Pete Stark: “Congress has failed to address existing disparities.”

Thank you for holding this hearing and thank our witnesses for their service.

I would first of all like to try to make it the protocol in this committee--I am not succeeding too well--that we strike from our lexicon the word 'disability.'

It gave every shyster and promoter a loophole. We now have to keep rewriting the laws like the tax code.

The home health copayment, for instance, I think is largely ascribed to be used by old, sick, poor widows, and raising the price that they have to pay is just one more Republican effort to deny equal rights to women.