Speaker Pelosi's Health Care Bill - Nov. 6, 2009

Thank you. I'd like to talk about an aspect of this bill—the Pelosi bill—that I find deeply troubling because of the news that we found out this morning, and that is that our unemployment has gone up to 10.2 percent, and 190,000 people have lost their jobs in the last month. That's a family tragedy for those families who are suffering right now. And they want us to listen to what they're saying, and what they're saying is, "We want a full and vibrant economy that's going to create jobs." This Pelosi bill is actually a job-killer. The jobs that it creates are the Washington bureaucratic jobs that are going to be making health decisions for American families, for American women. And I think that the speaker—or whoever said it said it best here just a bit ago—would be well-served to take a step back…to realize that the targeted reform that we have in our bill, we've put out a positive vision on how to address the deepest problems and how to lead us into the health reform that's going to be targeted. It's going to meet the needs of those who can't afford it. It's going to help small businesses without taxing the American public, without taxing small business, and without the job loss that's projected to come about because of the Pelosi bill. You all might have heard me say this. My personal vision of health care as a mother.... I have three children. I can remember when our children were little babies. They might have a cold in the middle of the night, and they would start coughing. I would go into their room, or my husband would go into their room, and we'd put our ear to their chest to see what kind of danger is ahead for them…. Maybe they're starting to get a rasp or rail or some kind of pneumonia-sort of sound. I think women have an acute sense of hearing when it comes to health and the health of their loved ones. And I think the frustration that women have across America is that they feel that we don't have our ear to the American public, that we're not listening to the types of reform that really result in the affordability, accessibility and the quality that people really want. So all of us, I think, have spent the last week and the last months with our ear to the chest of America…listening…and we've put together a plan that we think's a positive vision. On the opposite side is the vision the Speaker has for her plan and her conference and her vision of what America wants. We think it is going in the wrong direction.

Speech from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2N0zoGElRE&list=UUftKT5ENIKjqidj9Xz6b_Yw.*