Affordable Health Care For America Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. I thank Mr. Waxman for yielding.
Our rule was chaired by JOHN DINGELL, himself a historic figure on a historic day.
I want to congratulate all of those who have participated in the accomplishment of the product that we consider this day: Mr. Waxman, one of our senior Members in the House; Mr. Rangel, one of our senior Members in the House; and Mr. Miller.
I want to thank too the Republicans who engaged in this discussion, in this debate, because it is historic, and all of us who sit in this Chamber know that it will have a great effect on our people. Some perceive that effect as not positive. More, I believe, think it is positive. In any event, none of us believe that it is not extraordinarily important.
Soon each one of us is going to look into his or her conscience and vote on this bill. And when the time comes, I don't know if any words of mine will sway any of you. But I know that the most powerful arguments for the bill won't be spoken on this floor. They are being lived right now in our country in every one of our districts, in every one of our towns and counties and municipalities.
In the anxiety of the family that finds itself paying more and more each year for health insurance that grows weaker and weaker.
In the frustration of the small business owner weighing the choices of dropping her employees' coverage against the threat of being driven out of business by her competitors.
And in the fury of the patient who learns that an insurance company bureaucrat has deemed him too sick for the coverage he paid for.
They are our families, our neighbors, our fellow citizens. They are waiting for health insurance reform that is more affordable, more secure, more just. Their stories will be with me and I know with each of us when we cast our vote.
Because I want to say to every American facing down illness: never again, never again will you be denied coverage because you have diabetes or asthma or some other disease or because you're pregnant or because you have anything else your insurer decides is a preexisting condition. Never again will your coverage run out. Nor will you find the coverage you thought you had paid for was actually not there at all. And never again can insurance companies drive out competition and set premiums as high as they like, because there will be a public insurance option and a transparent marketplace to keep them honest, to keep them competitive, to bring prices down.
I want to say to our middle class families, the backbone of our country: you will have coverage that you can depend upon. Even if you change your job or lose your job or decide to start a business, you will be able to find affordable coverage in a competitive marketplace, an insurance exchange that offers you a choice of good policies at fair rates. In fact, according to an MIT analysis, buying coverage on the exchange will bring your premiums down by a great deal, even without the affordability credits.
If your family makes $90,000 or more, you'll save more than 1,200 bucks. If your family makes $60,000, you'll save more than $5,000. And if your family is making $38,000, you'll save more than $9,000. That's the kind of tax cut that America needs to secure its medical future.
I want to say to our seniors: you can count on Medicare, on a Federal program, for dignity and peace of mind in your golden years. And that will not change. Today we will vote to protect your access to your doctor, to encourage Medicare physicians to cooperate on higher quality care, to keep your Medicare solvent for longer, and to bring an end to the doughnut hole that leaves prescription drugs unaffordable for so many.
I want to say to our small businessmen and women: I know your premiums keep going up and that each year they make it harder to stay in business, to compete with Big Business and with foreign firms. You deserve a fair playing field; and in the insurance exchange marketplace, you'll be able to buy coverage at the low group rates you're now being denied.
I want to say to the 35 million Americans without insurance, who are forced to skip checkups and preventative care, who are forced to turn to the ER as the first and only line of defense, who live sicker and shorter lives: you will have what every man, woman, and child has in every other industrialized country in the world: health coverage you can afford and that you can count on.
And every American who is rightly worried about our mounting deficits and debt, I can tell you this: this bill does not add to the deficit over the next 10 years or the 10 years thereafter. This bill means health care that is more fiscally sustainable for years to come.
That is what this bill, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, can achieve for our country and for our people. It isn't a simple bill. It isn't a perfect bill, but it is the product of months and months of careful debate, sometimes animated debate, yes, even angry debate, careful scrutiny, hard work, and citizen input. And it's the right response to this time of economic insecurity in which we have been called to lead.
If we miss this chance, or if we vote for a Republican plan that does very little to expand coverage, weakens insurance, frankly, for millions who have it, and continues to allow millions of Americans to be denied affordable coverage, we'll find ourselves back here again.
But by then, premiums will eat up even more of our families' budgets; health care will consume even more of our economy; and even more Americans will have died for the lack of health care.
If we miss this chance, if we miss this challenge of nearly a century's duration, when Teddy Roosevelt, one of the great Presidents of this country, a Republican President of this country, said a hundred years ago we need to have health care coverage for all Americans--this is not a new idea, but it is an idea whose time has surely come--the years between this chance and our next one will be filled with stories that are unworthy of America at its best.
Stories like Linda's, who wrote to The New York Times of the anguish she felt suffering from abdominal cancer and standing in the hospital just feet away from the drugs that could help save her life, drugs her insurance company was denying her.
Stories like Deamonte Driver's from Prince George's County, just a few miles down the road, who died at the age of 12 from a toothache, a toothache that was not treated by a dentist; and, as a result, it became infected. That infection went into his brain. He was in the hospital for 30 days at a cost of $250,000. Why? Because he didn't have $80 to get that tooth filled.
This bill will change that. We can be better than that. America is better than that. We must be.
Americans rightly want to know what's in this bill for them and for their families, but there's also something important in this bill for us as a people: a system worthy of the values we profess and the principles we hold dear. We will vote for a healthier America. We will vote to give our fellow citizens a greater sense of security. We will vote to make Medicare stronger for our seniors. We will vote for a healthier economy, for affordable coverage for individuals and small business. We will vote to begin containing costs, which will otherwise be unsustainable for our children and for our grandchildren.
We will, in sum, my colleagues, on this historic day, vote for a more perfect Union of which our Founders dreamed.
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