[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 25836-25842]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Pingree of Maine). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Madam Speaker, let me express my 
appreciation for having the opportunity to share with my colleagues.
  Listening to my good friends who have spent the last hour giving us 
the reason why, and usually in that question there is a sense of 
hopelessness and frustration, I rise today to speak of the answer, why 
not? After some 60 or so years since the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s 
when America has attempted to travel on the journey of health care 
reform, why not in 2009?
  Frankly, I believe that we can. And as I listened to my good friend 
Congressman Grayson some few days ago on this very floor and he asked 
individuals who tragically had lost loved ones because of the tragedy, 
the inequality of lack of health coverage, health care insurance, I 
join him, and I ask that those who are sick today in America and want 
to be heard, that they are sick and getting sicker because of no health 
care insurance, I would like you to write in on my Web site, United 
States Congress, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee. Let us hear from 
you. For as we have lost, tragically, those who have passed, those 
countless families responding to a call for them to express their 
sadness and to provide us with this information, I know that there are 
those who are now suffering with their sickness alone because they have 
no health insurance.
  So, today, I rise to the floor to give sort of a summary of a hearing 
that was held today in Judiciary that allowed individuals to come to 
that room and for members to listen to them on their stories about 
those family members that are sick. Yes, some did die, but they spoke 
of their sickness. And I am delighted but saddened that those stories 
had to be told. The room had doctors, patients coming together around 
the question of why not? And if not now, then when? The Congresspersons 
came from States as far away as Ohio and Texas. They came from 
Washington, DC. They came from Michigan and Arizona and New York to 
listen to these various Americans coming from faraway places, as far 
away as California, to talk about the tragedy of sickness and being 
alone.
  Let me, first of all, start with the obvious question of what happens 
when America becomes sick? Well, right now we're in the midst of a 
pandemic of H1N1. It has risen to the level of national headlines. The 
President has declared a national emergency. In fact, newspaper 
articles are being written that one in five children will become 
infected with influenza-type ailments. So we know that our children are 
being impacted negatively.
  On this past Monday in my own congressional district, I held a 
hearing with leaders from the public health sector, the private health 
sector, Ben Taub Hospital, Harris County Hospital District, Harris 
County Health Department, the City of Houston Health Department, our 
school districts, community citizens and leaders, who indicated that, 
as we work with our Government, the Federal Government, here's how you 
can do better.
  But as I was listening to their testimony, I could just think of sick 
people, in this instance sick with H1N1. And what will my colleagues 
say if this turned into the raging pandemic where lines and lines of 
people wrapped around buildings, where people were languishing in their 
apartments and home because they were sick and could not access 
doctors?
  As a member of the Homeland Security Committee, we were founded and 
created after 9/11, the tragedy of unpreparedness in some circles. It 
was defined as people and this Nation not being prepared. So, for 
example, our first responders who addressed this question, our public 
health workers, our Public Health Corps here in the United States 
Federal Government, FEMA, and others were doing what they could do, but 
they were overcome by the fact that so many people did not have access 
to medical care.

                              {time}  2045

  There were those who might have been able to be cared for who were 
hesitant to go to a doctor. One, they could not access one, and, two, 
they didn't have the resources. Maybe they didn't have enough community 
federally qualified clinics, which is in H.R. 3200. Or maybe they had 
been denied insurance because they had a preexisting disease and they 
said they could take care of it themselves. They were on various over-
the-counter drugs when in actuality they should have seen a doctor. 
Maybe they should have seen a doctor at the first signs of the symptoms 
of this ailment and maybe they could have kept others from being 
infected. Health care becomes part of a national crisis.
  I listened to some challenge to the Constitution about the right to 
health care. I frankly believe that the Bill of Rights does embrace 
this concept because the Fifth Amendment suggests the question of due 
process. And one does not have due process under the Constitution if 
your neighbor can have health insurance and save his children from the 
scourge of H1N1, not losing their lives because they might have 
vulnerabilities as a child, and you cannot.
  So, Madam Speaker, everything is intertwined. It is an action and a 
reaction. As I listened to the hearing, I

[[Page 25837]]

