[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 24363]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 HEALTH CARE STATUS QUO IS UNAFFORDABLE

  (Ms. SCHWARTZ asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. SCHWARTZ. Since 2000, families in Pennsylvania have seen a 100 
percent increase in their health premiums. Nearly one in five 
Pennsylvania families pay more than 10 percent of their income on 
health care. This is simply unaffordable for middle class Americans.
  As we advance health care reform, we must ensure that Americans have 
access to meaningful, affordable health coverage, and we can do that by 
expanding private and public insurance options available to individuals 
and small groups so meaningful coverage is more affordable; by 
establishing consumer protections, including ending preexisting 
condition exclusions; setting commonsense policies to expand options 
for insurance coverage, including allowing young adults to stay on 
their parents' insurance policy; ensuring that Americans know what 
their insurance coverage truly means, by eliminating confusing 
terminology which results in consumers paying for expenses that they 
thought were covered, and putting a reasonable limit on insurer 
overhead and profits so that more of our premium dollars are used on 
health care.
  The status quo is unaffordable. That is why the President and 
Congress are committed to passing a health care reform that benefits 
all of us.

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