On the recordNovember 21, 2019
I thank Congressman O'Halleran for leading this Blue Dog Special Order on a very important issue affecting rural America. The Blue Dogs, obviously, represent the breadth and width and diversity of our country, but many of us represent rural areas. Healthcare for every American is a critical need, a critical issue. In 2010, before the Affordable Care Act became law, in the district that I represent in California, in the San Joaquin Valley, 22 percent of my constituents had no healthcare insurance whatsoever, and 17 percent were underinsured. The Affordable Care Act has a number of areas where we could provide improvements if we could get bipartisan agreement, but the fact is that we have the ability to protect individuals who have preexisting conditions; children can be on their parents' healthcare insurance until the age of 25; things have really expanded with Medicaid and Medicare; and, what often gets overlooked, $8 billion was provided in the Affordable Care Act for rural healthcare clinics across America. What does this mean in my district, a district that represents one of the richest agricultural regions in the entire country and the world? We have gone, in 9 years, from 22 percent underinsured to 10 percent underinsured. We have cut the number of people who have no insurance by more than half. We have reduced the level of those who are underinsured.…
