[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 20]
[House]
[Pages 27131-27132]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, this House and our Nation are poised 
for a historic vote tomorrow. That vote will determine whether tens of 
millions of people who are uninsured and underinsured will finally have 
access to health care. But beyond that, it will begin to transform the 
current sick care system which is draining this country, not just of 
its finances, but of some of its brightest and best who, because they 
are not able to access the fantastic health care this country has to 
offer, are not as productive as they would or should be.
  It will enable many, those in our rural areas and our territories, 
those in blighted urban areas and racial and ethnic minorities who have 
been left out of the health care mainstream to finally have access to 
wellness and more productive and fulfilling lives.
  Our vote tomorrow will also determine how successfully we will 
compete in the global community where everyone is in a race to the top, 
whether or not we will, through reducing the highest health care in the 
worlds, set our country on a more sustainable economic footing, and 
whether we can regain our leadership in this world by raising our 
health indicators, like infant and maternal mortality, to levels that 
match or better the other industrialized nations we now lag behind.
  To me, a vote against this bill is a vote against what is best for 
our country.
  No one ever thought we would have had a perfect bill, but what we 
have in H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, is as 
near a perfect bill as anyone could have conceived when we started out 
this process. I applaud the outstanding leadership of our Speaker, our 
leader, our whip, our caucus Chair and vice Chair, the chairmen of the 
respective committees, and Chairman Emeritus John Dingell for the bill 
which will be before us tomorrow.
  H.R. 3962 covers at least 36 million of the now uninsured, expands 
and improves Medicaid, strengthens Medicare, begins to close the 
doughnut hole, and makes it, as well as other insurance, more 
affordable. It will provide a robust benefits package, new prevention 
and wellness programs, with no copayments for preventive care. It ends 
insurance abuses that have led many families to bankruptcy or near 
bankruptcy--no exclusions for preexisting diseases, no dropping your 
coverage or putting limits on how much insurance will pay for you when 
you get sick.
  It expands the health care workforce and especially supports the 
training of primary care physicians, nurses and physician assistants, 
as well as that of now underrepresented minorities. It provides 
community health centers and community health workers as well as 
programs that help communities to better prepare to take advantage of 
the new health care system. And it will strengthen our public health 
infrastructure and workforce. The bill is fully paid for, and will 
reduce the deficit over the 10 years.
  What is not to vote for? I know that some of the hesitation is over 
abortion issues. I don't understand it because H.R. 3962 keeps the Hyde 
amendment in tact. It prohibits Federal funds from being spent on 
abortion. It excludes abortion from the basic benefits package. It 
prohibits discrimination against providers who do not perform abortions 
by insurance plans. It does not require any insurance plan in the 
exchange to cover abortion, and it provides that the exchange would 
have an insurance option that does not cover abortion.
  I, like every Member of this body, I am sure, am deeply committed to 
life--to protecting lives, to saving lives, and to improving the 
quality of lives. Without passage of this bill, many will suffer the 
unnecessary loss of life that happens every day in this country of 
plenty to those who are uninsured and in people of color, whether 
they're insured or not.
  In this 21st century, every year 88,000 African Americans alone, not 
counting

[[Page 27132]]

American Indians, Latinos, Asians, or Pacific Islanders, 88,000 African 
Americans die who would not have if they were insured and if they had 
equal access to the services that this bill would now provide them, 
some of them for the very first time.
  Have those who oppose this bill because of concerns of abortion 
considered that this bill would even reduce the need for abortion? 
Something everyone, no matter what side of the debate you are on, would 
want. It would do so by ensuring that everyone would have access to 
comprehensive health care and the kind of family-life counseling that 
is a part of it.
  Tomorrow, we have the opportunity to save millions of lives. There is 
no more important reason to vote ``yes'' for the Affordable Health Care 
for America Act than that. Everyone should want to be on the right side 
of the historic vote that awaits us tomorrow. We need health care 
reform now.

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