Opening Day for the Affordable Care Act in Connecticut

Floor Speech

Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday was opening day for the Affordable Care Act in the State of Connecticut. Despite the hysterical predictions on the other side, where you would have thought the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would be riding through the streets of New London, Norwich, and Hartford, instead, the headlines this morning were:

Enrollment better than expected on exchange's first day.

Forty-five thousand people contacted the Connecticut exchange. Hundreds enrolled. They didn't wait until January to begin the process of getting health coverage.

One of them was a lady named Elly Banos, 48 years old, who said she's been without coverage for a year and half due to a layoff. She's been holding her breath and ``thanking God every day that I don't get sick or get into a car accident.'' She was excited to learn that she could get good individual coverage for a month or qualify for the expanded Medicaid coverage.

Another, Babz Ivy, said that she has gone to bed ``with a prayer on my lips, asking God to keep me healthy and in no need of medical attention.''

``Today was amazing,'' Ivy said. ``I felt so empowered and in control of my health.''

The fact of the matter is these are the targets of the shutdown effort. It's not President Obama or Democrats in Congress. It's people like Elly Banos and Babz Ivy that we need to protect by keeping this government open and allowing people to get access to health care for the first time in American history.

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