Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the sad reality is that if you are living in rural America, you are more likely to experience lower health expectations, lower health quality, and lower life expectancy simply because of your ability to access healthcare that you need. I have sat with constituents in my community of Wainiha who have asked me if it was fair that people that live right down the road in urban Honolulu live 10 years longer than they do. While at times it may seem that they may require more medical attention and care, rural Americans often have more access to healthcare because of such things as you have heard of today: physician shortages, lack of reliable and affordable transportation options, insufficient health insurance coverage, and an increased exposure to environmental and occupational hazards. As a Representative in Congress for one of the most rural and remote districts in the country, I know that many of my constituents are often just one diagnosis away from a serious illness and the difficult financial and family decisions that often come with this. Across the country, more than 60 million Americans, about one in five Americans live in rural areas. While they make up just 18 percent of the total U.S. population, they are scattered, as we have heard, across 97 percent of our country's land area. Rural Americans face numerous health disparities as compared with their urban counterparts.…”