House Proceeding 10-28-09 on Oct 28th, 2009 :: 1:21:35 to 1:25:55
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1:21:32 to 1:21:53( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: people, i think, once they hear the story are on our team. recognizing we're taking on these big interests. i yield to my friend. mr. altmire: i appreciate the gentleman. i appreciate the ability to talk about the health care rsm. the gentleman heard something

1:21:35 to 1:25:55( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Jason Altmire

1:21:54 to 1:22:15( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: about an experience i had where a woman in my district came to me and said all the reason she was unhappy with the democrats in congress, unh with the president, she said, don't you dare take my money to pay for those people who don't have health insurance. and i said to her, well, the problem is you're already paying for them.

1:22:16 to 1:22:36( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: as the gentleman articulately said, if you go to the hospital and you don't have insurance, you get treated. they cover you, right? you get whatever health care need. it's the least efficient, most costly setting, but they are going to transfe to the next person who comes to the door that has insurance.

1:22:37 to 1:22:58( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: and this woman said to me, it's interesting that you say that because i just had a procedure done at the hospital and i had to pay $18,000 out of pocket because the insurance denied part of my cim. and i asked the hospital, she said, why does everything cost more than it should? why does an aspirin cost $10, why does everything cost five

1:22:59 to 1:23:22( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: times mo than you think it would cost, and she was told, well, that's because of the cost shift that takes place to pay for the people who don't have coverage to the cost shift to people that does have insurance. and that's the crux of the whole thing. i he agree on 80% of this.

1:23:23 to 1:23:43( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: the insurance reforms, no pre-existing exclusions, no caps on premiums, lifetime or annual caps. the insurance will have to te all-comers. they won't dro sick or injured and won't deny you coverage for any reason. yes, we should do that. the problem is we can't do it

1:23:44 to 1:24:04( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: by ourself and the reason that health care reform hasn't happened before is because of the hard decisions that have to be made. the decisions that we're going to make in this congress. and the decisions for 100 years that theodore roosevelt started talking about health care reform that we failed to do as

1:24:05 to 1:24:26( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: both congresses and administrations, both democrat and republican. the question is, how do you get people into the system that are not insured? how do you do at? because the only way that works, the only way to tell the insurance companies that you have to take everybody and you can't use their health status

1:24:27 to 1:24:48( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: to tell them their rates is get the younger people in, the 24-year-old healthy ones that turn it down because they think they can do more with the $200 a month premium. they say, i'm young and healthy and i'd rather do something else with that money.

1:24:49 to 1:25:09( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: well, we need to find way to get them in the system. if you require people have health insurance, you have to find a way to get them to afford it as individuals and as businesses because if you're a small business and almost half of small businesses are unable to offer health insurance now because it costs too much, if you're a small business that can't do that it's not because

1:25:10 to 1:25:31( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: you don't want to. it's not because you're a bad person. it's because you can't afford it. and this bill is going to help small businesses find a way to offer health insurance to their employees. it's going to offer tax credits if we do this right. nd small businesses will be able to offer health insurance. individuals who are required to have insurance that can't

1:25:32 to 1:25:52( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: afford it are going to receive some assistance to help them do that. and what that does is offsets the risk pool. it balances out what we all know needs to be done on the insurance side with the pre-existing conditions and the exclusions. so that's what we've never done. we've never made the hard decisions on the 20% that we

1:25:53 to 1:25:58( Edit History Discussion )

Jason Altmire: all know needs to be done but we can't agree on how to do it.