[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14961]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         OPENING DAY FOR THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT IN CONNECTICUT

  (Mr. COURTNEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday was opening day for the 
Affordable Care Act in the State of Connecticut. Despite the hysterical 
predictions on the other side, where you would have thought the Four 
Horsemen of the Apocalypse would be riding through the streets of New 
London, Norwich, and Hartford, instead, the headlines this morning 
were:

       Enrollment better than expected on exchange's first day.

  Forty-five thousand people contacted the Connecticut exchange. 
Hundreds enrolled. They didn't wait until January to begin the process 
of getting health coverage.
  One of them was a lady named Elly Banos, 48 years old, who said she's 
been without coverage for a year and half due to a layoff. She's been 
holding her breath and ``thanking God every day that I don't get sick 
or get into a car accident.'' She was excited to learn that she could 
get good individual coverage for a month or qualify for the expanded 
Medicaid coverage.
  Another, Babz Ivy, said that she has gone to bed ``with a prayer on 
my lips, asking God to keep me healthy and in no need of medical 
attention.''
  ``Today was amazing,'' Ivy said. ``I felt so empowered and in control 
of my health.''
  The fact of the matter is these are the targets of the shutdown 
effort. It's not President Obama or Democrats in Congress. It's people 
like Elly Banos and Babz Ivy that we need to protect by keeping this 
government open and allowing people to get access to health care for 
the first time in American history.

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