made several remarks. This the Monday congressional briefing where 
Members of our delegation joined us and they listened to the idea or to 
the fact that H1N1 is more widespread now than ever before. Health 
authorities say almost 100 children have died from the flu, and 46 
States now have widespread flu activity. More than 5,000 people have 
reportedly died from swine flu since it emerged this year and developed 
into a global epidemic.
  The World Health Organization said Friday since more countries have 
stopped counting individual swine flu cases, the figures are considered 
an underestimate. The flu has infected millions of Americans and killed 
nearly 100 children in the United States. The chief of the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that over 1,000 people have 
died as a result, with 46 States reporting widespread H1N1 activity.
  What happens as this is compounded by the millions who are uninsured?
  Specifically, in Houston, Texas, there were two swine flu deaths 
confirmed on Wednesday, October 21, 2009, that have brought the H1N1 
death toll in Houston up to 15. The 15-count death toll includes 
residents of many different areas surrounding Harris County. The State 
reported one new influenza-associated pediatric death last week. What 
do we say to that child's parents? I don't know whether they did not 
have health coverage, but I can assure you that there will be those 
infected who do not. The child who died was an 11-year-old with 
significant underlying medical conditions. The child was not vaccinated 
for influenza for the current season. Not H1N1, but the regular flu 
shot. I can only imagine that there might have been some difficulty in 
that child receiving that flu shot. So many are in that predicament. So 
many do not have access to doctors and clinics and health insurance; or 
a vigorous, robust public option which would help the millions of those 
who now languish who may be working, but do not have the ability to 
access health insurance.
  So I want to thank my colleagues and my chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee, Chairman John Conyers, for co-hosting and granting me the 
opportunity to act on my idea, and that was for this Congress to listen 
to the sick. And woe, did we listen to the sick today. From 9 a.m. to 2 
p.m., we listened to people's stories. And so I share with you, Madam 
Speaker, some of the excerpts of these stories.
  I have in the backdrop what America will do if this surge, this 
pandemic of H1N1, begins to filter into every nook and cranny and find 
the uninsured, those who could not earlier get a flu shot, those who 
don't have access to a physician to determine what they have. No doctor 
to give them Tamiflu, no place to go. Not because our very fine Federal 
authorities will not be having the opportunity to work with local and 
State authorities to provide offsite places for the H1N1 vaccination to 
take place as we get the doses and as they are being produced, but who 
knows of those who will go unattended because of their lack of 
understanding or lack of information or lack of ability to access a 
medical professional. Maybe they will crowd into the emergency rooms 
and make it a national and unending crisis.
  In the hearing today, we mentioned the Vietnam War, where we 
tragically lost 50,000 of our brave and courageous treasures of the 
United States. We acknowledged their sacrifice and expressed the horror 
of that loss of life, although applauding their service to this country 
and never forgetting it.
  But, Madam Speaker, without health insurance as I stand here today, 
we are losing 45,000 Americans every single year, a war that does not 
seem to have a peace table where we can sit down and resolve this 
conflict of those with no insurance because we are stuck, if you will, 
and people are not listening to the American people to be able to 
provide for a passage of H.R. 3200 with a vigorous public option, a 
bill that eliminates the preexisting conditions, that provides for 
opportunity for small businesses to be covered, that provides for the 
children's health insurance, that closes prescription part D, the 
horrible doughnut hole that no senior ever wanted to hear about, that 
protects Medicare and expands Medicaid and opens the doors of 
opportunity for all Americans.
  Madam Speaker, The Wall Street Journal has never been a paper of 
great liberalism. They tell it like it is. However, many people not 
believe these numbers. A Wall Street Journal-NBC poll of today, October 
27, 2009: Nearly three-quarters of Americans believe it is extremely or 
quite important to give Americans the choice between a government-run 
care plan and a private plan in any final health care bill, according 
to the latest Wall Street Journal and NBC news poll. Some 73 percent 
said it was important to do so; 45 percent called it extremely 
important; and 27 percent said it was quite important.
  What more do we need to do to make it clear that we need to put that 
kind of bill on the floor of the House and the Representatives of the 
people need to vote to ensure that the sick are responded to. The sick 
that work, the sick that pay taxes, the sick that have children, the 
sick that own homes, before catastrophic illnesses causes them to go 
into foreclosures.
  The strength of the support continues to come from many Democrats 
around the Nation. But let me tell you something: It is extremely 
important to include the fact that more than one in three Republicans, 
34 percent, want a public option and view it as being extremely 
important. As did 39 percent of Independents; 40 percent almost of 
Independents want a public option.
  Now, some are arguing for a lot of different issues. I, likewise, 
will be advocating to keep St. Joseph Hospital open. Physician-owned 
hospitals have a meritorious role in this Nation. They take care of the 
sickest of the sick. But as we do this, the question becomes why not in 
taking care of the sick.
  So, let me begin recounting some of the stories that were told to us 
from 9 a.m. today, October 27, in the House Judiciary Committee room 
until 2 p.m. It was certainly an appropriate forum, a place of justice 
where people's rights are judged as we work through legislative issues, 
making sure that every person has a voice.
  I listened to some of my colleagues speak about the life and times of 
Dr. Martin Luther King, who himself understood that there was a 
necessity in this Nation to speak for the vulnerable, in his leadership 
of the Poor People's March, in his voice on the 1963 March on 
Washington, and in his own eulogy on April 3, 1968, in speaking about 
this Nation reaching the promised land, knowing that he might not get 
there with us, but that we as a Nation, as a people, could find the 
kind of promised land that would provide people with equality for all.
  I am very glad to have been able to hear from the General Board of 
the Church and Society of the United Methodist Church. James Winkler, 
the general secretary, came to this hearing today to speak of the 
commitment of his church body, recognizing their role. In 35 
congregations across the United States, he said there are far too many 
people in our pews who have fallen through the cracks in our broken 
health care system and they are not able to afford insurance and they 
are ineligible for Medicaid. I ask the question again, why not?
  He spoke to us about Barbara, an attorney. Her husband and her 
children were covered by health insurance through her law firm. She 
developed cancer, received needed treatment; and, fortunately, the 
cancer went into remission. A few years later, however, the cancer came 
back, and the family was slated to be dropped from their health 
insurance. Sound familiar? Preexisting disease. Barbara faced a 
decision no one should have to face, whether or not to divorce her 
husband so that he and their children could receive health insurance. 
The question is, is this our America?
  So we can listen to a long list of noes, a long list of proposals of 
what bills many may have. And I have the greatest respect for my 
colleagues. Obviously, when we drop legislation, we are sincere about 
it. But, Madam Speaker, there will be many opportunities to address 
some of the very good

