial that he was removed as a candidate 
for the study.
  He advised his doctor of the readings and the improvement, and the 
doctor decided he should go back to the generic drug and wait to see if 
his reading went back to previous levels before allowing him to switch 
to the drug used while participating in the study. This constituent 
from Westminster felt that this took away his choice, even after he 
stated that costs from generic to primaries were affordable. He was 
willing to pay the difference. The insurance company made the decision 
on what drug he could use after the near miraculous results of the 
trial drug. He wasn't even able to pay for it out of his own pocket.
  We need a system that promotes innovation. Lack of competition in the 
insurance industry has bred complacency. For people like this gentleman 
in Westminster, Colorado, and millions of others across the country, 
they need access to new, to experimental treatments that work. By 
promoting innovation among insurance companies, we open the door to 
practices of encouraging new types of therapies that can actually save 
money over time by reducing the need for catastrophic costs in the long 
run.
  It is compelling stories like these which make the urgent case for 
why we need to pass health care reform.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you and the House of 
Representatives stories of real people from Colorado who shared with me 
their experiences with health care and why it is so urgent for Congress 
to pass comprehensive health care reform.
  One of my constituents, Jane Marshall from Lafayette, shared a very 
compelling story with me that I want to share with you to help show 
what many American families are going through. The story that Jane 
shares is an exacerbating story. She is normally reticent to pass this 
kind of story along, but she knows that there is the hope of a happy 
ending because of a health care plan and her family's contribution in 
helping that occur by sharing this story.
  Jane and her husband have five children, ages 20, 18, 15, 12 and 8, 
and their health care has always been determined by her husband's 
employer. The company that her husband worked for has changed insurance 
companies from HMOs to PPOs to SHAs to whatever policy or company was 
fiscally appealing to them at that time, with no regard to continuity, 
allowing families to keep their doctor or anything else.
  This meant that none of their five children ever established a 
relationship with a pediatrician that they would even grow to know and 
trust. No sooner would they get to know one pediatrician than it would 
be switched as the company switched their health care program. They 
would start to become familiar with an office, and then the insurance 
changed again and the process would start all over again. The lists and 
amount of paper that Jane had to go through would appall all of us.
  Then two women in Jane's husband's office were diagnosed with cancer 
within a 2-year period. Their family insurance rates skyrocketed 
because of the small risk pool of the business. They researched the 
escalated rates to determine the reason behind the increase. Because 
two people in the group plan were now considered high risk, the whole 
plan had to cost a lot more. They weren't even notified of that by the 
employer or the insurance company until they got the bills. Then they, 
like a lot of families, had to find it necessary to insure themselves 
and their children out of pocket because the cost of insurance through 
Jane's husband's company became unaffordable.
  They acquired an insurance plan with Kaiser, but the only plan they 
could afford was a very basic one with large deductibles, and those 
deductibles loom like heavy weights on the family as they worry about 
what would happen if any of them ever need to be hospitalized or 
require emergency care. Additionally, during the transition from her 
husband's insurance to Kaiser, their son was denied coverage because of 
a diagnosis that he had.
  One of the things that we accomplish in this bill is we create low-
cost exchanges to provide competition among insurance companies. People 
who are uninsured, small businesses, can be part of one large risk pool 
and acquire insurance in a competitive environment, high quality at a 
low rate. We also ban pricing discrimination and exclusions based upon 
preexisting conditions.

[[Page 21332]]

