Peter Visclosky: “as this Congress considers ways to fix America's health care system, it is easy to get caught up in the political…”

“as this Congress considers ways to fix America's health care system, it is easy to get caught up in the political process. Whose plan is up; whose plan is down--all the name-calling and arm-waving that goes with any major piece of legislation. And sometimes, it is easy to forget what is really at stake here: millions of lives and billions of dollars. Just yesterday, two devastating new studies found that we're actually paying more for less, forcing millions of Americans into emergency health care that is the most expensive for us and the least efficient for them. These studies also found that millions of Americans are shut out of decent health insurance--and these unlucky Americans are two to three times more likely to die in a hospital as a result. Let us be clear: we are not talking about paperwork, or bureaucracy, or even high premiums; we're talking about human lives. In one study, the New England Journal of Medicine found that in our cities, poor Americans have to rely on expensive emergency room care, because decent care simply is not available to them any other way. And we pick up the tab for that emergency care, often through higher premiums and higher taxes. Another sobering study found that children without health insurance are less likely to get treatment for potentially devastating medical conditions. What kind of health care system condemns poor children to suffer bad health just because they were not born into wealth?”