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U.S.
Senator Member of the Agriculture, Energy and Veterans Affairs
Committees |
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For Immediate
Release Thursday, January 24, 2008 |
CONTACT:Stephanie Valencia – 202-228-3630 |
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| Sen. Salazar Addresses Families USA Conference on Health Care Reform
Families USA is a national
nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the achievement of
high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans. Working
at the national, state, and community levels, they have earned a national
reputation as an effective voice for health care consumers for 25 years. "If you look back to any significant national discussion of health care over the last quarter century – discussions of health care access, health care reform, or health care coverage — Families USA has always been there, lending a strong, steady, and progressive voice to the debate. You have been tireless champions for those who are not often heard, and your advocacy has been extremely effective. Thank you for all you do. “The statistics that describe the crisis in our health care system are all too familiar to everyone in this room. 47 million Americans lack health care insurance – 9 million kids. In Colorado, almost 20% of our population – 780,000 people – lack coverage. 180,000 are kids. And we also know that those who lack coverage are often in the middle-class. Two-thirds of Americans and 70% of Coloradans without health insurance work full-time. They play by the rules, but still find coverage out of reach. For those who are able to afford health insurance, the picture is also grim. Health insurance premiums have risen by over 70% since 2000. The average annual premium for family health coverage is now over $12,000. “How is a lower income couple with kids supposed to afford $12,000 a year to provide coverage for their family? With mortgage payments taking up an average of a fourth of their budget, gas prices more than doubling in the last five years, and food prices on the rise, many working families are one or two paychecks away from losing their home. Paying $12,000 in insurance premiums is out of the question. So what happens to those families who can't afford coverage? You know the stories as well as anybody. “Last year, one school nurse I met in Alamosa, near where I grew up in the San Luis Valley, told me of a boy who injured his leg during a school football game. His family couldn't afford insurance, and they couldn't even afford to take him to a doctor. All they could do was apply ice to his leg and pray for it to get better. It didn't. The boy's leg was fractured, so the swelling steadily worsened. The leg grew to twice its normal size. The pain was unbearable for the child, but, still, the family couldn't take him to see the doctor. The story ended like so many other injuries and illnesses that afflict the uninsured – in the emergency room, the most expensive venue for care, with a bill that fell to the government to pay. “It is easy to get discouraged when you hear stories like these. Maybe our health care system is beyond repair, people say. Maybe it is a challenge just too great. I disagree. I grew up to parents who taught me that America is a work in progress and that no matter how large the obstacle may seem, we will, eventually, overcome it. “My parents were both part of the Greatest Generation – the generation that led us out of the Great Depression, defeated fascism in Europe and the Pacific, and opened the doors of opportunity to all Americans. My parents' belief in our ability to rise to any challenge came from their own experiences. My father was a proud staff sergeant in World War II. My mother went to Washington DC to work in the War Department. It was there she learned that my uncle Leandro had been killed fighting for our country in Europe. “After the war, my parents returned to the San Luis Valley, to land my family has farmed and ranched for five generations. My parents worked very hard – long days, seven days a week. But they were very poor. We didn't have telephone service and electricity didn't reach our ranch until 1981. But though my parents were poor, they were rich in spirit and values. They made sure they taught us the values of work, faith, and family. My parents were committed to teaching me and my seven brothers and sisters the value of education. Thanks to them, we were all first generation college graduates. For my parents, this was the promise of America: they believed that through hard work they could provide their children the opportunities that they did not have. They believed that each generation has an obligation to make our world a little better for those that follow. They believed, as I do, that our best days are always ahead. “At the dawn of the century, I am afraid America has drifted from its path of progress. Washington has ignored or mishandled the major challenges that our face our generation. Iraq, energy, and the economy. And we have all the ingredients for a health care crisis in our country. Demand for health care services is rising as our lives get more chaotic and our population ages. More and more families will find affordable care out of reach and will need assistance as health care costs continue to skyrocket. Our health care infrastructure is falling into disrepair as more providers face the crunch of shrinking dollars and resources. This is the recipe for a potential calamity. But it doesn't have to be. There are very real and reasonable steps we can take to change course. But we must start taking those steps today. “Our first step must be to protect access to services for the most vulnerable members of our communities— the young, the elderly, and those people facing serious illness or disabilities. Under the leadership of Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, we in the Senate Finance Committee assembled a broad, bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded health care coverage for children through the Children's Health Insurance Program. We passed the bill through both the House and the Senate but, for reasons beyond comprehension, the President chose to veto our legislation not once, but twice. This is only a temporary setback, though. We will continue to fight to pass this bill and to ensure that our children, our elderly, and our neighbors with disabilities have access to the treatment they need and deserve. “But we can't stop there, because we have families all over the United States that are working hard and still can't afford basic health insurance coverage. In many communities I visit, 20 to 30 percent of the residents are uninsured. Study after study has shown us that individuals without health insurance are more likely to live with an untreated illness, to declare bankruptcy because of unmet health care costs, and to die at a younger age than their insured counterparts. This is tragic both for those who are uninsured and for the community that feels the ripple effects.
“There is a rising consensus in Washington that the time has come for this type of fundamental reform. Perhaps it will not happen this year – perhaps we will only succeed in advancing the discussion toward a solution – but that change will come. The reason I know that it will is because of that same faith in the future that my parents held while they worked day after day, month after month, year after year, to make our lives just a little better. It is with this spirit that we must tackle the health care crisis in this country. “Thank you all again for being here and for being a part of this conference. The new thoughts and new ideas that you bring from around the country will, no doubt, be fundamental to our national efforts at reform because you know, first hand, what is working and what is not. I hope you make your voices heard. I hope you never stop working toward a solution. And I hope you never lose your faith that our best days are still ahead."
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