Chapter[ Speech - Remarks on American Health Choices Plan
Section[ Introduction
(This Speech is not included in the official American Health Choices Plan)
September 17, 2007
I am honored to be here with you today at Broadlawns Medical Center. For many years, as you've heard, this Center has been providing care for the people of this community including many of those most in need and I cannot think of a better place to discuss America's health care crisis than a medical center that confronts the consequences every single day.
I want to thank Jody Jenner, Broadlawns' President and CEO, along with the Board and the staff of this fine medical center. I want to thank Lisa Bechtel, a proud SEIU nurse along with her colleagues who take care of the people who come through the doors here seeking help and support. And I want to thank Susan Kirstein, the Chief Nursing Executive. I'm a strong, strong supporter of nurses and I appreciate the role that they play and I'm looking forward to expanding that role because I think it will be important to do so in the future of health care as I see it. And to the entire staff of Broadlawns, thank you for being on the frontline. The statistics that you've heard are just really a snapshot. So many of the patients here come because they have needs that are not being met elsewhere and I hear their stories across our country and I've certainly heard them here in Iowa.
I want to start by telling you about Judy Rose, who I met last month in Dubuque along with her husband John. Back in 2001, John lost his job of thirty years when the plant where he worked closed with just one day's notice. And so, Judy and John lost not only John's job, they lost their health insurance. A couple of months later, Judy was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully a special government program started during my husband's administration took care of her treatment and she recovered. But then in 2003, John had a heart attack. He spent hours in surgery and was in the intensive care unit. Fortunately he survived, but when the bills came, their luck ran out. The costs of John's care were so high they had to sell the home they lived in for thirty years.
That is the tragedy at the heart of our health care system -- The devastation when one stroke of bad luck undoes a lifetime of hard work.
That feeling of being right on the edge that eats away not just at the 47 million who don't have health care, but many of the 250 million who do.
It's the heartbreak you feel when your spouse asks, "can we afford my pills this month," and you don't know the answer.
When your sick child asks, "can I see a doctor," and you can't bear to answer.
When you ask your doctor, "will my insurance pay for that," and from the look on her face, you already know the answer.
It's what has led to so many people in so many places over so many years to ask me, "what are you going to do about health care for America?" And then more quietly, "and what am I going to do about health care for me and my family?"
Well I'm here today because I believe it is long past time that this nation had an answer. That's why I'm running for President, because I believe America is ready for change. Because like you, I remember how we entered the 21st century; filled with hope, ready to seize the promise of a more prosperous nation and a more peaceful world. But like you, I've seen how in the last six and a half years, we've done just the opposite. We've gotten mired in another country's civil war, a war without a military solution. We have failed to invest in our future, in our schools, technology, science and infrastructure. And we're falling behind. Costs are rising and wages are lagging. Premiums have almost doubled -- up 80, no, up 98% since 2000. And half of all personal bankruptcies in America are caused by medical bills. If there was ever a need for change in America it is now. And if there was ever a moment to do what America does best, to confront the challenges we face, this is it.
That's what we've always done, whether it was Teddy Roosevelt busting the trusts, or FDR seeking to end elderly poverty, whether it was President Truman sending the GIs to college and into the middle class, or President Johnson ensuring health care for all Americans in their golden years and who were poor. When the time for change came, we weren't afraid, we didn't look away, we came together and we made American stronger, more prosperous, and more fair. We are and have always been a nation of opportunity -- a nation that believes in giving everyone a chance to make the most of their own lives. And of course we believe in responsibility. But when families are struggling, when they don't have the basic necessities that allows them to see these opportunities, we don't leave them to fend for themselves.
Unfortunately that's exactly what we've seen in the past six and a half years. Instead of an era of opportunity, we've had a "you're on your own" era. So many people, families who can't afford health care, young people who can't afford college, seniors who can't afford to retire, it's like they are invisible to the President, like he's looked right through them. Well, I don't think anyone in America should be invisible. I believe every child should have a world class education, every worker should have a job with good wages and good benefits, every American should have a secure retirement. And today, as we strive for a new beginning to the 21st century, I believe everyone, every man, woman and child, should have quality, affordable health care in America. We should do it.
We should do it because in this new economy, when people move jobs more than ever before, their health insurance should move with them. We should do it because doctors and nurses, not insurance company employees, should be calling the shots on patient care.
We should do it because solving the health care crisis is key to ensuring American competitiveness in the global marketplace. We should do it because in a nation where we split the atom, sent a man to the moon, mapped the human genome, where we have some of the most promising treatments and cures available, hard working people should get the care they need when they're sick.
And we should do it because it is the right thing to do. Because we can no longer tolerate the injustice of a system that shuts out nearly one in six Americans. Ultimately this is about who we are as a people and what we stand for. We can talk all we want about freedom and opportunity, about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but what does all that mean to a mother or father who can't take a sick child to the doctor? To someone who can't take the job of his dreams because it doesn't offer health care? To a family filing for bankruptcy or losing their home because their medical bills were just too high?
We are the richest country in the world and we spend right now, more on health care than anyone else in the world. Two trillion dollars a year. But we're ranked 31st in life expectancy and 40th in child mortality. Each year, 18,000 people die in America because they don't have health care. Let me repeat that. Here in America, people are dying because they couldn't get the care they needed when they were sick.
At the same time, over the past six and a half years, the special interests have had a field day at the expense of the middle class and hard-working families. Just look at our prescription drug program. It doesn't allow Medicare to use its purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. So every year, billions of dollars go straight from the pockets of families to the profits of drug companies. This is unconscionable, it is intolerable and it is time to put an end to it. It is time for us to come together and to start living up to our own values. To provide quality, affordable health care for every single American. And I intend to be the president who accomplishes that goal finally for our country.
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