Health Care for the American People
HEALTH CARE FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE -- (House of Representatives - July 16, 2009)
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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Thank you Congressman Ellison. And I want to also recognize my great freshman colleague, when we came in--now we're all sophomores--Ms. Donna Edwards, who's been a real champion on this, as you have, Mr. Ellison.
And Mr. Speaker, I just want to respond. It is a civil rights issue. It's just not racial. It is a matter of demographics. It's a matter of who has insurance and who does not. And you'll find, looking at it, you'll find that most poor people and most, at this point, I would venture to argue, middle class people have no health insurance coverage.
And so the question is, after spending $780 billion in a Wall Street bailout, do we have the will to handle and to address this civil rights issue that is so fundamental to our country?
And to me it's mind-boggling. We just heard reports of Goldman Sachs hitting the jackpot for $3 billion in profits over the last quarter, of the taxpayers' money. And people want to know, well how much does this health care plan cost?
Well, I'm going to tell you, it's going to cost us a whole lot more if we do nothing, like my colleagues on the other side, if we do nothing, it's going to cost us a whole lot more. You know why? Because health care costs are going to continue to skyrocket through the roof.
In 2005, a study by Families USA and the Center for American Progress showed that the cost of treating the uninsured added $330 to the average individual plan in Georgia, and $900 for the average family plan. That's close to $1,000, Mr. Speaker, every year. And high costs are what block access to health care because people don't have the insurance coverage to be able to become healthy individuals.
And certainly, for our economy, Mr. Speaker, we can't have a majority of the people in this country sick with some kind of a chronic illness that, if left untreated, will kill them, and that, if there were preventive measures to keep those chronic diseases from happening, or if there were some treatment regimens to address and arrest these chronic diseases, then you would find that the American people would be ready to, our children would be ready to, go to school and learn and become great individuals who carry our economy into the 21st century. And that's simply one of the items that we're addressing here.
Are we going to just continue to do business as usual, tax cuts for the rich and famous and wealthy, as is advocated by my friends on the other side? Are we going to continue to do that?
We see where that has left us. We see where we are now, and we're in a bad situation.
And so we've got to take some important steps to address it, and people didn't--the same folks who supported the Wall Street bailout, now they're talking against our investing in the lives of people in this country who should be in a position to save us money by having--everyone having health care, that demand will drive down expenses in and of itself.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Like I said earlier, to quote you, this is a civil rights issue, and 100 years from now people will be looking back and seeing what a fundamental change in the delivery of health care in this Nation was accomplished by the 111th Congress.
And so we cannot continue as things have gone in the past--17.7 percent of Georgians do not have health insurance, and those that do, their premiums have increased 88 percent since the year 2000. This is a big number that cannot be sustained, Congressman Ellison, and we just simply must do what is right. And I will feel proud about being on the right side of this issue, along with my fellow Members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
You know, we've got rising bankruptcies across the Nation; 62 percent of those involve medical bills that have resulted from a catastrophic illness or even just--not even catastrophic, but an illness, and more people going into bankruptcy because of this. Bankruptcy courts are overwhelmed with new bankruptcies.
I would like to also address this issue of small businesses. As small business is defined by the broadest definition, which means basically any individual with as little as $1 of small business income, those people will not be impacted by a health care surcharge whatsoever. In fact, 96 percent of small businesses will not have to pay any surcharge at all, and those that make basically $250,000 or less, they won't pay anything.
If you make over $250,000 in payroll, then you would have, I believe it's $500, those employers who don't offer health insurance would have to pay about $500 per year, and it goes on up. The folks that make $1 million or more would sustain a responsibility of--it's close to $1 million a year, like $900,000 a year. If you have payroll, you're going to pay that much.
And so those are the same folks who got the tax breaks back in 2001, a cut in their capital gains taxes with more spending in this Congress by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle which caused the humongous deficits that we are experiencing today, and we have nothing to show for them except for the people suffering.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I thank Congressman Ellison.
We're having or they are having a TEA party outside one of my district offices on Friday, and I would venture to speculate that many of those people who will come don't have health insurance or recently lost their health insurance and they are frustrated. They feel like this is going to cost them some money, but actually, when you stop and think about it, some folks have only the choice of going into the emergency room when their illness becomes so dire that the family makes them come, and that's the only health care that they have.
But with this bill, with a strong public option, those folks will be able to choose whether or not to be enrolled in that program or not. And if so, then they will get coverage for their medical throughout their lives. And that's exactly what we need in this country because this plan that would enable a public option will keep the insurance companies honest because it will be competitive, and so we're talking about lowering the cost of health care, taking some of that 88 percent of health insurance, rising cost, off the backs of the middle class.
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