[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3529-3530]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Ms. LEE of California asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Ms. LEE of California. Madam Speaker, quality, affordable health care 
should be a fundamental human right, not a privilege for the few, as my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle would have it. Today, 47 
million Americans are uninsured, including 9 million kids.
  Meanwhile, the CEOs of private insurance and drug companies are 
raking in huge profits. Take the case of WellPoint. They proposed 
increasing

[[Page 3530]]

rates by as much as 39 percent in California, even as they made $4.2 
billion in profits last year and paid out million-dollar compensation 
packages to their top executives. These rate hikes would hit Democratic 
and Republican districts alike. And the other side would have us do 
nothing.
  We talk about the big banks making a killing off of taxpayers. Well, 
insurance company executives are literally getting million-dollar 
compensation packages while our constituents are dying.
  Health reform is long overdue. The 31 million people this bill will 
cover are Democrats, they are Republicans, they are Independents, they 
are Greens, and they are people with no party affiliation. This should 
not be a partisan issue. The costs of inaction are much too risky, they 
are much too costly, and we must act now.

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