John Garamendi: “I will never forget a visit that I made to a carpenter who had worked his entire life and had come down with lung…”

“I will never forget a visit that I made to a carpenter who had worked his entire life and had come down with lung cancer. He was about 63 at the time. I visited him in his home, a trailer home out in the back part of the district. His wife was there. She had emphysema. And she was about 62. He told me, ``I have to hang on. I have to hang on. I cannot die because she will be left without insurance. And then she too will die.'' That doesn't have to happen in America. What we are doing today, as we prepare for this historic vote on Sunday, is to lay out before the American people why this is so important. It is important to the individual, it is important to that family, that person lying in their sick bed trying to hang on for another year-and-a-half so that the wife would qualify for Medicare. Now, that's the reality of life. But the reality of this bill is it deals with that problem.”