[[Page 25838]]

ideas that many of our Members have. I look forward to an ongoing 
debate on health care, but we ask the question, Why not? In the middle 
of a surge of a pandemic of H1N1, the swine flu, countless persons in 
their homes right now as we speak, maybe even suffering, doctoring 
themselves because they have no access to a physician.
  The General Board of the Church and Society of the of the United 
Methodist Church and James Winkler, the general secretary, added this 
to his testimony today. Michael, a college student, was hit by a drunk 
driver and spent 3 days in a trauma hospital. Five months before the 
accident, he was dropped from his parents' health insurance because he 
turned 25 years of age. The very same population of 18 to 25 that a 
vigorous public option will help.
  How many parents are out there right now knowing that their child is 
going to graduate from college, or even knowing that their college's 
health insurance plan is not enough. Your child could be on a vigorous 
public option. Michael was ineligible for Medicaid because he had also 
held down a job while attending college to assist in his hospital 
expenses. During his 3-day hospital stay, he accumulated $97,000 in 
medical expenses and is now in the midst in a long physical 
rehabilitation, including major dental reconstructive surgery. His 
mother managed to convince her employer to add COBRA benefits for this 
young man at an added cost of over $1,000 per month to what she is 
already paying for the rest of her family. Now the family faces 
financial ruin because of the accident.
  These are tragic stories that we hear over and over again. James 
Winkler proceeded to say that the growing cost of health care means 
that many of our clergy and their families have inadequate health care 
and that many of our local churches have had to resort to part-time 
pastoral leadership. Many of our lay employees go without health 
benefits because of the high cost.
  Madam Speaker, the stories of the sick, those that live that are 
begging this Congress to provide a vigorous and robust public option. 
Our speakers were many, but I am grateful that they were willing to 
share their testimony.
  What about the documentary film producer? One would think that she 
would have the world in the palm of her hands. What an exotic life. 
Natalie Noel was willing to come to this place and express the pain of 
what she has seen in her filming of New Orleans and the survivors of 
Hurricane Katrina, but also to tell her story of what happened 
personally to her.

