[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25234]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               TIME FOR COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. BRALEY of Iowa asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, the time for comprehensive health 
care reform is now. Yesterday, in the House Oversight and 
Investigations Subcommittee, we had a hearing on the impact on small 
businesses of our current health care delivery system.
  A constituent of mine from Davenport, Iowa, Mick Landauer, came and 
testified about the challenges his small business faces providing 
health care to its employees. The challenge is greater when you have an 
employee like Mick, who suffers from a critical chronic disease like 
congestive heart failure.
  In the last 2 years, he has seen the deductibles for employees go 
from $2,000 to $4,000 to $8,000 for single individual coverage. That is 
unacceptable, and that is why Democrats in the House have put forward a 
comprehensive health care reform bill that is going to provide small 
businesses with much greater opportunities to find competitively priced 
products for their employees.
  One of the things we have to do is make sure the emphasis on coverage 
applies to people, no matter where they live, the number of employees 
they are trying to insure, and to give them more flexibility in a more 
competitive marketplace. That is why we need to pass this bill and pass 
it soon.

                          ____________________