[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 507-508]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT--DO NO HARM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Bera) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BERA. Mr. Speaker, today I rise not as a Member of Congress, but 
as a doctor. When I graduated medical school and took that oath, there 
are two core ethics that we take when we take that oath: to do good. 
And that is exactly what we tried to do when this

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body passed the Affordable Care Act. It was about doing good. It was 
about giving people basic access to health care. That is a good thing.
  The Affordable Care Act is not perfect, but let's keep doing good. 
Let's fix it. Let's address the cost of health care. Let's make sure 
people can afford their medications. That is doing good.
  Another core ethic that we take when we enter the profession of 
medicine as a physician is to do no harm. If this body repeals the 
Affordable Care Act, we are going to harm 20 million Americans that now 
have access to health care that didn't have it prior to the Affordable 
Care Act. We shouldn't do harm.
  Let me put it into real context. I am a primary care internist. My 
wife is also a primary care internist. You can tell we have exciting 
conversations at our house. I was asking her the other day what the 
Affordable Care Act meant to her as a physician, and she was sharing a 
story of a patient that she had cared for for years.
  This was a patient that had diabetes and hypertension, high blood 
pressure. We know these are silent killers. If you don't control your 
diabetes, if you don't control your blood pressure, it can have 
devastating consequences leading to heart attacks, leading to strokes. 
It is one of the leading causes of death in America. But if you control 
it, you can prevent all of these illnesses and people can live a 
normal, healthy life.
  So my wife--she is a very good doctor--had her patient under good 
control. The patient stopped coming in to see her--maybe the patient 
moved away or something happened--for a couple of years. And then about 
2 years ago, the patient came back in. Once she came in, her blood 
sugars, her diabetes was out of control; her blood pressure was out of 
control.
  My wife looked at this patient and just said: Well, what happened? 
How come you stopped taking your diabetes medicine? How come you 
stopped taking your blood pressure medicine?
  She said: Well, Doc, in the recession, I lost my job. I lost my 
health insurance coverage. I couldn't get the medications.
  And then she said: But you know what? With the Affordable Care Act 
with Covered California, I was able to get health insurance again. I 
was able to come in and see you.
  It wasn't too late for this patient. My wife was able to get her back 
on her medications, get her back on her blood pressure medicine, get 
her blood pressure and diabetes under control, and, hopefully, there is 
no permanent damage.
  But if we do harm and repeal the Affordable Care Act, we are going to 
do irreparable damage to 20 million and more Americans who are just 
like this patient, who need their health care covered, who need their 
access to medications. That is what this is about.
  Mr. Speaker, let's do what we are trained to do as physicians and 
what this body should do. Let's do good by making sure people have 
better coverage, affordable coverage, and better access to health care. 
Let's definitely make sure we do not do any harm by repealing the 
Affordable Care Act. Let's make sure we fix it and make it better.

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