[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25791]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  (Ms. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. RICHARDSON. I would like to show you the headlines from my 
community; ``It's Official: It's a Stinker.'' And what's a stinker? 
That, according to the U.S. Census and the American Community Survey, 
in the largest county in this Nation, 22.3 percent of the people do not 
have health care insurance. In my district, Long Beach, 18.8 percent; 
in Compton, 25.5 percent. That's one out of four people are walking 
around and do not have health care. And that's important to all of us.
  Why are we the only industrialized nation that doesn't provide health 
care? Why is it that for my friends on the other side of the aisle we 
can spend billions for a war, but we can't spend the same for health 
care? Something is wrong.
  We applaud the Congress and the Senate and Senator Reid for stepping 
up. We need to do this, and we need to do it now. I'm not willing to 
look one out of four constituents in the face and say you're not good 
enough. Everyone deserves health care. And, oh, by the way, it helps 
all of us.

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