On the recordOctober 30, 2013
Mr. President, I come before you today to introduce a piece of legislation which is timely and very much needed. One of the reasons I decided to run for the Senate was the passage of the health care law. The reason I thought it was pretty important is because I said at the time that passage of the health care law represented the greatest assault on our freedoms in my lifetime. I believe that is true, and I believe that is being borne out today. We are witnessing it today. The passage of the health care law resonated with me. It made such an impact on me because my wife and I are beneficiaries of the freedom that we had with our current health care system. Our first child, our daughter Carey was born with a very serious congenital heart defect. Her aorta and pulmonary arteries were reversed. Her first day of life, our daughter Carey was rushed down to Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, where a wonderful man, Dr. John Thomas, came in at 1:30 in the morning and did a procedure and saved her life. Eight months later, when her heart was the size of a small plum, another incredibly dedicated team of medical professionals in 7 hours of open-heart surgery totally reconstructed the upper chamber of her heart. Her heart operates backwards today. She is 30 years old and a nurse practitioner practicing at that same hospital in which her life was saved. She married about 3 weeks ago. Our story has a happy ending because my wife Jane and I had that freedom.…





