Progressive Caucus Hour
Floor Speech
Progressive Caucus Hour
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you so much, Mr. Ellison.
I was watching this wonderful Special Order on television. I wanted to share a couple of stories that I have, both from my district and from testimony we have recently had at a committee hearing.
I wanted to tell you about one of my constituents, Marie, who owns a candy store in Wilmette, Illinois. After she and her husband were denied coverage, they were finally able to find a policy that will cost them $1,700 each month in premium and out-of-pocket costs. So how many small business entrepreneurs can afford that, particularly in today's economy?
Or take Jim Kelly of Glenview, Illinois, who works for a small business that can't afford to provide coverage to its workers. Jim and his wife are forced to take, in his words, ``a risk.''
``We are paying cash for our medication and hoping that nothing major happens until we are eligible for Medicare.''
Americans shouldn't be asked to gamble their lives, and I think it is time for solutions.
Then in committee we heard from a man named, let's see, his name is Bruce Hetrick. This was a panel of small business owners. He said, ``You should know that I am a hearing-impaired, migraine-suffering, diabetic cancer survivor who is also the father of a cancer survivor and the widower of a cancer victim. So I have experienced more than my fair share of the American health care system.''
I would add, to say the least. He wasn't whining, believe me. This was a very brave guy. But he wanted to share some of his frustrations.
He said, ``Health care and health coverage inflation is small business' enemy number one. My company pays 80 percent of employee premiums and 50 percent of dependent premiums. That is higher than typical firms like ours, but it helps us attract and retain good people. It also leaves us with a painful choice: Either the cost of health coverage cuts into our profits, or, if we pass it along to our customers, it renders us more expensive.''
Then he gives us an example of something that happened to him.
``My late wife,'' he says, ``Pamela Klein, who was also my business partner, was covered by our company's health insurance. In the last year of her life, the bill charges for Pam's cancer care totaled $300,000. A few months before her death, our health insurance renewal came up. Lo and behold, the quoted increase for the health insurance portion of our benefits plan, just the increase, was a whopping 28 percent. That would have been devastating to our business and our employees. When Pam died just shy of the actual renewal date, I had our rates requoted. With Pam out of the mix, the increase for the very same health insurance coverage was just 10 percent.''
A 28 percent increase reduced to 10 percent because of one person in need of care. That is the kind of thing that small businesses are facing. The underwriting is based on maybe 5, 10, 15 employees. And I wonder what an employer thinks when somebody perhaps with an obvious disability walks in? They have got to be thinking, can I really afford to hire this person? And that is not right in the United States of America.
I have got another one, but I will yield to either one of you to tell us your story.
Okay, let me tell you about Mick Landauer. He owns a small business, and he has been an owner for over 30 years, and one of the perks he offers, to quote him, ``I offer the company's group insurance for those employees who desire coverage. The cost split is on a 50-50 basis, and those costs keep going up.'' He says, ``The rates for employees have been rising tremendously. In order to keep them down, our deductible has been rising instead. Our monthly premiums are now around $400 for an individual, $800 for a family. The deductible is $8,000 for an individual policy and $16,000 for a family plan.
The muffler shop that he owns ``pays for half the deductible with the plan we have now, which is a lot of money.'' He says, ``Last year we had deductibles of $4,000 for an individual and $8,000 for a family. Two years ago the deductible was at $2,000 for an individual and $4,000 for a family.'' Then he says, ``I expect deductibles to double once again, with monthly rates going up by $500 or $1,000.
``How can this be, you may ask,'' at the committee hearing? ``It is because one employee was born with a congenital heart disease. He visits a specialist twice a year. A routine visit may cost from $1,200 to $1,500. Any specialized tests will run $10,000 and up. The employee with the heart condition, that is myself.''
This is a business owner. ``The only way I see to keep our monthly rates and deductibles reasonable is by removing myself from the company policy.''
