Nick Lampson: “We need to spread that word, because what it is doing it is encouraging people to go into the most expensive areas to…”

“We need to spread that word, because what it is doing it is encouraging people to go into the most expensive areas to seek the care that they need. That may be a hospital emergency room. A hospital in my hometown and other hospitals within my district are grossly strapped right now because of the closing of so many, just as an example, rural health care facilities that have lost their ability to continue to offer services across this country. As this group of people, the children about which we are speaking right now, also find their way into these same facilities, we are driving the cost of health care up to the point where it is causing others not to have access. Where we can do something about it and help fix this problem and make it easier for those to gain the access that they so richly deserve and that we want them to have so that their health does not have an adverse effect on the rest of us in society, then certainly we ought to be taking the opportunity to do it.”