Progressive Caucus Hour

Floor Speech

Mr. ELLISON. Let me thank the Speaker for recognizing us today. And let me also thank Mr. JARED POLIS, who will be joining me today for the Progressive Caucus hour.

We come together every week to talk about a progressive vision for America, a progressive vision, one that says, look, we all count, we all matter, we all need health care, we all need clean air, clean water, food free of pesticides, and now we all need health care. We need health care that works for everybody. We need to cover the uninsured. We need to stop the escalating costs for those of us who may have health care but see our premiums rise and rise and rise, doubled over the last 10 years, doubling over the next 10.

So tonight, Mr. Speaker, we come together to talk about health care, to talk about the fact that we are within grasp of major health care reform. The American people not only want it, they demand it, and they demonstrated their interests in the last election, which not only landed Barack Obama in the White House, but landed us in firm majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

So let me invite you and yield to Mr. Polis of the great State of Colorado, who will share a few remarks as we jump into this subject of health care.

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Mr. ELLISON. Let me thank the gentleman for yielding. And I will be yielding back to the gentleman in a moment.

It's so important that we keep this conversation real, real people going through real things. I want to thank you for bringing the story of that family to the floor of the House today. They deserve to be heard.

This is the progressive message, the Progressive Caucus Special Order hour, and I just want to share a few things.

As the gentleman from Colorado talks about real stories, let me talk about things a little more globally. Let me say that there are highlights that you need to know about regarding whether the American people want health care or not.

The majority has now backed two key and controversial provisions, both the so-called ``public option'' and the new mandate requiring all Americans to carry health insurance. Polling has demonstrated that the American people support both. Independents and senior citizens, two groups crucial to the debate, have warmed to the idea of the public insurance option. Fifty-seven percent of all Americans now favor a public insurance option. The fact is, 56 percent of all Americans favor a provision mandating that all Americans buy insurance because Americans know that if you decide to not get insurance and all the rest of us do, when you get sick, we are surely going to take care of you. So everybody has to help out and do what's right as part of this.

The number rises to 71 percent, should the government provide subsidies for many low-income Americans to help them purchase insurance; 71 percent of Americans say that we should do that.

I want to yield back to the gentleman. Maybe if you have some more stories, you can share them; otherwise, I can keep running down how things are going more globally.

I also want to share some stories tonight, but if you've got a few ready to roll, let me hand it back to the gentleman from Colorado.

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The gentleman is doing a great job highlighting what Americans are going through. Americans of all descriptions--Americans in the suburbs, Americans in the city, Americans in the rural areas, Americans in the East, the West, the Midwest, the South, all over America people need health care reform. They need it if they have health care through their job; they need it if they don't have it at all. We need health care reform and we need it now. The American people have sent a resounding message, and it's up to the American Congress to act now and not play politics.

Because, as the gentleman pointed out, even if you are a registered Republican, or a registered Democrat, no matter what you are registered for, the fact is that when you have an injury or an illness in your family and you have to consider what to do, given the costs that you will face or all the other implications, you don't really think about politics, you think about getting some care that you can afford. So the Congress has to be responsible and do the right thing.

Let me just say this, just a few stats. These are stats I am talking about. The gentleman from Colorado has been talking about real-life stories. Let me paint a more global picture for a moment, and I will yield back.

Forty-two percent of Americans have changed their health care coverage in the last 5 years. Thirty-eight percent of Americans worry they will lose their health care coverage in the next 5 years. That is a lot of people. Almost 40 percent are worried they will lose their health care coverage. That is a big deal.

The fact is that from 2003 to 2007, about 36 percent of Americans either experienced gaps in their insurance or relied on government insurance for all or part of their coverage. That is a lot of people, fully a third. Fully a third of Americans in that 4-year period had gaps in their insurance or had to rely on government to keep things afloat for their family. This is a big deal.

A few more stats I would like to share before I yield back to the gentleman from Colorado. According to The Urban Institute, as many as one in five uninsured Americans is uninsured because of a change in or loss of job. When you lose your job, you lose your health care insurance, unless you can keep up with COBRA. But then, of course, that is on you to pay for, and if you don't have a job, you might not be able to cover that COBRA.