I will not be able to get health insurance anywhere else, as I turned down our company group plan that's available to me. So I ask you, what options do I have? Pay for my own medical costs, in which case I'd be forced to sell the business; quit going to doctors, including the congenital heart specialist; or maybe move to Canada, which has a national health plan and ultimately being forced to sell my business.
Are these the choices that we should give to anyone in our country? I think maybe I'll move to Canada in order to get covered? Or give up my business? This just isn't right. That's why the legislation with the robust public option is the answer for people like this.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thought you'd be interested in this. We had testimony again in the committee from a man named Fred Walker who said, I thought it was my duty--he told his own story, but then he says, I thought it was my duty to ask friends, family, and mentors their opinion on this issue, and so he's paraphrased some of their responses, he says. Let's see.
Jack Grayson, owner of Seminole Realty, and my cousin who looks after me like a brother, told an unheard story about the 13-year battle his departed wife, Peggy, had with cancer. And I quote, ``The last few years our copays were $3,000 to $4,000 a month, and we had good insurance. What do the less fortunate do?'' Peggy passed in 2000. Jacks says we have to help those who can't afford the proper care.
Bob Howes, my friend and keyboard player, delivers car paint 2 days a week and plays music for money as much as he can to survive. Bob has an ongoing battle with skin care and has run out of options for treatment. He's conceded death within a few years.
Bill Walker, my cousin who is an RN and sells pacemakers for St. Jude Medical Division. Bill travels a lot and likes the French and the Canadian system. Most of my middle-aged, right-wing buddies who live week to week could never afford health insurance. Their clock is ticking and they don't have a plan.
And then he says, I'd like to note that while polling my friends and family on October 15, I finally found someone who is very happy with their health care. Pete and Pat Lamb are dear family friends and over 70 years old. Their combination of Medicare and coinsurance has provided well for them.
So finally, the people on Medicare are the only people he found that were really happy with their health insurance. But we have a bill now that's before us, a couple of days now, 2009, historic year, we're going to be able to, if we do a bill with a robust public option, make sure that every American can afford health care, and we're going to end these horror health care stories.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. You know, women are really discriminated in health insurance. The average woman, 40 years old, pays about 48 percent more for health insurance. And our committee did some research, in the Energy and Commerce Committee Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee, and we found that a 21-year-old woman was paying 143 percent more, healthy woman, than a healthy young man of the same age, 21 years old.
I think the worst story I have heard so far is a young woman--it has to do with reproductive--it has to do with what it is to be a woman, and we're discriminated against. And this woman went in and had a--had to have a cesarean section for her baby. Her insurance company told her that if she wanted to maintain her coverage after the cesarean section, she would need to be sterilized. I kid you not. People I've told that to gasp. We have the woman. We can, you know, present her. She's a real living person to whom that happened.
And then, a couple of men who were testifying before our committee, both of them were recommended to get a divorce from their wives so that the wives could go on Medicaid and, therefore, they would get the health care that their--one, a hemophiliac child, and another who had needed a liver transplant. That was the answer that they were given. Get a divorce, and then your wife may, and child may be eligible for Medicaid.
What is going on in the United States of America when one woman is told to get sterilized and two couples are told to get a divorce? The choices, the options are wrong. We need a public option, a robust public option that gives people a choice of a plan that competes with the insurance industry that has brought us to this time of crisis right now. It has to stop.
It's only going to get worse if we don't pass legislation that gives people a real choice, real competition and start to bring some sanity to our non-system of health care in this country.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Absolutely. I think our legislation is going to create incentives for medical students to go into primary care, not necessarily a specialty, and to make sure that we help them afford their medical education, which is so important. Young people going through medical school can end up with tens of thousands of dollars' worth of debt. We want to make sure that it's affordable for young people to go into health care.
And the reason that primary care is so important is then we have the opportunity to keep our people healthy. We can take care of all of those things before they become sort of a crisis that's going to need some sort of surgery or some sort of dramatic or long-term care. So that is built into the legislation. And, in fact, I am going to be speaking to some medical students this weekend who are very much supportive of our legislation because they know that it will give them an opportunity to go into primary care and be able to make a living and do what our country needs.
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