[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25797]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  (Ms. SHEA-PORTER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to read the comments in a 
letter I received from Mr. Bradley Ball, one of my constituents in New 
Hampshire, because I don't think his voice is being heard on the floor 
today. He said that he was lucky enough to have insurance, but he had 
to pay for it himself, almost $7,000 a year. He said, ``So to keep my 
current health care policy is just less than $7,000 a year, and my 
copay for Thalidomide could be as low as $810 a month. That translates 
into $16,620, rounding off, just including that one medication in 
health care expenses for a year. Of course there are more. My monthly 
income is $1,660, $19,920 a year, through disability and pensions. How 
can I pay for my other expenses--heat, electricity, food, clothing, 
shelter, et cetera, on the remaining $3,300 I will have each year? Do I 
have some savings? Yes. But very soon I am going to run out of all my 
possibilities. What will you have me do next?''
  Then he goes on to say that he could live if we could get the 
prescriptions for him and help him pay his health insurance. And then 
he says, ``I don't think that in the United States of America this is 
what anyone would wish on anyone else. I know you would not want to be 
in this situation. I don't care whether it's called a right or a 
privilege, the current system is broken. Please help fix it.''

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