Kerry Addresses Small Biz Health Care Legislation & Health Care Crisis

[kerrygoddess]

John Kerry Addresses Small Business Health Care Legislation and Health Care Crisis
May 10th, 2006 @ 7:47 pm

John Kerry, Ranking Democrat on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, took to the Senate floor today to address S. 1955, the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act, and other mportant health care issues, during what Senate Majority Leader Frist has declared “Health Week.”

So far, I’ve yet to see anything of value come out of the Republican controlled Senate to address the issue of millions of people in this country being without healthcare. Rick Klein reported in today’s Boston Globe that “Republican leaders in Congress have all but abandoned efforts to pass major policy initiatives this year, and are instead focusing their energies on a series of conservative favorites that they hope will rally loyal voters in November’s congressional elections.” Klein went to to say that their strategy “is on display during what Senate majority leader Bill Frist dubbed ‘’health week” in the Senate,” instead of dealing with the real issues of healthcare, Republican’s tried to pass through two bills that would limit medical malpractice judgments and thankfully they failed.

The following is Kerry’s statement as prepared for delivery on S. 1955, the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act:

Mr. President, running for President and traveling our country was an incredible, almost indescribable privilege. But it also left me with a profound sense of responsibility to the people I met in town hall meetings and VFW Halls and in ropelines at rallies. People who come up to you and they pull at your sleeve and press a photo into your hand and say “look, this is my sister” – or “this is my mother” – and they tell you about a loved one who can’t afford the medicine they need, or lost their health care when the factory shut down. It stays with you forever — the faces of the people who, Republican or Democrat or independent, looked to President Bush and me and looked wearily at Washington hoping someone would listen to their struggle in a health care system that’s broken.


I’ve met working poor people living without healthcare. All of us have. Moms who are afraid to let their kids go out and play in case they get hurt because they know they can’t afford to take them to the doctor. Teachers who tell stories about students who go without preventative care and routine exams and how an untreated ear infection leads to hearing loss and a lifetime learning disability. Small business owners who desperately want to provide their employees health care but can’t afford it, or who know that their health care costs are so high they stand in the way of hiring more workers.

FULL TEXT OF FLOOR SPEECH - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=2944