The fact is that people are suffering in individual homes, in apartments, on farms that they live on across America, and they are struggling in large numbers when we aggregate them and look at them statistically. They are dealing with a lot of tough things out there, and it is time for Congress to act.

Let me say in 2008, the average cost of an individual plan was about $4,704. That is 2008. A family plan was $12,608. $12,000. That is an enormous amount of money in the course of a year. These numbers will double in the next 10 years, eating up a greater percentage of the family budget, chewing into expenditures that the family has to make for vital things just to be able to make it and just to be able to do well.

The reality is the time for change is now. No more delay, no more scare tactics, no more stories about community schools, about sex clinics; no more stories about death panels or stories about it is only covering the uninsured because everybody else has insurance. No, we need real reform for everybody. North, west, east, south, we need it now.

I yield back to the gentleman for another one of those great stories he has been sharing with us.

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Mr. ELLISON. Let me join the gentleman from Colorado, Congressman Polis, who is doing such a great job, in offering a few stories that people are dealing with out here today. We also want to just thank the gentlelady from the great State of Illinois. JAN SCHAKOWSKY is here joining us right now, and as she gets her bags straight and everything, I am going to just share one story from a family that is really, really working and pulling for real health care reform. Let me say I will just leave the last names out just to protect folks.

Kelly is 50 years old and her husband is 55. They are both retired employees. They are retired from an American company. After a 2004 horseback riding accident, Kelly was in a coma for 3 weeks. Her insurer, United Health Care, refused to cover her emergency surgery. To this day, Kelly has no memory of the incident.

David called UHC from the hospital in the waiting room to report the incident, but the company denied coverage, saying David hadn't reported the incident. On top of that, the company told David the hospital was out of network.

The company, the health insurance company, eventually paid about half of Kelly's medical costs, which left the family with about $200,000 in bills. $200,000 is a lot of money even if you already have a lot of money. But that is how much they had in bills.

They were able to hold on to their house, but only by selling almost everything else they owned and declaring bankruptcy. Yes, bankruptcy. Kelly tried to go back to her job in the computerized drafting field, but the brain damage was too severe and she just couldn't do the work anymore.

David, also retired after 20 years as a communications technician, he suffered an on-the-job injury to his spine. To this day they pay about $1,645 a month, which is a lot of money, to the bankruptcy court, and hope to be out of debt one day.

So that is just one story. But their story could be dramatized by the number of people who file for bankruptcy because of medical debt. More than half of the bankruptcy filings are due to medical debt that is just crippling families. Health care reform will bring that nightmare to an end, so we look eagerly towards it.

I think the gentlewoman from Illinois is ready to hand it to the folks, so let me yield to the gentlelady and thank her for coming, JAN SCHAKOWSKY.

I yield to the gentlelady from Illinois.

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Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

You know, Congressman Polis, you're hitting the square tonight, as is our colleague from Illinois, Congresswoman Schakowsky.

Let me just take a moment to talk about myths for a moment before I hand it back to the gentlelady from Illinois. The fact is that as we stand here on the House floor tonight talking about the urgency of health care reform now, we want to also convey the idea that this is something that every American can participate in and can get involved in and can call their Representatives to talk about the importance of reform. But let me just talk myths, as I said a moment ago.

There's this idea out there that the public option is some government takeover or even a government-run program. It isn't true. The fact is the public option is a program where you'd have private doctors, where you would have the doctors of your choice that you could go to. It would be a low-cost alternative. And it certainly wouldn't be some kind of a takeover thing that they're talking about.

The idea that mandated health care is a new tax is also false. We're paying already for people who aren't covered. If you show up at the emergency room, we're taking care of you, so we're already paying. It's not a new tax on anybody.

There are other fallacies we'll talk about, and we'll talk about more as the hour wears on, but the fact of the matter is there are myths out there that must be debunked. And the American people are smart and they know very well what's right and what's good, and that's why a full majority continue to support the public option.

Let me yield to the gentlelady from Illinois.

