[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 21802]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  (Ms. CHU asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. CHU. Madam Speaker, opponents of the health care reform bill are 
trying to confuse and to scare the American people. They are trying to 
prey on fear of the unknown. Opponents claim that the average American 
will fare worse under this bill because health care will be rationed by 
some faceless bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., but they clearly have not 
traveled to my district in California or they would know that rationing 
is already happening to people of every age and background. Insurance 
companies are already denying coverage if you are sick, have a 
preexisting condition, or are not independently wealthy.
  In my district, a healthy middle class father's care was rationed 
when he was told he could not have insurance when his wife was pregnant 
because he had asthma as a child. A hardworking man was told that, 
despite working 30 years in a factory, he wasn't wealthy enough to 
deserve the cancer treatment that he desperately needed.
  Health care reform will prohibit the kind of rationing that my 
constituents struggle with every day.

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