  Jane's husband recently lost his job, as many Americans have during 
this recession. They are hanging on, waiting for the economy to turn 
around, waiting for him to find employment and hopefully to find 
insurance coverage. In the meantime, they are paying out of pocket more 
than they can afford for insurance. Their situation caused them to 
evaluate their finances from a survival perspective and make any and 
all cuts that they had to to keep paying those premiums. Jane shared 
that insurance itself is not far from the chopping block of what they 
might need to cut to get by, put food on the table, and continue to 
live their lives.
  While Jane feels that the waters before her are murky, she has hope, 
hope that this Congress will act and pass comprehensive health care 
reform so that families like Jane's across this country have access to 
a low-cost option, receive affordability credits to help afford health 
care and drive down the cost of care and ensure that kids growing up 
can see the same pediatrician for 10 or 20 years as they are growing up 
and build those relationships. And that is why, for the sake of Jane 
Marshall and millions of Americans like her, we need to pass 
comprehensive health care reform.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you and the House of 
Representatives real stories of people from Colorado and their 
experiences with health care and why we need to pass health care reform 
now.
  One woman from Colorado who told me her story and asked that her name 
not be shared had a son who was born with a diaphragmatic hernia in 
1987. He received emergency surgery shortly after birth, and although 
the first 5 years he had several related hospital stays, he grew up a 
pretty healthy kid. At that time, this woman didn't have to worry about 
whether or not insurance would pay for the treatment he needed. He 
received the very best care through their health provider.
  But 2 years ago their son started having chest pains, difficulty 
breathing, and was developing problems with his spine. He was a junior 
in college at the time and he was trying hard to keep on top of his 
studies and not be impacted by poor health. He saw several doctors, who 
all said he had a condition that might have been related to his initial 
surgery at birth that needed an operation to correct the abnormality. 
But his mother's insurance company, Cigna, refused to approve the 
surgery three times over a year and a half, claiming that his health 
was not compromised enough. Certainly doing thoracic surgery on someone 
whose health is compromised is an incredibly bad idea.
  Fortunately, they were finally able to obtain Cigna's approval when 
the president of the hospital and chief surgeon contacted a Cigna 
representative and discussed the case. Fortunately, his health didn't 
deteriorate during the year-and-a-half wait, and after the surgery in 
March he recovered pretty easily.
  How many people like this young man don't have parents who are able 
to be aggressive advocates for them? What if his mother didn't have a 
high school education or was just learning English? What if his mother 
wasn't with us? What if that year and a half had made the difference 
between a lifetime of incapacitation and a productive healthy lifetime 
for this young man?
  That is why we need to pass comprehensive health care reform, ban 
pricing discrimination based on preexisting conditions, and create more 
real competition in the insurance industry, so that insurers that 
routinely exclude coverage and fight the very people that they are 
there to help lose business to others who are willing to pass more of 
those patient premiums back to their patients in the form of health 
care.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you stories of real people 
from Colorado and their experiences with health care and why we need to 
pass health care reform.
  A woman from Colorado who asked that her name not be used shared a 
very powerful story with me that I wanted to share with my colleagues 
in the House of Representatives.
  Her eldest daughter, who she refers to as a beautiful, talented, 
caring and devoted woman, recently passed away after a painful 6 months 
of cancer of the spine. It is very difficult, as any parent who has 
lost a kid knows, to lose any child. Her daughter was 59 years of age 
at the time and she had no health insurance for 6 years. She was 
bipolar and had been denied health insurance as a single woman, in part 
because of her preexisting condition.
  For 4 years, she suffered pain in her back and legs and shoulders. 
She went to chiropractic and massage therapy for some kind, any kind of 
relief, paying out of pocket when she could afford to. Finally, she was 
admitted to a hospital that had quality doctors, and those doctors 
detected that she had cancer of the spine that at that point was too 
far advanced for chemotherapy to be of any help.
  If she had had health care insurance, her mother shared with me, that 
cancer could have been detected early enough for treatment that worked. 
Yet another casualty of our health care system.