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Mr. ELLISON. Well, let me share a quick story, and this one I don't have written down, but it actually happened to me when I had a town hall forum in my district in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and we had a packed-out room.

And I had this friend who was actually helping me get boards that I was using for a presentation, and she's just a wonderful person and I've known her for many years. And she was running around getting boards, getting coffee,
helping people out, just sort of getting people signed in who showed up. That's the kind of person that she is. She's just good people.

Anyway, she--after it was all over, it was pretty emotional. It wasn't bad, but it was a strong and powerful time. She said--she gave me one of those looks, Mr. Speaker, where it's like she said to me, I've got to talk to you. And I said, Okay, because I could have said, you know, Don't you see all these people? I'm busy. I'll get with you. I'll call you. But the way she looked at me, I said, Okay. So I said, You guys hang on.

So we went over to sort of like the corner of the room as people were filing out and she looked at me with eyes full of water. She looked like she could cry at that moment, and she said, you know, I just need to tell you this. I'm 39 years old. I have two teenage sons. My mother and my mother's sister, my aunt, both had breast cancer, and we lost my aunt last year. My sister has had a positive diagnosis, a mammogram. She's being treated now. I don't know what to do because I know that I need to go get the exam, but I also know that if I get it, they're probably going to say I have a preexisting condition. I could be dropped.

This young woman, full of life, full of care and concern about everyone else, said to me, I'm too young to die. I've got teenagers. That's who she's worried about. She said, If I go get the test, they could drop me for having a preexisting condition. If don't get the test, I don't know what illness is growing within me, and I don't know what to do. I said, You know what? I'll make a personal pledge to do everything I can do to make sure that there's answers for you and your family, and that's my promise to you. And I shook hands with her that moment, and I'm down here on this floor today telling her story.

And I yield to the gentlelady from Illinois.

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Mr. ELLISON. Let me thank the gentleman again.

The points are powerful. As you mentioned, the robust public option, I have to mention that the question emerges, Who wants a public option? Who wants it? Doctors want it. About 63 percent of all doctors say that they want a health care reform plan that includes both a public and private option. There's another 10 percent of doctors who say they want a public option only. They just want a single-payer like I want. And so that is a full two-thirds.

So doctors want it; two-thirds of doctors want it. Nurses want it. They're on record. Nurses want a public option health care reform. Congress wants it. Congress wants it, and we're going to show that and not too long from now. Faith communities have come forward and said, We want a public option. The President has publicly stated he prefers a public option. He's made this very clear. He's on record. Go out and Google it. And the American people want it, too.

The most recent poll showed 57 percent of Americans want a public option. It has been up there in the 60s, in the high 50s. We want a public option. We have to fight hard to get it. It won't be easy, but we're going to do it.

Let me just say this: a young man tells me he wants to know measures to encourage more medical students to enter primary care, what can we do about that and health care reform; and he also had some views that he wanted to express about tort reform.

But can I just ask you guys, either one of you would be interested in taking on this one. What about encouraging medical students to do primary care? Is that an important part of health care reform in your view?

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.

Mr. ELLISON. Let me offer a few other thoughts, that is, as we are embarking on this effort, we're on the House floor tonight--Progressive Caucus comes week after week. We've been talking about health care since summertime. We're going to have to get another topic but not until we get health care reform.

But I just want to take a moment to say this is an opportunity to talk about what real people are going through.

I want to tell folks about Courtney. She's 31 and a mother of a toddler. In college, she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a debilitating and chronic digestive illness, serious illness. If you have any experience with Crohn's disease, you know it's tough.

To control her disease, Courtney needed expensive medication, about $1,500 worth of shots four times a month. After first approving the treatment, her health care provider, United Health Care, denied Courtney coverage of the medication 12 months later saying that the shots were no longer medically necessary.

Courtney and her doctor fought the insurer; and by January of 2009, the company reinstated coverage of the medication, but it was too late. Courtney's condition had already deteriorated, and she was in chronic pain with decreasing energy and quality of life. In May, she underwent major surgery, spending a week in the hospital and missing almost 2 months of work.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. POLIS. Thank you. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota.

You alluded to other topics.