                              {time}  2100

  Natalie Noelle, a journalist with news from Indian country, she is 
also an independent filmmaker; and, as she said proudly because she 
lives, a breast cancer survivor. She is a native of Mobile, Alabama, 
and of course she knew well of the civil rights movement.
  Since August, 2007, she, working with a media company, had been co-
producing ``Reinventing Paradise.'' This is a heart-wrenching 
documentary that tells the dramatic stories of Gulf Coast residents who 
suffered unimaginable hardships. As she was in the midst of doing this, 
she became devastatingly sick with the disease of breast cancer. But as 
she was talking about her own story, she told us again about the people 
who are still suffering in New Orleans in the area, people who, with 
great strength of spirit and inspiring self-determination, are 
struggling to rebuild their lives, homes and communities.
  But the people are also faced with physical and psychological 
problems, and they have little or no access to care, no access to care. 
Even in a video that she showed in that room, an EMS worker began 
crying because of the many people that she had to pick up for mental 
health challenges; they were in crisis, and there were no health 
facilities for them to go to.
  She told this story as she began to tell of her fight as well. And 
her fight was that she, too, took ill and was enormously ill with 
cancer. Her story was one of courage, but it was devastating. In the 
middle of doing her movie ``Reinventing Paradise'' she was diagnosed 
with stage three breast cancer. She was suddenly hearing surgeons 
recommend an immediate mastectomy. ``At the time I had private 
insurance with Alabama's single dominant carrier and a comfortable 
apartment in Mobile.'' And let me, Madam Speaker, for a moment just 
highlight that.
  What the robust public option will do will provide the competitive 
edge that we don't have, will in fact save Americans $110 billion. Can 
I simply ask the question, why not? Why would we reject that underlying 
premise, that a vigorous robust option as documented by the CBO that 
will save $110 billion and it will provide an opportunity for your 
premiums to go down? And in States where there is only one or two 
insurers, you will have a competitive element. You won't close them 
down in no way. So much of our health insurance is based on employer-
based insurance, but you will give the opportunity for low-cost 
insurance and you would have answered the question that Noelle is 
speaking to us now. This is her voice. Soon I was undergoing multiple 
surgeries, several courses of chemotherapy, radiation, experiencing 
pain that I cannot begin to describe. I know there are breast cancer 
survivors who live today because of that regimen, but I also know that 
there are probably those who are struggling alone. Some may be recently 
getting the news and wondering how they will be able to continue their 
health care. Let us hear your story.
  ``Unable to work, I lost my hair, my apartment, and found myself 
marginalized, humiliated, hopeless. My insurance was canceled.'' Are 
there sick who hear us today and tonight who could tell that story, 
your insurance was canceled? In a public option, no preexisting disease 
will disallow you from having insurance.
  ``My insurance was canceled,'' but her testimony is, ``Thankfully it 
was canceled after covering my first year or so of treatment, but my 
medical bills continued to pile up.'' She began crawling back to life 
with the help of a former business partner and the support of friends.
  She recently moved to Pennsylvania where she was able to receive 
physical therapy and to complete her healing process because of the 
public medical assistance program that the State of Pennsylvania has in 
place. Can you imagine, she had to crawl her way back to a State that 
would allow her to finish her health care?
  What is the answer to the question, why not? It is simply that we 
must pass H.R. 3200 for the sick, the sicker, and the sickest.
  I want to make mention now of some of the doctors that came because I 
will tell some of their stories. But I wanted to have a poster that 
they actually brought. They wanted us to read off these names--the 
American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of 
Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 
the American College of Physicians, the American College of Surgeons, 
the American Medical Association, the American Medical Student 
Association, the American Osteopathic Association, Doctors for America, 
the National Medical Association, the National Physicians Alliance and 
SCIU, the Committee of Interns and Residents, Doctors Council and 
National Doctors Alliance. They wanted us to know that all of these 
members stand for health care reform. And the large print says, Did you 
know half a million doctors support health care reform? Did you know 
that they support health care reform?
  Many of these doctors were present with us in this hearing. Remember, 
this was a hearing for the sick, the sickest, and those family members 
who had suffered, and doctors came to share with us stories. And so as 
many as I can share with you tonight, I will do so.
  What about Joan S., Kosloff, whose son, Eric, lost his battle because 
of lack of access to health care? Joan cried with us in that hearing. 
Joan was comforted by the other witnesses. But her son, Eric, who had a 
strong constitution, had bounced back from other illnesses, had 
previous bouts with substance abuse but was recovering and was leading 
his life as a lawyer who handled pro bono cases. He was an advocate for 
those who could not speak for themselves, and he was working on

[[Page 25839]]