                              {time}  1615

  Access to preventative care, to early detection makes all the 
difference in whether a person lives or dies and the costs of treating 
that individual. Early detection of breast cancer, early detection of 
cervical cancer, early detection of lung cancer, in this case spinal 
cancer, is a life and death equation. How many more Americans must die 
before we pass comprehensive health care reform that bans 
discrimination based on pre-existing conditions and exclusions based on 
pre-existing conditions, gives low-income individuals affordability 
credits to afford the health care plan of their choice so that they can 
be diagnosed early and treated early to prevent this terrible fate that 
this woman's daughter faced from happening to any more Americans under 
our watch or in our great country.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you stories of real people 
from Colorado who shared their stories with me and asked that I share 
those stories with the House of Representatives to help convince my 
colleagues of the urgent need for health care reform.
  One woman from Colorado, who asked that her name not be used, shared 
with me that she's a physician. She's a provider. She is professionally 
active as a doctor. Several years ago she left her hospital-based job, 
and she entered private practice. She, herself, was able to afford 
COBRA insurance for the allowed 8 months. Her insurance had been 
through United Health Care. But she had ovarian cancer in 2001 before 
she was covered through United Health Care and she's been considered, 
fortunately, to have been in remission since September of 2001.
  When her COBRA expired this year, United Health Care's company which 
sells individual medical insurance, Golden Rule, accepted her but with 
a rider stating they would not cover any cancer treatment of any 
variety. So although she can provide care to hundreds of people who 
come to see her as a doctor, she, herself, has no insurance for the 
very medical condition that she's likely to need it for.
  She shared with me that a public option is absolutely critical for 
health care reform, and she hopes that eventually we'll have a 
universal system that covers everybody. How embarrassing as a Nation, 
the greatest Nation on Earth, that a doctor, a care provider, somebody 
who helps the sick, heals the sick, herself doesn't have access to 
health care insurance. She's excluded from the very condition that she 
needs health care for.
  One of the things that this bill, this health care reform effort, 
accomplishes is we ban pricing discrimination and exclusions based on 
pre-existing conditions. Anybody who's had cervical cancer can't be 
discriminated against because of that and won't have that condition or 
any cancer excluded. It's for individuals like this and millions of 
others across the country that we need to act now to pass comprehensive 
health care reform.

[[Page 21333]]

  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you stories of real people 
from Colorado who shared with me their stories of why we need to pass 
health care reform.
  One woman from Lakewood, Colorado, asked that her name not be used; 
and she said, fortunately, she's in good health and she relies on 
Kaiser Permanente and Medicare for her health concerns. But she shared 
that she has two daughters, both of whom are single moms and both of 
whom have two children each and, unfortunately, they're not eligible 
for Medicaid, so any illness or emergency is a huge expense. They lack 
coverage.
  This woman knows that we need to pass health care reform so that her 
grandchildren grow up with the right kind of health care. With the 
affordability credits that are provided for in this bill, for a family 
of four, up to $73,000 in income, they will receive affordability 
credits to help them pay for the insurance of their choice for them and 
their family.
  It's for families like this across the country, grandparents like 
this, parents like this who know we need to cover every child and every 
family with affordable health care in this country so they can grow up 
seeing the same pediatrician, build those relationships to improve 
their health and health habits across their lives.
  I call upon my colleagues to join me in supporting health care 
reform.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you real stories of people 
from Colorado and their experiences with our health care system and why 
we need to reform it.
  Gary Laura from Denver shared a compelling story with me, and I 
wanted to share that with you on the floor of the House of 
Representatives. Gary has worked in public health for 24 years. First, 
he was a public health adviser in New Orleans. He saw firsthand the 
issues that face individuals who don't have health care. Many 
individuals who, if they had a public option for health care, Gary 
believes, would seek out preventative care, would be diagnosed before a 
condition is too expensive or too difficult to treat.
  Gary shares that in the old Charity Hospital, people would have to 
have limbs removed because they never had access to preventative care 
and they show up in the emergency room as a last resort. It's a very 
common problem across our great country. When an individual doesn't 
have access to preventative care, as the story I shared earlier about 
the woman who had spinal cancer, didn't have insurance, wasn't 
diagnosed until it was too late and left it to her mother to share that 
story which I hope becomes a legacy that helps pass health care reform 
in this country.
  But this happens far too often and costs all of us more. When 
somebody is uninsured and doesn't have access to preventative care, 
goes in after the fact and has to have a limb removed because of 
untreated diabetes or any other condition, it costs us all more. Those 
costs are passed along to those of us who have insurance, resulting in 
higher insurance premiums for the rest of us. That is why we need to 
pass comprehensive health care reform.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

                          ____________________