On the recordJanuary 19, 2011
I rise in opposition to this bill to repeal. Last year, we acted to reform health care in America to make it easier for small businesses to cover their employees, to take important steps to bring down costs, and to stop insurance company abuses that bankrupt sick Americans and deny them coverage. We acted in the face of a crisis, a cost crisis, which saw premiums more than double over the last decade; a coverage crisis, which saw more than 40 million Americans without health care insurance; and a fiscal crisis, which saw the cost of health care driving our country deeper and deeper into the red. A constituent of mine from southern Maryland recently wrote to thank us for health reform that now lets her carry her 21-year-old daughter on her insurance, but she wrote that something else also inspired her to support this piece of legislation, seeing 'a lot of other people who are hardworking, honest people who were going bankrupt because of unexpected medical expenses.' Those were the stories we had in mind last year when we passed the health reform law--and today, as we fight to protect it.
