30- Something Working Group
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP -- (House of Representatives - July 22, 2009)
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Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland. I thank my colleagues because I think there is probably no more important issue to talk about than health care, and not for us but for the American people.
I thought about it for a bit, and before I came into the Congress, I started out the year 2000 working at a small nonprofit, and they paid all my health care, and the cost was about $12,000 per employee. Well, by the time I had been elected to Congress and came in in 2008, the cost for me and my son, you know, same network, was about $20,000. And that's true for people across the country, that premiums have skyrocketed about 114 percent over a decade.
And I think that if you think of those wages, whether they worked for small or large employers or they're self-employed, there are few among us whose salaries have skyrocketed to 114 percent in the same time frame. And that's what we're talking about with health care.
And so I know that we often speak a lot about those who are uninsured; and, clearly, the moral imperative for us to insure the 47 million to 50 million people who don't have any health care coverage at all is really important. But tonight I want to spend some time actually talking about the 250 million people or so who have health care coverage and sometimes it's inadequate. Sometimes it doesn't meet the need when the time comes, and then other times the premiums and deductibles are going up, the copayments are going up, out-of-pocket costs are going up, and what began as an affordable plan has become really unaffordable for so many Americans.
And it's a system anymore that's unsustainable. We think often about what it means to be sick as an individual, what it means to have a family member who's sick. Well, there's something that is really sick, and it's our health care system. It's really sick. It's on its last leg, and our job in the United States Congress is really, I think, to do some truth-telling about this system and to let the American people know that we really do have a plan that is going to lower costs, that is going to make health care really affordable for ordinary Americans, that is going to ensure that if you have coverage and you like it you can keep, it and if you want to have other choices you can have those, too, and that the government is not going to be out there choosing your doctor. You get to choose your doctor.
You will have a system in which, you know, if you have an illness like my father had kidney disease, well, he wouldn't be able to be turned down by an insurance company because he had a preexisting condition.
There are some insurance companies that turn women down who have experienced domestic violence because they define domestic violence as a preexisting condition. This is unacceptable, and so I think for the American people we are creating a plan that is indeed fiscally responsible. It is the moral imperative to do what's right by the American people, and we know that the kind of investment in prevention in community health and ensuring that we take care of primary practice, we will in fact achieve the kind of goals that we set out for the American people and invest in that competitiveness that we talk about all the time for the 21st century.
And so I'm excited to be with my colleagues this evening because we have a task ahead of us, and it's a difficult one, and putting it off is not going to make it less difficult. And the enemy, those people who don't want reform at all, will try to say anything or do anything to kill reform, and we can't that let happen for the American people.
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Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland. I thank the gentleman from Ohio.
You raise an interesting point and it really has to do with what small employers need, small businesses. I know I have them in my congressional district out in Maryland. When I talk to the barber shop owners and the small IT firms and the engineering firms, they want to be able to provide health care for their employees. But you're right. They're being squeezed. The irony of it is that because they're so small, they have no capacity to negotiate with these big insurers. So their rates, if they do choose to provide health care, those premiums actually really, really go up in comparison to even premiums for the larger employers. So we've created a system here where there are disincentives even for the smaller employers to provide health care for their employees, despite the fact that they want to.
Now what is it that we do in this plan to go at lowering some of those costs? Well, I think one of those things that's really important to me, and I know important to so many people in my congressional district and in my State, is providing a robust public plan that
really is going to drive competition. I'm often amazed because the same people who argue for the free market, when it comes to talking about a robust public plan option that competes in the marketplace on a level playing field with a doctor network, those same folks actually don't want competition.
So I say, bring on the competition. Bring on the competition with a robust public plan that relies on a recognized provider network and that makes sure that reimbursement rates really reflect care delivery so we can bring in more patients and then competes on a level playing field. I think that, in fact, will bring down costs for all of us who are insured--our premiums, our deductibles, our copays, all of those out-of-pocket costs that really burden average families.
And for our small businesses, we give them some options. Folks talk all the time about choice. I want to talk about the choice that people don't have right now under the current system. You know, if you have an employer that just has a set plan, whether it's good or not, you don't have a choice. You may be in a plan where your doctor is not part of that network. You don't have a choice. So there are a lot of things that you don't get to choose about. And guess what, we now are actually opening up a system that provides average consumers with far greater choices than they have under the current system.
So I think it's actually an exciting time for the American people. I think that when it's all said and done, the naysayers will be out there trying to beat this plan down; but I know that there's not a single person in my congressional district who doesn't have a horror story to tell about their insurer, about their neighbor, about a family member, about the potential loss of a home or a bankruptcy because this system is so broken. In the future, whether it is 5 years down the line or 10 years down the line, we'll have a story to tell about healthier people because we've invested in prevention. We'll have a story to tell that's about small businesses who can provide the insurance and the coverage that they want for their employees. And we'll have a story to tell about the American people who aren't enduring the ever-skyrocketing costs of health care.
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Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland. Thank you.
Before we close out, I do want to say before we get out of this that we've been about clearing up the mythology about what is and is not in our health care bill, and one of those myths really has to do with our seniors.
So, Mr. Speaker, I want to say to all of our seniors across this country that we're protecting you, that we are going to make sure that we phase in completely by filling in that doughnut hole that has left you covering the brunt of your costs for prescription drugs. We're going to eliminate co-payments and deductibles for preventative services under Medicare, and we're going to limit cautionary requirements in Medicare Advantage plans to the amounts that are charged for the same services in traditional Medicare coverage. This is really important for our seniors. We're going to improve low-income subsidy programs in Medicare by increasing asset limits for programs that help Medicare beneficiaries pay premiums and cost-sharings.
So let's be really clear with the American people and especially with our seniors. Don't let them scare you out of supporting this plan for our seniors. This is a good plan for our seniors. It is a good plan for middle-income families. It is a good plan for working families. It is a good plan for people who have insurance, and it surely is a good plan for all of those who don't.
With that, I'll yield back.
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