Affordable Health Care For America Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my chairman, Mr. Waxman, for all his hard work on this bill.

For far too long, our Nation has endured a health care system that is chaotic, costly, and crippling American families. In casting our votes today, each of us must make a simple choice: Do we want to maintain the broken system we currently have or do we want to make it better?

And you should ask yourself, first, are you in favor of allowing health care premiums for American families to continue to spiral out of control, forcing them to delay care or drop coverage altogether, or are you in favor of providing every American with access to affordable and quality health insurance?

Second, are you in favor of more American families falling into bankruptcy under the weight of medical bills, or are you in favor of providing every American with the security of knowing that they won't go broke if they get sick?

Third, are you in favor of more American businesses delaying investments, closing their doors or laying off workers because of increasing health care costs, or are you in favor of making it more affordable for those businesses to provide health care coverage for their workers?

And finally, are you in favor of allowing health insurance companies to be able to discriminate against people because they are sick, women, or older, or are you in favor of putting an end to this explicit and immoral form of discrimination that insurance companies get away with today?

Mr. Speaker, there are many reasons to vote for this bill, but there is really only one reason to vote against it, and that is to maintain the broken health care system we currently have.

If you want to change the system, vote ``yes''; vote for affordable and quality health care for every American.

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Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Chairman Waxman.

The bill we are debating today includes the CLASS Act, a bill I sponsored, along with Representative Dingell, which would encourage individuals to plan ahead for future long-term care needs. But there are other things we can do to help increase the availability of home and community-based services. The Empowered at Home Act, H.R. 2688, which I sponsored with Representative DeGette, helps encourage States to improve and increase access to home and community-based services under their Medicaid programs.

While we were not able to include these other provisions from the Empowered at Home Act in H.R. 3962, I hope that we can consider their inclusion in the final health reform bill that emerges from the conference with our Senate colleagues.

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