[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 26430-26431]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, this weekend, when I went home, I went to the 
laundry.
  A gentleman came up to me and said, You know, we've been friends for 
40 years, and you're more liberal than I am--I'm a conservative--but 
let me tell you that I had a heart attack last month. Do you know what 
it cost? It cost $100,000. He said, Y'all have got to pass something 
with this health care. It's just too expensive, and if I were in a 
different situation, I might lose my health care and might not be able 
to get it.
  I had a Halloween party at a friend's house. I'm 60, and my friends 
are within the margin of error. They're about the same age. Several of 
them had had cancer, and they talked about how they couldn't get out of 
their health policies. The premiums were going up. The deductibles were 
going up, and it was costing them more and more; and they weren't 
authorizing certain treatments that they needed.
  They said, You need to pass that health care bill. It's important.
  I went to my local pharmacy, and a lady came up to me, and she told 
me about what the cost of prescription drugs was doing to her. I told 
her we were going to close the doughnut hole, that we were going to 
help her with her prescription drug prices.
  We need to get this country's health care policy where it doesn't 
destroy the financial condition of people's lives. We need to allow 
them to move on.

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