[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12337]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     REFORM OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

  (Mr. YARMUTH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, this Congress will soon move to reform our 
health care system, and none too soon. And when we do, I hope there is 
one prerequisite, one standard that we can all agree on, and that is 
the essential fact that we need to make sure that every American has 
health insurance.
  Yesterday, on television, I saw a commentator arguing against health 
insurance for everyone saying, I don't want to pay for health insurance 
for my neighbor. Well, if I were his neighbor, what I would say is, You 
had better want to, because you, like every other American, is one pink 
slip, one cancer diagnosis, one serious accident away from being among 
the 47 to 50 million Americans without insurance and who face financial 
ruin because of that problem.
  Yes, we may differ on the details. We may figure out and have a 
substantial debate about how we get there. But unless we make sure that 
every American has health insurance, then every neighbor is going to be 
paying far more than he or she should for their coverage, and we will 
continue to have a system which is not what the American people 
deserve.

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