I want to take this opportunity to remind our viewers that for the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, not only could we cover every American with health care, but we would reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars over 10 years. And I know that that is a topic that many of us plan to return to as well.

But I would point out, to put things in perspective, there were those on the other side of the aisle that didn't ask, didn't worry how much it would cost to invade and occupy not one, two countries; didn't ask how long it might cost to be there 10 years, 20 years, how much to

increase it 40,000 troops, 60,000 troops, 80,000 troops.

But there's a new-found commitment of fiscal responsibility when it comes to health care. And I am proud to say that the Democratic plan fully pays for health care reform. Not only will it fully pay for health care reform, but it will reduce the budget deficit over 10 years and help rein in growing health care costs.

I think it's important to put a human face on what health care reform means for American families.

I want to share with my colleagues in the House the story of Deborah Abbott Brown from Boulder, Colorado. Deborah, like a lot of Americans, lost her job about a year ago in the recession so she was faced with COBRA payments. Her COBRA payments would have been $1,800 a month to continue the health care for her family. She couldn't afford that. That was more than her mortgage payment, and at the same time she was losing her income. How could she afford $1,800 a month in COBRA payments?

So she wanted to turn to--being responsible and wanting to keep her family with some kind of insurance--she turned to the individual insurance market in Colorado to try to find affordable coverage. She thought, You know, I'm willing to pay a reasonable amount and maybe we'll have some kind of high deductible or catastrophic plan. But she soon found out that her family was denied coverage on the individual market even though one of the companies she applied for was the same provider of the COBRA care that she couldn't afford.

The reason is that her husband, Deborah's husband, had recently turned 50, completed his baseline colonoscopy, as was recommended by his physician, and was told that the procedure counted as a surgery and in the individual market they would not offer insurance to anybody who had a surgical procedure in the last 3 months. Deborah was shocked. How can a common medical procedure when there were no findings be the basis for denying coverage?

That's when it dawned on Deborah, as it dawning on millions of Americans every day, that insurance companies work for their own profit. They unreasonably deny insurance in the individual market when they don't provide needed insurance profits. That's when Deborah became a convert and told us that's why the public option is a must.

This is a routine occurrence. Families across our country--California, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas--they want to do the right thing. She wanted to get COBRA, but for $1,800 a month, she said let's find an affordable option. Oh, your husband had a routine preventative procedure that he should have had--and it was a good thing he had from a medical perspective--came out clean but, oh, he had a surgery in the last 3 months.

This is what American families are being told, and this is where we in Congress have a historic opportunity to fix and make a health care system that's good for American families.

I yield back.

Mr. ELLISON. Before I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois, I've got a story here.

A 50-year-old woman with Morton's neuroma. Surgery was scheduled, but she was laid off and lost her insurance. Now she can barely walk, and she can't get to surgery.

So I yield to the gentlelady again.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. At this point, I just want to thank Mr. Ellison, the gentleman from Minnesota, for coming down to the floor and helping to educate our Members of Congress and whoever may be watching about the dilemma that we face right now and how Congress can fix it, that we can gather all of these stories that we've been telling tonight and then work out a plan that actually addresses them. And if we don't take this opportunity to lift the burden of fear, of distress, and sometimes even death from American families, then shame on us.

It is time to act. We have a plan that can fix this problem. And we have just a few more weeks. We've got to do it before the end of this year.

And I just want to thank the gentlemen from Minnesota and from Colorado for contributing to the solution to these problems.

I yield back.

Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

I just want to point out this. Because you know, let's just face it, we all want bipartisanship. I want it. My dad's a Republican, and I love my dad, and my brother is, too, and I love him; and we debate, you know, tax policy and all of this kind of stuff. And we have a good time over dinner time whenever I can be in Detroit.

But the point is when it comes down to the basic necessities of life like health care, why can't we all come together on this thing? Why can't we say that, you know what, in the richest country not only in the world but in the history of the world, that 49 million people shouldn't be left in the cold and we shouldn't have people who have employer-based health care facing doubling of premiums every 10 years. We shouldn't have people being dropped and rescinding everything else for preexisting conditions.

Let us have our values and form our behavior. We have a historic opportunity right here in front of us.