behalf of those people. Around October 15, 2006, he was visiting in 
Philadelphia from Atlanta. The family noticed after a brunch and a 
happy time that he had a bad cold and suggested that he go to a doctor 
when you get home, your cough sounds terrible.
  Occasionally, he went to the ER at an Atlanta public hospital. They 
prescribed an antibiotic and sent him home. Remember, he didn't have a 
doctor. He went to the emergency room. This has been the plight of 
Americans all over this country; their doctor is an emergency room. 
Those doctors are overwhelmed. I've gone sometimes with my mom, who is 
not Eric's age, but is 83. I know full well by being in emergency rooms 
often that what you see is an inundated system.
  And so he went to the emergency room. That was his doctor. They sent 
him home. He took the medicine and he didn't get better. His mother 
spoke to him after the first trip to the ER and heard him still 
coughing. On November 18 he returned to the ER--remember, not to a 
doctor, not to a primary care provider, which, by the way, H.R. 3200 
will provide enhanced opportunities for primary care physicians as well 
their specialists and other medical professionals, such as nurses and 
nurse practitioners and others who will help in the medical system. He 
returned to the ER and was given a painkiller because he complained of 
severe head and neck pain. It had codeine in it. His mother said, I 
can't imagine giving codeine medication to a recovering substance 
abuser, and I cannot understand why the emergency room doctors did not 
want to find the reason for his head and neck pain.
  I don't know if Eric took the medication they gave him. Eric's 
daughter came to visit him and they went to a friend's house. The next 
night he became violently ill and threw up. Remember, this person is 
walking around, not seeing any primary care physician, not under 
constant care, no insurance. His roommates called his wife to pick up 
their daughter. She wanted to take Eric to the hospital, but he told 
her he just wanted to sleep. He then fell into a semicoma and his 
housemates took care of him and notified the authorities.
  Finally, they called 911. An ambulance took Eric to the same hospital 
he had been to 4 days previously. He never regained consciousness. No 
doctor, no health insurance. Of course if he had a primary care 
physician he might have been diagnosed with meningitis and bacterial 
pneumonia.
  These are stories of Americans who didn't deserve to die, who wanted 
to live a full life, who were making good on their life and wanted to 
raise their children. This is a picture of Eric as his mother wanted us 
to see, vibrant, happy, serving those indigent clients that he wanted 
to serve, providing them with justice.
  What about Dr. Rebekah Gee--and I call her a miracle--another 
accident victim hit broadside, both she and her husband, by an SUV 
while they were riding on a motorcycle. She says in the hearing room 
that she was lucky. She is the daughter of a university president and 
she had access to the best medical care and services in the country. I 
told her that she was a miracle. She is practicing OB/GYN now after 
that terrible tragic accident. And her husband did lose his life. But 
she admitted that they did not have insurance, he did not have 
insurance, and she is where she is today because of the position her 
father had and the willingness of their care to be at cost or not 
charged.
  In my rehabilitation center, I spoke to a young woman whose husband 
got into a car accident--this is her talking about when she was being 
rehabilitated. He was severely mentally damaged. A family with three 
children, she had stayed at home and he had worked several jobs. Not 
only did this young woman have to deal with the fact that her husband 
would never be the same, but she would have to put all the money that 
she saved towards medical bills and lose her hope for helping her 
children's financial future. This was someone who was with her in the 
rehabilitation center. An accident or illness is punishment enough. 
That family, she was trying to say to us, was unlike her because she 
had resources through her father. Even though as a married couple they 
had no health insurance that would have covered her illness, she was in 
the same facility with a young woman who had children, whose husband 
was severely mentally damaged through an accident, and that person was 
going to have to pay. That was a sick husband, a sick family member, 
and they were going to have to pay and pay and pay and pay because they 
had no insurance.
  We listened to the sick, but they were not worn out, they were not 
hateful, they were not angry. They were hurt, and they were pleading 
for us to do something for them. They were pleading for H.R. 3200. They 
were pleading and pleading and pleading and asking us to care. They 
were asking for a robust public option to bring down costs in insurance 
premiums that employers and others provide.
  They were asking us to care about having insurance for 18- to 30-
year-olds who were in the prime of their life, but who are also at the 
beginning of their careers or they are in college. They're asking us to 
care about hardworking families who, because of the expenses of the 
day, did not have enough money to pay for insurance.
  And so I ask not why, but I ask the question why not?
  And what about the story of a young doctor, so highly credentialed--
George Washington University, faculty appointment, fellowship at NIH 
and internship at Vanderbilt University. Long before she earned a 
master's in public health from Harvard and a medical degree from the 
University of Chicago, she had dreams. She grew up as a child of a 
single parent in Detroit, Michigan. She saw the diseases that came 
about through inequity and disparities in health care. She saw family 
members not have access to health care. And this young girl, now a 
doctor, had a dream; she wanted to serve those people. She wanted to 
serve you and you and you that are now sitting in America with no 
health insurance. She wanted to be your doctor, your primary care 
physician.

                              {time}  2115

  But yet, in the system that we have, she could not find a way to 
serve the poor, to serve individuals that did not have access to health 
care and, in this instance, access because there are probably no 
federally qualified community health clinics, not enough. These 
individuals did not either enroll or qualify for Medicaid. These 
individuals didn't have H.R. 3200 or health care reform to provide a 
robust public option. She couldn't find a way.
  So, in her own words, Dr. Anthony said she boycotted and is 
boycotting America's medical system today. She boycotted hospital care. 
She left the hospital treatment system because she could not treat 
patients because there were these oversight boards that would stop her 
from treating people who did not have insurance. They could be in the 
hospital, but they would be sent home, and she would feel empty because 
she was not able to provide them with care.
  She told us about patients like her Aunt Chris who couldn't afford 
health insurance and, therefore, went without preventive screening and 
was diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer. She said she would never 
forget waiting for months to get her appointment at Cooke County or 
standing at the hospital pharmacy waiting in line wrapped around the 
corner just to drop off the prescription for her medication. Sadly, her 
aunt died in July of this year.
  There are patients like her grandfather, who died in May from 
complications of CHF, leaving his retired wife with medical bills 
greater than the combined salaries of two physicians, or patients like 
her who were denied health insurance from private insurance when they 
were unemployed.
  She boycotted the health insurance system because she, in her own 
words, said that she was disgusted and disheartened by the reality that 
90 percent of the patients I choose to serve as a doctor, my family and 
community, could not get an appointment to see me if their life 
depended on it. She had difficulty sleeping at night.
  Then she tells the story, this credentialed doctor tells the story of

