What You Don't Know Can Hurt You

Floor Speech

Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it is said that what you don't know won't hurt you. What you don't know won't hurt you. I disagree.

What you don't know about health care can hurt you. What you don't know about a treatable condition that can harm you, possibly kill you, what you don't know about it can hurt you.

I don't believe in the idiom, the adage, what you don't know won't hurt you. I believe you should know the truth because the truth can set you free.

So let us take a moment now and look at just one aspect of what is called the Ryan budget. Let's look at health care. The Ryan budget repeals the Affordable Care Act. It repeals it without replacing it.

What you don't know can hurt you. But if you know the truth, it can liberate you. We need to get the truth to the masses so that the masses can understand the impact of repealing without replacing.

Let's reflect upon 2009, when we embarked upon the task of developing an Affordable Care Act. In 2009, we were spending $2.5 trillion per year on health care. $2.5 trillion is a very large number, and it is difficult to get your mind around it. However, $2.5 trillion is $79,000 a second. $79,000 a second is what we were spending.

17.6 percent of the GDP, $100 billion being spent on persons without insurance in various venues, emergency rooms, and other places. It was projected that by 2018 we would spend $4.4 trillion per year.

Know the truth. It can liberate you.

$4.4 trillion is $139,000 per second; estimated that it would be about 20.3 percent of GDP.

In 2009 we had 40 to 50 million people uninsured, depending on who is counting and how you count. In 2009 we had 45,000 people per year dying because they didn't have insurance. This is per Harvard University. One person dying every 12 minutes.

In 2009, in the State of Texas we had 6 million people uninsured, and 20 percent of the children in the State of Texas uninsured.

We had to do something about health care if, for no other reason, to simply bend the cost curve. And the cost curve is bending. It is projected that, in the first 10 years, it would bend the cost curve about $100 billion, and in the next 10 years, $1 trillion.

Know the truth, and the truth can liberate you, my dear friends. The truth is this: if the Ryan budget repeals the Affordable Care Act and it is not replaced--and there is no replacement provision in that budget--seniors who are on Medicare are going to see the doughnut hole expand rather than close.

The doughnut hole is that point at which seniors have to pay more for prescription drugs, more than many can afford. What you don't know can hurt you, seniors, when the doughnut hole starts to expand.

The budget would cause those who are 26 years of age, under 26 years of age, who are on policies of their parents, to come off.

Young people are invincible until they have an accident and get hurt and need health care. They are invincible until they find out they have a condition that is curable and they need health care.

Young people, what you don't know can hurt you. But the truth can liberate you so that you can do the right thing as it relates to this budget and let people know that you are opposed to what can happen to you.

This budget will cause preexisting conditions to become an uninsurable circumstance in your life. There are people who are born with preexisting conditions. These people will not be insurable. The Affordable Care Act eliminates preexisting conditions as a reason not to ensure people.

We would go back to people being born with preexisting conditions, many of whom would have to wait until they can afford or get to Medicare before they could get insurance. Medicare is a type of insurance.

This budget would cause women to, again, have to go back to a circumstance wherein they, by virtue of their condition of being a woman, would have a preexisting condition.

Mr. Speaker, I will put a ``to be continued'' in this message. But what you don't know can hurt you. The truth can set you free.

God bless you.

Source