[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6310-6311]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     CONGRESS' COMMITMENT TO GOVERN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday evening I began my remarks by 
saying, ``Say it is not so''; and I rise again this morning, as we 
begin our journey on ensuring that the government does not shut down 
and again rebutting TrumpCare that is so devastating, to say, ``Say it 
is not so.''
  This morning we rose to headlines of the President of the United 
States saying that the government needs a shutdown in September. I am 
glad Democrats recognize that we do not represent just Democrats. We 
represent the entire Nation, and we owe them a commitment to govern, 
and that is what we will do.
  We now will face another attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, 
ObamaCare. I am glad that Democrats have come together around common 
sense and the responsibility of serving not only the healthy, but the 
sick.
  Last evening, in a very emotional testimony, one of our late-night 
hosts who entertains America every night, gave an emotional statement 
about his infant son who was receiving heart surgery. In his tears, his 
excitement for the success, but also his pain that people who did not 
have money, as we debate this frivolous healthcare bill, will be 
subject to the dangers and the devastation and the potential death of a 
child they love.
  Say it is not so.
  And I remember when we started the Affordable Care Act, as a member 
of the Judiciary Committee--all committees were involved in this 
process. I remember us holding Democratic hearings to listen to 
families who were suffering and were the brunt of not having health 
insurance:
  The father who had a medical student son who was interning in Atlanta 
who had to drive with great fury to pick him up to be able to take him 
back to Washington, D.C., when he had an immediate attack of an 
appendix, laying him on his back seat because the insurance that the 
young man had only covered him in the city of Washington, D.C., where 
he was going to medical school.
  Or I remember the mother whose son was a drug abuser--but a lawyer, 
got himself back on track but suffered from hepatitis--whose son died 
in the emergency room because he did not have the medical coverage as 
he was getting his life back to help stabilize him, died in that 
medical condition and in that emergency room.
  Those are just a few stories of those who died because they did not 
have health insurance pre the Affordable Care Act.

                              {time}  1015

  Now, today we come with a bill that is going to eviscerate the sick 
people with preexisting diseases--it is not like the Affordable Care 
Act--and literally throw them under the bus. Because what they are 
doing is taking away essential services and saying that there is no 
room at the inn for those with preexisting conditions, such as 
diabetes, asthma, allergic conditions, heart disease, cancer, leukemia, 
or a baby that is born with a heart defect.
  It is tragic that the bill they are putting on the floor is taking 
away essential services, like mental health, substance abuse, 
hospitalization, maternity; and they are throwing them to

[[Page 6311]]

the States. If your State will do it, so what. I live in a State--as we 
all do, we love our State--they are facing fiscal crisis.
  Do you think they are going to take the sickest?
  No, they are not.
  Twenty-four million people will still lose their insurance. 
Hardworking families will have no health insurance. Those with 
preexisting conditions, under the Trump plan, still remain in the 
darkness of corners, not helped, and ready to die.
  What family wants to subject their loved one to a place where they 
have no hope?
  Then, of course, there is the horrific age tax. The premiums for 
those between age 50 and 64, hardworking Americans, just because they 
have reached a certain age, their premiums will shoot through the roof. 
These are people who have made and built this country with their hands 
and their minds, our mothers and fathers, and even ourselves. How 
tragic it is to be able to have these kinds of conditions. Then, of 
course, it will shorten the life of the Medicare trust and literally 
implode that.
  This is governing?
  I don't think so. I don't think so. And I, for one, am not going to 
stand for it because it is important that our people understand that we 
govern as Democrats.
  As we put this bill on the floor to keep from closing this 
government, let me just say to you quickly that we have upped the NIH--
the National Institutes of Health--with $2 billion. We have preserved 
the yearlong Pell, and we have funded housing so people don't have to 
be thrown out of housing.
  Mr. Speaker, Democrats know how to govern and save this country. I 
don't know what this person is doing at all.

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