[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2183]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS ARE PLAYING CHICKEN WITH HEALTH INSURANCE

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, Americans have too much to lose for 
Congressional Republicans to play chicken with their health insurance.
  Take a family in my district, Kevin and Kim Filiatraut. Kevin and Kim 
are young parents of two beautiful children, ages 7 and 5. As an 
attorney in Cleveland, the family uses insurance through Kevin's 
employment. Kim's job of 15 years at KeyBank was outsourced to India in 
2014. They own a home, and their children go to public schools in Bay 
Village.
  In 2015, at age 39, Kim was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. 
When it was found, it had already spread to her liver, and she has been 
on chemotherapy ever since and will be evermore. There is only hope and 
medicine, indefinitely.
  She is covered now, but with this preexisting condition, a repeal of 
the ACA is daunting. The ACA establishes that she can never be denied 
enrollment, but congressional Republicans could take this surety away 
with their brash, nearsighted objective of full repeal of the ACA.
  Why would we get rid of something that does so much good for Ohioans, 
for Americans, with nothing and no plan to replace it?
  Kim's treatment costs over $500,000 a year. Repeal of the ACA could 
very well bankrupt this family.
  And according to The Washington Post, repealing the Affordable Care 
Act will kill more than 43,000 people in our country, annually. Repeal 
of the ACA would be the most anti-life measure ever considered or 
passed by this Congress.
  Please vote against repeal now.

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