[[Page 25840]]

 having boycotted the system, and becoming unemployed, she joined the 
47 million uninsured when she first moved to the District of Columbia. 
COBRA was offered for approximately a thousand dollars a month, but she 
was unemployed and she owed $217,000 in medical school loans and simply 
could not afford it.
  The private insurance companies denied her application for private 
insurance, including BCBS, Aetna, and Kaiser. She assumed her premiums 
would be higher due to the height and weight ratio, but I never 
imagined I would be flat out denied. Let me just say that again so I 
can get it right.
  She accepted the fact that she was going to have to pay very high 
premiums. She was willing to accept that. She has already got $217,000 
in medical expenses. She thought maybe her physique would cause her to 
have increased payments. But can you imagine this credentialed doctor 
could not get health insurance at all? She was denied.
  Madam Speaker, the loss of health insurance is not a respecter of 
age. It is not a respecter of your economic status. It's not a 
respecter of region. It's not a respecter of racial disparities or what 
race you are. It is an equal opportunity offender. It will attack those 
who suffer disparities because they are African American or Hispanic or 
Asian or if you are older or if you are younger or if you have a 
preexisting disease or if you have lost your job.
  It is not a respecter of anyone. If you happen to have been wealthy 
and fallen upon hard times and lost everything, if your home has been 
foreclosed, you will fall into the trap of having no access to health 
care under this present system. I don't believe we can tolerate this 
kind of system anymore.
  What about the story of a young physician who wants to ensure that he 
does what his life dream was, Dr. Alex Blum, who is a physician, a 
pediatric physician, who is concerned about making sure that he treats 
the sick children that are out there right now whose parents don't have 
health insurance and they may not be enrolled in the Children's Health 
Insurance Program because it has not been expanded as we plan to do in 
this legislation, H.R. 3200. But let me tell you his story, personally, 
what happened to him.
  Six years ago, he says, when he was a medical student at Howard 
University College of Medicine in Washington, DC, he spent the summer 
doing an internship at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. 
Don't we applaud that, a young doctor goes down to be an intern at a 
Federal agency? It speaks to the call of President Obama for those 
young people to serve. He probably could have gotten any other kind of 
internship. He became very sick. He went to the emergency room, was 
told he was in acute kidney failure. The problem was that his medical 
school insurance only covered him if he got sick near Washington, DC, 
not Atlanta, near Washington, DC.
  So all of you parents, like myself, that have college-age children--
they have graduated since--who want to go all the way around the world, 
in fact, they want to go way around the world; they want to work maybe 
down in New Orleans, as my son did, way away from his school, in order 
to be able to work at that time--he was in college--with Hurricane 
Katrina survivors; or my daughter, who went to the Mississippi Delta, 
way away from her school, to be able to help and work with those in 
that region. This young man went to the CDC. What parent could 
understand that he did not have health insurance because he had to be 
in the Washington, DC area?
  It didn't cover me in Atlanta, he said. I qualified as underinsured. 
Aware that we could not afford out-of-pocket payment for a renal 
dialysis unit as was being recommended, my dad--his dad, a physician--
drove him through the night from Atlanta, waking him every few minutes 
to see if he was responsive.
  Let me see if I can get that. Here you are driving, trying to get 
through the dark of night. You have got a child that you love sitting 
in the seat going in and out of the consciousness, and you are trying 
to make sure that you are checking on that child, rushing up to get 
within the guidelines and boundaries of Washington, DC, so that you can 
get medical care. Until we finally reached Washington, DC, the next 
morning, even those of us who choose to enter the profession of caring 
for others are not immune to the dysfunctional health care system.
  I thought that was a powerful statement that he, himself, had this 
concern. He is, of course, concerned about the 47 million uninsured and 
the 87 million underinsured Americans who deserve better. He trained in 
pediatric medicine at a county hospital outside of Los Angeles. At this 
county hospital, he cared for uninsured children, those enrolled in 
SCHIP and Medicaid. What he enjoyed most about working within that 
system was that he provided high-quality care to those who needed it 
the most.
  His patients on Medicaid and SCHIP were able to easily see 
subspecialists. But he has a story here, and let me just tell it to you 
quickly.
  He once cared for a 9-month-old boy who had a swollen face covered in 
a rash on his forehead and cheeks and raw in his neck folds. Any of us 
who picked up a bouncing baby, and we know how much we love to just 
nestle and kiss it. And just think of this baby with this rash. And 
many of us who are moms and dads know how babies can get chafe. This 
was raw rash, as he described it. How painful this must have been for 
that little 9-month-old who couldn't express himself. He sat before me 
and scratched his arms and trunk and uncontrollably to the point of 
bleeding. Because of his constant scratching, his skin had started to 
harden. He had uncontrolled eczema, and his mother told me, in tears, 
how she had not been able to obtain a referral to a dermatologist, the 
county pediatric dermatologist, one afternoon a month, clinic time.
  That same day, to prevent the mother from receiving a large medical 
bill, I did what I normally do. I got on the phone to a private 
insurance company and asked the insurance bureaucrat to agree to pay 
for the visit. As my other patients had to wait for me, I wasted time 
on the phone trying to solicit preapproval from an insurance company, 
but I could not sway the insurance gatekeeper. I tried my hardest to 
make this bureaucrat understand the child's bloody scabs, the mother's 
tears, but to no avail. The dermatologist took pity on the child and he 
did what physicians often do, he saw the child for free.
  What a tragedy in this Nation. How can one accept this predicament? I 
ask the question, why not?
  I thank Dr. Blum for going the extra mile, as so many of our doctors 
do day after day and time after time. I know it well, as my area 
includes the Texas Medical Center, Texas Children's Hospital, Hermann 
Memorial, Baylor, Methodist, St. Luke's, MD Anderson, and many others; 
St. Joseph's, the Doctors Hospital on Tidwell, so many where doctors 
just say yes. They just say yes.
  But can you imagine? What could I have done? What do you think Dr. 
Blum could have done? Could he have taken a BlackBerry picture, an 
iPhone picture of this 9-month-old baby? Could he have squeezed it 
through the telephone for this bureaucrat to be able to answer?
  A vigorous public option has to be the answer for there to be the 
kind of reality that we cannot allow this kind of system to continue to 
take the lives of the sick, the sick who want to live, the sick who 
deserve to live. This kind of condition is one that I believe can be 
enormously unacceptable.
  Let me share with you some additional stories that I believe are 
important to make the story complete. We were very pleased to have at 
our hearing today the wife of Senator Fulbright, Harriet Mayor 
Fulbright, who came to advocate--she did not have to do that--for a 
vigorous public option. She could have continued her philanthropic 
work. We certainly know of the great work of her husband, Senator J. 
William Fulbright, and the legacy that he had left.
  But she wanted to tell us of a condition that she was suffering. She 
had experienced anemia. There was a lot of

