Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, in 1966 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life and legacy we just finished celebrating, expressed his concerns about health care. He stated, ``Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.''

Those words were brought home to me last year when a constituent from Florence, South Carolina, told me that she had just been informed by her insurance carrier that because of her 8-year-old daughter's cancer treatments, her family had reached their lifetime benefits limit.

What could be more inhumane than repealing this law's patients' rights and telling that mother that the lifesaving treatments for her daughter must end?

What could be more shocking than the injustice suffered by the middle-aged woman who called into a radio program to complain that although she had paid her premiums her entire adult life, she was dropped by her insurer when she contracted breast cancer. How can we repeal the remedy for this injustice?

Dr. King also taught us that the time is always ripe to do right. After nearly a century of debate, last March the time was ripe. And getting rid of these discriminatory practices was the right thing to do. And that is the reason I called the bill the Civil Rights Act of the 21st Century.

Interestingly, today we are hearing some of the same rhetoric about repeal of patients' rights that we heard regarding voting rights.

Do I feel that changes should not be made? Absolutely not.

When the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, it did not cover public employees.

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Mr. CLYBURN. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

When the 1965 Voting Rights Act became law, it did not cover congressional and legislative redistricting.

The Fair Housing Law wasn't perfect when it was passed.

Bipartisan changes were made to improve all of these measures. I sincerely hope that we can develop some bipartisan modifications that increase efficiency and effectiveness and decrease costs and duplication--none of which will be achieved through repeal.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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