Whitehouse Shares Stories of Rhode Islanders Affected by Broken Health Care System
February 23, 2009
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, for the past several years it's been my great privilege to travel around my home state of Rhode Island and hear directly from the people I was elected to serve - to listen to what is on their minds: their good news and their worries, and the challenges and opportunities they and their families face every day.
I regularly hold community dinners in Rhode Island. We serve pasta and meatballs, or hamburgers and hotdogs, we invite people from the community, and we talk about the issues that matter to them. Sometimes I will ask people to come together to talk about a particular issue, which is what we did Sunday, two weeks ago, at the Tri-City Elks Lodge in Warwick. I invited Rhode Islanders to join me to talk about our broken health care system and what we might do to fix it.
More than 200 people came, from at least 14 different cities and towns. The parking lot was jammed; the room was packed: seniors and students, patients and providers, business-owners and veterans. They know what is wrong with our system - they experience it first hand every day. They came to share their frustration, their anger; to tell what's happened to them in a system that too often leaves them nowhere to turn.
That evening, I launched a new feature on my web site to help people share their stories about health care. At whitehouse.senate.gov/storyboard, there is a forum where Rhode Islanders can read about others' experiences with this broken system, and tell me about their own. We gave people who came to the dinner the chance to write their stories, right then and there. And one after another, the stories came.
Mr. President, if anyone believes we can afford to wait to fix the health care system, that this is not an urgent, crisis-level problem for the people of this country, I urge them to listen to what these Rhode Islanders had to say.
Sandra from Smithfield wrote, "As of this month I will no longer be treating my Rheumatoid Arthritis. The treatment costs almost $6,000 every six weeks. The kicker is that I have help from the drug company to pay for the drug portion, but that is only half the cost of administering the infusions. I do not have $3,000 this month. I am begging for universal health care. I am 52 years old. I worry every day when the crippling effects of rheumatoid arthritis will put me in a wheelchair because I cannot afford to treat my disease. Please fight for universal health care. Please help."
David from Warwick, stood up at the dinner and explained that he began receiving Social Security and Medicare three years ago. "Each year since," he wrote later, "the amount I get has gone down because the Social Security cost of living raise has not kept up with the rising cost of my medical coverage. This year I had to cut my coverage. My co-pays are now more than I can afford."
Brande is a young woman from Johnston, Rhode Island who has struggled with juvenile diabetes since age 11. She wrote, "Although I have done everything humanly possible to control my diabetes, [I] still am not able to achieve tight blood sugar control. My diabetes doctor believes the best hope for my health is continuous blood glucose monitoring sensors that would accommodate my insulin pump. Through many requests, and many letters to Blue Cross, I have still been denied these life saving sensors that I desperately need."
Many, many Rhode Islanders at this dinner shared stories of their frustration with the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan. Frances in Cranston wrote: "Humana changed its premium from $25 to $39.95 per month and at the same time the copayment to fill a prescription went from $25 to $40. When I complained that I would leave for another Medicare Part D provider, they said I would have to wait until next November."
Everett from Warwick and his wife saw their Part D premiums go up by 40 percent without notice, and they had to pay a three-month penalty when they finally decided to switch plans. "Now," he said, "my new provider, First Health, wants to charge my wife another $3.50 per month. I am appealing but why should the provider get the extra money? It is already costing her more to have this plan."
Robert, also from Warwick, was flatly frustrated with the whole Part D process. He said, "We have to simplify the Medicare Part D plans. There are too many choices and too many plans, and too many cards. They should just all be the same."
The health care stories went on. From Carolyn in Warwick: "All my doctors are dropping out of my insurance plans. My primary care doctor is going to MDVIP -- $1500 a year up front. I can't afford to see him anymore."
From Amanda in Providence: "My father is a Medicare recipient. My family and I live with constant worry that he will lose certain benefits. It is frustrating and painful that in his last few years with us we have to spend so much time worrying about his healthcare access."
From Joyce in Warwick: "I take two medications. The insurance will pay for one medication for 30 days. I am supposed to take two a day!"
From Maggie in Johnston: "I'm self-employed and am unable to afford health insurance. My business partner finally had to drop hers. It was costing her $1,000 a month."
