Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My husband and I had a cattle ranch
in northwestern Montana,
in Lincoln County to be specific.
This is where I am from.
My husband, whose name is Dan, was diagnosed with cancer.
The medical bills pilled up.
Bankruptcy was not an option for Dan.
We decided to sell our four generations owned ranch.
It broke Dan's spirit to see that beloved ranch sell,
the place of his youth and his children's youth.
The medical bills were paid, but Dan died paying those bills.
It's the Patricias of the world, the Dan and the Patricias,
that we all have to keep in mind.
The tragic stories of lost homes, of lost businesses,
of lost lives simply because to date we've failed to act.
Forty years ago, the United States of America
landed a man on the moon.
I think that's a wonderful achievement,
but my position is if we can send people into space,
we can also, and afford to be able to do it,
we can also help people to be able to get to a doctor
and be able to afford to do it.
We have a mandate from the American people.
They've been waiting for years, decades,
for the Congress of the United States to step up
and achieve this goal of accessible, affordable, quality health care.
Well, yesterday we called the roll.
We called the roll to pass health reform in the health committee.
We called the roll, and the roll was affirmative.
We are not going to sit with the status quo,
we're moving ahead with health care reform.
And this time we have most of corporate America with us.
The insurance industry wants reform.
Heck, even Harry and Louise are demanding reform.
All Americans really want is health care that they can afford,
and it's not dependent on if they have a preexisting condition,
health care that's affordable, attainable,
and portable if they lose their jobs or change jobs.
It's taken a while to get all of us in this room,
but I think we're finally going to get health care reform.
Our plan that we passed out of our committee yesterday,
it offers to fix what is broken in our health care system
without ruining that which works in our nation.
It offers every American choice, stability, and lower cost.
That it will be available, that it will be undeniable,
and that it will be affordable.
That it will be available to all 47 million Americans
who now don't have it.
It will make sure that it is undeniable,
that you will be able to get health care and cannot be
discriminated against on the basis of a previous condition,
nor will you be discriminated against on the basis of gender.
Make no mistake, this bill does not tinker around the edges;
this bill makes a paradigm shift.
And I am proud to say that this bill now sets the standard,
what we have in there for a public option for the coverage aspects,
for all of the quality aspects that Senator Mikulski worked
so hard to get in there, the prevention and wellness programs.
Everything that we have in there, I think,
sets the standard for where we go from here.
And this is uniquely American.
This is not a Canadian plan, or a British plan, or anyone else's.
We're Americans, we want our plan that works for us
in our country with our diversity, our population, our needs.
And we are determined to achieve the results that we formulated
over the last number of weeks in the
Health, Education, and Labor Committee under the guidance and
leaders of our spiritual advisor, our champion
and our chairman, Senator Ted Kennedy.
We've set the standard, we go it past the committee,
let's get it through the Senate, let's get it through the House,
and let's get this on President Obama's desk
in October for a presidential signing.