Health Care

Floor Speech

Health Care

Madam Speaker, opponents of the health care reform bill are trying to confuse and to scare the American people. They are trying to prey on fear of the unknown. Opponents claim that the average American will fare worse under this bill because health care will be rationed by some faceless bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., but they clearly have not traveled to my district in California or they would know that rationing is already happening to people of every age and background. Insurance companies are already denying coverage if you are sick, have a preexisting condition, or are not independently wealthy.

In my district, a healthy middle class father's care was rationed when he was told he could not have insurance when his wife was pregnant because he had asthma as a child. A hardworking man was told that, despite working 30 years in a factory, he wasn't wealthy enough to deserve the cancer treatment that he desperately needed.

Health care reform will prohibit the kind of rationing that my constituents struggle with every day.

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