Ami Bera: “Today I rise not as a Member of Congress, but as a doctor. When I graduated medical school and took that oath, there are…”

“Today I rise not as a Member of Congress, but as a doctor. When I graduated medical school and took that oath, there are two core ethics that we take when we take that oath: to do good. And that is exactly what we tried to do when this body passed the Affordable Care Act. It was about doing good. It was about giving people basic access to health care. That is a good thing. The Affordable Care Act is not perfect, but let's keep doing good. Let's fix it. Let's address the cost of health care. Let's make sure people can afford their medications. That is doing good. Another core ethic that we take when we enter the profession of medicine as a physician is to do no harm. If this body repeals the Affordable Care Act, we are going to harm 20 million Americans that now have access to health care that didn't have it prior to the Affordable Care Act. We shouldn't do harm. Let me put it into real context. I am a primary care internist. My wife is also a primary care internist. You can tell we have exciting conversations at our house. I was asking her the other day what the Affordable Care Act meant to her as a physician, and she was sharing a story of a patient that she had cared for for years. This was a patient that had diabetes and hypertension, high blood pressure. We know these are silent killers. If you don't control your diabetes, if you don't control your blood pressure, it can have devastating consequences leading to heart attacks, leading to strokes.…”