From Annette in Cranston: "I was buying my health insurance for my daughter and myself from Blue Cross direct ... I can no longer afford it, so I had to let it go."
Ronald in Wakefield: "I am middle class, so no one speaks for me. Please don't forget those of us who have coverage and pay for it out of our own pocket."
Carol in West Kingston: "I am faced with the option of providing health insurance for myself or food on the table for my family ... [So] I decided to opt out of COBRA. I am taking a risk being a cancer survivor but what else can I do?"
Jean in West Warwick: "I really don't know what is going to happen."
Roberta in Coventry: "Between my son's medications and mine, it is just out of reach for me. So in order to keep my son healthy I go without. Last year I fell ill and could not afford to go to the doctor. I have been a nurse for almost 40 years and I have worked myself to the bone healing sick people. My health is failing and I am afraid I will not see my grandchildren grow up. Please help us."
And on and on it went. Every time someone at the community dinner took the microphone to speak about the complexity and unfairness of Medicare Part D, heads around the room nodded. Every time someone stood up and called for universal health coverage, this Rhode Island crowd applauded. Every time we heard a story from someone battling their insurance company for the care they need, there were groans around the room of recognition and exasperation. There was not a single person there - even in this economy - not a single person there who thought that health care reform should not be one of Congress' top priorities.
I am looking forward to attending President Obama's State of the Union address tomorrow. I'll be with one of the Rhode Islanders who attended this dinner in Warwick: Lauren Goddard. She is a medical student, with Crohn's disease, who is facing a lifetime of expensive health care costs. I appreciate her attendance and her willingness to share her story of how difficult the health insurance system can be for an individual who has chronic health care needs.
These Rhode Islanders, Lauren and everyone else who came to our dinner in Warwick, need us to listen. They need us to hear their stories. And they need us to get it - and to do something about it.
Two weeks ago, Congress took an enormous step toward addressing the overwhelming economic challenges our country faces: we passed the economic recovery legislation that President Obama signed last week. This means extra money in people's pockets, new jobs, and patched holes in the social safety nets we count on. That will surely help - but it's not enough.
For those 200 Rhode Islanders who joined me in Warwick, burdensome health care costs are the forgotten story: families are forced to choose between prescription drugs and food, clothes, or transportation; small businesses can't afford to hire new employees or provide health coverage; entrepreneurs just can't take that plunge, because they just can't walk away from their health insurance.
And looking beyond those local family perils and sorrows, we see the $35 trillion unfunded liability for Medicare that is bearing down on us. Unless we begin to undertake serious and meaningful reforms - right away - this recession will seem like only a small hurdle compared to that moment when $35 trillion in Medicare costs come due. That wave of cost, that tsunami of cost, is coming at us, and we have to prepare. Knowing what we know; sharing the responsibilities we do as Senators - this is our duty. Failure is dereliction.
Every one of us shares the goal of making sure that health insurance coverage reaches all Americans. But as I have said in this chamber before, it is not enough just to bring everyone into the boat. The boat itself is sinking. It is not enough just bringing everybody into the boat; not with what we know is coming.
What's needed is reform of our health care delivery system: an information technology infrastructure so that every American can count on their own secure electronic health record; improvement in the quality of health care so we maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of care delivered; and reform of how we pay for health care, so the health care we're paying for is the health care we want. Nothing less will save this boat.
All of this is doable -- but we need to start now. We took a good step in President Obama's economic recovery legislation, with a nearly $20 billion investment in health information infrastructure. But there is much more to be done, and because it is a bit complex, and will take some doing, we cannot dawdle, we cannot delay, we cannot shirk that duty.
To enact health care reforms that will lower costs by improving the quality of care for all Americans, we have to start now.
To improve the way we deliver health care to give us a modern, efficient, interactive, trusted health care system, we have to start now.
To improve the way we deliver health care by spending wisely, for disease prevention and better health outcomes, we have to start now.
And if we are to sustain health care coverage for the 46 million Americans, 9 million of them children, who have no health insurance at all, we have to achieve these reforms, and we have to start now. That is what the Rhode Islanders I met on Sunday are asking for. That is what all Americans deserve. For God's sake, let us not fail them.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and I note the absence of a quorum.