Jim Baird: “I came to Congress as a member of the health care profession because we have a health care crisis. For 23 years before…”

“I came to Congress as a member of the health care profession because we have a health care crisis. For 23 years before serving in this body, I worked with patients. I was a clinical psychologist. I worked with cancer patients, with head injury patients, with folks with severe mental illness. I can tell my colleagues that, when we talk about 44 million uninsured Americans, 11 million uninsured children, those are not just numbers, those translate into real human lives. I have worked with patients who put off needed health care. By the time they came to us, their disease had progressed so far, there was nothing more we could do. I have been by their bedside as they died. This is not a political issue. It is not something for rhetorical flourish. It is a day-to-day matter of life and death for American people. This Congress has yet to pass a real Patients' Bill of Rights, a Patients' Bill of Rights that lets one choose one's health care provider, puts medical decisions in the hands of medical professionals, and holds insurance companies accountable when they deny one care.”