Health Care Reform

Floor Speech

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. INSLEE. I had a remarkable American in my office this morning, Gary Hall, who won five golds, three silvers, and two bronzes in three Olympic Games in freestyle swimming, a remarkable person. And he told me a story about having insurance for 12 years while he was in the Olympics, but then after he lost the Olympics, he couldn't get insurance. Do you know why? He has diabetes.

Here is a guy who won gold, silver, and bronze medals and couldn't get insurance in America because he had diabetes. And the reason he couldn't get insurance in America is that we haven't passed our health care reform bill yet.

In the next few days, we are going to put up at least 216 votes, I hope, green lights on that board, to pass health care reform so that Gary Hall can get insurance; and even if you haven't won a gold medal, you can get insurance if you have diabetes. And these people who are smoking something, I don't know what, who think we aren't going to take a vote on this, I am going to take a picture of this board to show you the votes, because the green lights are going to be to make sure that people with diabetes can get insurance, and the red lights will be you can't get insurance even if you have won a gold medal. That is not right. It is going to change in this country.

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