[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 26546-26547]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, as we're up here discussing this, there are 
folks in the Democratic caucus trying to better understand the support 
that exists for this bill.
  This bill is not Speaker Pelosi's bill, and it's not the Democrats' 
bill. Mr. Speaker, this is America's bill. We are the only 
industrialized Nation in the world that doesn't have a plan to take 
care of health care for its citizens. America is catching up to the 
21st century to where other countries have been in the 20th.
  In my community our emergency room at our public hospital is about to 
close because they're so far in debt because they have so many people 
that don't have insurance and can't afford to pay. They take them, but 
they can't afford to pay it with the property taxes that are ever-
rising.
  This bill will help keep emergency rooms and trauma centers open. It 
will say to people that have preexisting conditions in America, and 
that's people give or take my age and older, 60

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and up, in that area, and even younger people can get insurance, that 
there won't be a limit on the amount of moneys that you had before. And 
it will say to the insurance companies they don't make the rules, the 
people make the rules. And we will have insurance that's affordable and 
available and save our country economically and save individuals as 
well.

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