Health Care Reform
Floor Speech
HEALTH CARE REFORM -- (Senate - October 21, 2009)
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Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from New Hampshire for yielding, as well as the Senator from New Mexico for his excellent comments.
I am a father of three little girls who are 10, 8, and 5. One of the things I miss most in being here and not being in Colorado is being able to read to them at night or be with them. Over the years, we have moved from one story to another. Harry Potter is now being read. But I heard a story from Colorado this morning that I couldn't believe that reminded me so much of ``Goldilocks and the Three Bears.'' So that is what I wish to talk about today.
In Colorado, we have a young boy named Alex Lange who is 4 months old. He is 17 pounds. Several weeks ago he was denied insurance because of his ``preexisting condition'' which, in his case, is obesity. Bernie and Kelli Lange, his parents, tried to get insurance and were told by an insurance broker that their baby was too fat to be covered. As his father said:
[I] could understand if we could control what he is eating, but he is 4 months old. He is breastfeeding. We can't put him on the Atkins diet or on a treadmill.
So that was one story of a child who is too fat to be covered.
Today we have the story of Aislin Bates. By the way, in the Lange case--and I want the record to reflect this--the insurance company did the right thing, which is to say: We made a mistake, and we need to cover this young man.
Today comes the story of Aislin Bates who is 2 years old, 22 pounds, denied insurance because of her ``preexisting condition,'' which is that she is underweight. Rob and Rachel, her family, tried to get insurance and they received a letter saying:
We are unable to provide coverage for Aislin because her height and weight do not meet our company's standards.
Her pediatrician wrote a letter in support of the family's request to appeal the insurance company's decision, but the company stuck by its decision. The Bates family has said it costs as much to cover Aislin under COBRA as it costs to cover the remaining three family members.
So in Colorado we have children who are too big to be insured; we have children who are too little to be insured. The reason this reminded me of Goldilocks was that it looks as though you have to be ``just right'' to get insurance, even if you are an infant.
We can do better than that as a country, and we are proposing to do better than that as a country. One of the most important parts of this insurance reform is to get rid of denials of coverage based on preexisting conditions. I have spoken to many people who work for insurance companies that are tired of having to deny claims for this or for that or relying on the fine print when they know the right thing to do is to provide coverage.
I am tired of living in a country where 62 percent of bankruptcies are health care-related and 78 percent of those health care-related bankruptcies are happening to people who have insurance, working families who have insurance. I am tired of the fact that we have public hospitals in Denver that 2 or 3 years ago spent $180 million of taxpayer money on uncompensated care for people employed by small businesses.
So I think what we are talking about at the end of the day is trying to create some stability for our working families, trying to create some stability and some fairness for our small businesses that, after all, are paying 18 percent more to cover their employees just because they are small.
Politics has gotten in the way of reform of our health care system for more than 20 years. It has been longer than that. In the last 10 years alone, the costs of health insurance premiums have gone up 97 percent in my State, while median family income has declined by $800 over this same period. This is unsustainable for our working families. It is unsustainable for us as an economy, for us to spend more than twice what any other industrialized country in the world is spending on health care. We can't hope to compete in this global economy when we are devoting more than twice what anyone else is spending on health care.
We can do better. The commonsense reforms that are in front of us and that I am sure are going to be improved upon in the coming weeks are a big step forward for working families and small businesses. It is going to be a big step forward for these young children in Denver, CO, and in the rest of our State who can't be denied coverage because they are not ``just right,'' because they are too big or they are too small or there is one other issue that nobody anticipated.
Our families need help. They need stability in order to get ahead. That is why I support this health care reform effort.
I wish to thank, again, the Senator from New Hampshire for her leadership this morning and throughout the months as we have been talking about this issue. I look forward to working with her in the coming weeks as we finally bring this matter into its safe harbor.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
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