Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today I join Senator Bayh and Senator Bond to introduce the Medical-Legal Partnership for Health Act. This legislation builds upon the great work that medical-legal partnerships are doing every day, all across the United States. Medical-legal partnerships bring legal aid services into medical settings, such as hospitals and community health centers, to provide patients with legal help to address conditions that lead to poor health, lengthy hospital stays, and repeated emergency room visits. Imagine, for example, that your child develops chronic ear infections. You repeatedly bring your sick child to the local emergency room, struggling each time to pay the high costs of medical care and prescription antibiotics. Imagine further that you are the head of a low-income family, you don't have health insurance or the money to pay for the ER visits, and the hospital or community bears the brunt of the costs. Medical-legal partnerships can help break this expensive and avoidable cycle. If the emergency room doctor is trained in screening for families who could benefit from legal intervention, the doctor may learn, for example, that the family's landlord refuses to turn on the heat in their apartment building. The frigid temperatures in their home have made their child more susceptible to illness, which explains the chronic ear infections.…”