[[Page 25841]]

different testing of what was her condition. Finally, she got a 
diagnosis. It involved cancer.
  She had a doctor at Johns Hopkins whom she liked, as she said, from 
the start. He finally told her that even though the chemo was indeed 
killing the cancer, it was also causing such damage to my immune system 
that he felt I needed a second opinion. So he suggested that she go to 
another specialist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
  She saw another doctor, and in a few months her life began to 
improve. The complete transformation you now see, and she was before 
us, and she looked wonderful, came slowly, but it was like a miracle, 
she said. I am not and cannot be cured, but I am in complete remission.
  She went on to say it came about because of a medical team extending 
around the world, doctors who shared research findings and techniques 
freely, swapping patient stories in an effort to treat us all with 
greater efficiency and compassion, brainstorming ideas about how to 
spread the word about this disease so that future patients would not go 
through a year of more frustration.
  She wanted to emphasize to us it was because she had health insurance 
of the kind that would allow that to happen. But she came to tell us 
that she was not satisfied that her life was saved, that she was sick, 
sicker and the sickest person that she could have imagined, but now she 
has the opportunity to play with her grandchildren because she had 
health insurance. But she testified today, as a sick person formerly, 
now in remission, that she wants to see a vigorous public option.
  Again, we want to hear from the sick, the sicker and the sickest, 
because they are, in fact, the reason why we need to pass health care 
reform. H.R. 3200 is health care reform legislation that will, in fact, 
provide us the opportunity to save lives.
  Madam Speaker, you know I mentioned earlier 50,000-plus of our brave 
men and women died in Vietnam, how many we lost in World War II and 
World War I and our other wars and, of course, the gulf war and the 
Iraq war, Afghanistan, as we are still on the front lines.