Because we are running out of time--the gentlelady from Texas has just joined us--we're going to give her an opportunity to share her experience on this tremendous fight that we're in right now.

I yield to the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. SHEILA JACKSON-LEE.

Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for his kindness.

It is typical what Members say. We could not avoid coming here to this floor because of the enormity of the power of what you are presenting to the American public and our colleagues.

I am pleased to be with my colleague from Illinois and my colleague from Colorado. It indicates how widespread and how diverse the need for a public option, a vigorous public option, and health care reform actually is.

We're from many different areas. All of us have nuances to the needs for health care reform. Many of us have different hospital issues. But we have been working on this now for almost a year, and what I like about what I heard on the floor today is I heard Members saying that we now are at the hour of no return.

We're at Martin Luther King's, ``If not now, then when?''

As I listen to a number of colleagues speaking about the lack of health care reform or health insurance--there are many numbers--I hear 18,000 people die every year without health insurance and because they don't have health insurance, and those numbers are mounting. I hear as well that there are people with breast cancer who are trying to get insurance, but they have a preexisting disease, and that is called acne.

We heard of the tragic story, which happened about 7 years ago or about 5 or so years ago, of the leukemia victim, of the 8-year old, who literally had her parents take her to the insurance company's office in California and beg for the opportunity to have a bone marrow transplant, which they repeatedly denied over and over again. Tragically, that little girl lost her life.

So I just want to say to my colleagues that a vigorous public option is about lower premiums, saved dollars and saved lives, and I believe that now is the time.

To my dear friend, as you well know, you will be joining us in a very special hearing on Tuesday, October 27, in room 2141, when Members will open themselves up to hearing from those patients, or from those Americans, who will come to this Hill.

There will be no tickets. We will not bar you from coming to give witness to health crises that you've experienced alone and without help because you had no health insurance. A number of us will be hosting this hearing where we will listen to patients and doctors. We open it up, and we ask that you come to the Rayburn room--to the Judiciary Committee room--which is 2141, Rayburn, on Tuesday, October 27, with JACKSON-LEE, CONYERS, ELLISON, JOHNSON, BARBARA LEE, KUCINICH, CLARKE, WOOLSEY, and many others.

I'm going to yield to the gentleman by simply saying this: When you think of health care, let us not selfishly think of the people who, in essence, have their own. Maybe they have employer-based insurance. Just look beyond. Look at your working neighbor. I would imagine that two houses on your block or more are without health care insurance. That is what we will be addressing on Tuesday, and that is what we will be doing when we take this vote as we go into this period of time of no return to vote for a health care bill that helps those who have helped America--a vigorous public option and, as well, health care reform that addresses the question of America's needs.

I yield back to the gentleman, and I thank him for his kindness.

Mr. ELLISON. Let me thank the gentlewoman from Texas. It was great to get her in at the end of this Progressive hour.

I just want to say that I just got a message which says, I'm a health care worker who continues to see people come into the hospital who are sicker than they should be due to no insurance.

Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Wow.

Mr. ELLISON. With that, I think the gentleman from Colorado is probably going to have the last word, but I just want to say this has been the Progressive hour. We come here week after week to talk about progressive values that make America better and stronger, and we're going to continue to do that.

So I yield to the gentleman, and I think you'll probably take us out.

Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota, and I thank you for your ongoing leadership and for fighting for working families and for fighting to make America stronger.

You know, there are a lot of slogans that are tossed out. What's in this bill, if you look at it, is not the government takeover of health care. There are not government-employed doctors or government-run hospitals. There are no death panels. Who would support that? I wouldn't support that.

Would you, Ms. Jackson-Lee?

Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Mr. POLIS. No. Who the heck would support it?

So what we're talking about supporting is making health care more affordable for American families. That's what we're talking about doing here.

I yield back.

Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. And protecting seniors.

Mr. ELLISON. We might have about 10 more seconds, but I just want to say this has been the Progressive hour. I am so honored to appear with you great Members, with you great servants of the people.

I believe we're going to get a public insurance health care option with major health care reform. The time is now. Let's not back down.

We yield back.

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