Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today I am introducing the Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Patients Act with my colleague Senator Thad Cochran. More than 26 million American adults are living with chronic kidney disease. Fortunately, many of these individuals are able to improve their condition through medication and lifestyle change. But more than half of a million Americans live with irreversible kidney failure or end-stage renal disease. They have only two choices to survive--both of them hard. They can receive regular and frequent dialysis or they can receive a kidney transplant. In 1972, Congress made a commitment to individuals with end-stage renal disease, or ERSD, to cover the treatment they needed, including possible transplants, under Medicare, regardless of their age. Organ transplantation is a medical success story. Thousands of kidney transplants are done every year, and for the patients fortunate enough to receive a donated organ, the quality and length of their lives can be dramatically improved. But not everyone who needs a donated kidney receives one. There are currently more than 100,000 Americans on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. Last year, 15,000 transplants were performed while more than 30,000 people were added to that waitlist. Derek Haney is one of the lucky ones who beat those odds and received a kidney transplant. Derek is a brave young man raised in Effingham, IL, a small city in central Illinois.…”