                              {time}  2130

  Those are enormous tragedies and treasure that is lost.
  I am very grateful that one of my constituents that I have great 
admiration for that we lost just recently, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, whom 
we had the privilege of naming the veterans hospital after, was the 
doctor that created the MASH unit.
  Now, with modern technology we are seeing our soldiers come home from 
the battlefield, even different from Vietnam, and even though we have 
lost a high toll in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are saving lives because 
of a public health system, the military doctors who are in the field 
taking care of these brave men and women, allowing them to come home to 
their families, a government health care system.
  I want the men and women who may live to serve in the United States 
military, or the child that may grow up to join the United States 
military, to be able to live if they would have access to health care 
and a vigorous public option, so that that 9-month-old baby who could 
not speak for himself laying on that table blistering his own body, 
uncontrollably scratching, and not knowing, just being a baby, an 
infant, that someone would be so callous as to refuse a treatment that 
could have occurred right there. Short of that doctor saying yes, that 
baby would have gone home with that mom.
  Or the accident victim, the story that I heard in my own community, 
where a car was totaled with a mom and a couple of her daughters' 
friends, and where one child may have refused to go to the hospital, 
was told not to go because that family member could not afford the cost 
of the hospital, of the cost of the ambulance to take the child to the 
hospital. It was ultimately worked out that the child could see a 
doctor.
  But I don't blame that parent or that family member. You have got to 
understand what that means, what that means to those who are paying 
rent, providing for three and four children, who are being the parent 
that we ask them to be, trying to provide for all the children.
  Or maybe the parent that stood up in my town hall meeting and said to 
me, ``What do we do? I have insurance. I went to the doctor. I took it 
there and the doctor said, `This insurance is not worth the paper it is 
written on. What it says is it provides you with emergency care.' My 
son needs a physical in order to go into school.'' In order to start 
school, he needs a physical.
  So many of us as Members of Congress in our town hall meetings on 
health care reform heard those stories. I told my staff immediately, we 
are going to get her the care that she needs. We are going to get that 
son a physical. We referred her and made sure that she got the very 
next day or within a day or two into one of the Federally qualified 
clinics. She knew nothing about it.
  There are not very many in our community in Houston. We want to build 
up in Texas. They are growing. We are looking to invest in one with 
Rev. Ethan Ogletree, who is looking to put one in the Greenspoint area. 
We are looking to work with the Acres Home community to ensure that we 
have one there. And others are planning such clinics. Out of H.R. 3200, 
we will find the opportunity and the language and the provision to 
establish Federally qualified community clinics.
  But that young man was able to get into one that our office provided 
him the access to, because that family did not know about that 
opportunity, so that he could get a physical and be able to return at 
that time to school.
  Madam Speaker, I don't know how many more stories we need to hear. 
There are so many. I know that there are people who are sick, who are 
denied the access to a physician, or themselves make the decision that 
they are not going to go and get medical care. They are going to take 
care of themselves. They may try to ask a pharmacist and get some over-
the-counter drugs.
  As one testified in our hearing as well, another film producer who 
was willing to say in her story that she wound up asking friends who 
had similar conditions, can I borrow your medicine? Dianne, who was a 
TV producer, she told us that story. Many people do that.
  Madam Speaker, many of them as well not only do that, but they cut 
their medicine in half, or they don't take their medicine. How many 
seniors do that?
  So we have to fix this system so that the cost of prescription drugs 
for seniors does not price them out of caring for themselves and taking 
the medicine that they have. We must fix the system so that Medicare 
costs do not cause Medicare to not be able to serve all of the seniors 
and those that need it.
  By the way, Madam Speaker, if we just count the lives that were lost 
pre-1965 before Medicare and look at the life expectancy term now, how 
much it has grown. I did not know my paternal grandfather. My 
grandmother told me that he died in the 1930s at home with pneumonia, 
not seeing any doctor, not having any insurance. That was America 
during that time. Congress even from that time, the 1930s, the 1940s, 
the 1950s and the 1960s, tried to do health care reform. How many 
lives, countless lives, were lost because of the fact that we did not 
have health insurance?
  So this hearing today was a moment in history, one that I was so very 
proud to be a part of. We heard from Dr. Lucy Perez, a past president 
of the National Medical Association, who insisted eloquently that we 
should have the right kind of health care reform that brings down 
premiums and allows access for all Americans.
  We heard from Dr. Aziz, a renowned and respected cardiologist. He has 
extensive training in heart and lung transplants and was a co-director 
of the heart transplant program at the University of Washington. This 
doctor advocated for a vigorous public option because he wanted to be 
able to use his skills on those who may not be the wealthiest in 
America. He wanted to cure the heart problems and lung problems through 
surgery of those who now

[[Page 25842]]

languish in their apartments and homes because they do not have health 
care insurance, who have not seen a doctor, whose health is 
deteriorating, whose heart disease is growing and expanding.
  I do want to make mention of the fact that Eric in his death shared 
his liver so that someone else might live. Can you imagine that person 
who needed that liver not having health insurance? Can you imagine that 
kind of continuing crisis in America?
  It is important to note that doctors like Dr. Murphy came as well to 
speak about the importance of letting the message of doctors from 
around the country come out. The poster board that I had that indicated 
that all these doctors from all of these organizations are in fact 
supporting, they are supporting, health care reform.
  The question is not why, but the question is why not? We thank him 
for his presence. And we thank Elizabeth Wiley, who came as a medical 
student and indicated that 62,000 medical students across America are 
supporting a vigorous public option.
  I believe, Madam Speaker, that the stories of the sick, as we mourn 
those who have lost their lives, are potent and powerful. As we 
listened in the waning hours of this hearing and listened to many, many 
others, Dr. Ben Carson joined in by telephone and told us, this great 
surgeon, of the need for full access and the need for the ability to be 
heard on this issue.
  Madam Speaker, I close by simply saying if the question is asked why, 
we ask why not? A vigorous public option will save lives; 45,000 die 
every single year. And to the sick who are listening, let us hear from 
you, because we will be propelled by the cause and necessity of 
providing you, the sick, with good health care so that you might live.

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