Pelosi Remarks at “#FacesOfObamacare: Health Care Is a Human Right” at the California Endowment in Los Angeles
Contact: Drew Hammill/Caroline Behringer, 202-226-7616
Los Angeles – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined Members of the Los Angeles Area Congressional Delegation at the California Endowment to lead "#FacesOfObamacare: Health Care Is a Human Right," an event in support of protecting the Affordable Care Act. Below are the Leader's remarks.
"Thank you very much, Madam Vice Chair of our Caucus. Thank you to Karen Bass and Lucille Roybal-Allard for bringing us together here. Thank you to my colleagues. I accept your compliment that I worked to pass the Affordable Care Act – but it would not have been possible without the courage and the ideas of so many people gathered on this stage. Right, Maxine?
"I want to thank Dr. Ross, for not only his hospitality here at California Endowment, but for your leadership in so many ways – you and your board, thank you so much. And to Louise McCarthy, thank you.
"Because of colleagues – you see the beautiful diversity of our caucus – and when we were writing the bill, the issue that we wanted to address was disparity in coverage for people and access to health care. And the health clinics were an important part of our initiative to have more funding, not only for programs, but for bricks and mortars to have more clinics. So, thank you. Thank you very much, Louise, for your leadership in that regard.
"I have always said that our most eloquent spokespersons for the Affordable Care Act are our VIPs, our special guests. And Maryann Hammers, Louise McCarthy, Dr. Garcia telling the stories – weren't they wonderful?
[Applause]
"Because my colleague, Linda Sánchez, spelled it out so clearly, it affords me to use my time a little bit of a different way about the Affordable Care Act. I want you all to know that the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid are wedded together in this legislation. So, when they want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they are doing very serious harm to Medicare and to Medicaid. People think of Medicaid as an initiative for the working poor – and it is to a certain extent. But more than half of the money in Medicaid is used for long-term health care for low-income and middle-income families. So when families pay down their assets and the rest, they have to go to Medicaid in order to be in a facility. And so this means that families, parents who are raising kids, who want to invest in their children, have to take care of their parents – maybe even take them in at home. But anyway, everybody pays a price – the seniors, their children and their grandchildren for families not being able to make the investment into their children.
"In California, we have the highest percentage of poor children in America – not just the biggest number. We're always the biggest number – but the highest percentage of poor children. We take away Medicaid, we undermine it, we block grants, we reduce it – we affect those children. The expansion of Medicaid has been a major factor in our country. Some Governors have accepted, some have not – but where they have accepted it, it has made a very big difference in the good health of our children.
"In terms of Medicare, when we passed the bill, we took savings and invested in Medicare to prolong the life Medicare for ten more years, to close the donut hole – that means to reduce the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, to have the free exams for prevention. And that has saved lives because seniors have been able to – free of charge – the prescription drugs issue is very big.
"Last week in San Francisco, with my colleagues, we had a location such as this at San Francisco General Hospital – one of our testimonies was from a person who suffered a stroke. He said, ‘I want you to carry this bottle around. This bottle cost me $365 and it's a week and a half to take this bottle. And I take it every week, and it's over nearly $20 thousand a year for me to take this. But, because of Medicaid, it is free.' It is free. Life saving. Life Saving. Maryann talked about lifeline. Dr. Garcia talked about life and death. Life saving for people.
"When they want to overturn this thing, it impacts Medicare. But you also have to know: at the same time as they're trying to overturn Medicare, that it happens within the context of them never supporting Medicare to begin with. They opposed it when it was enacted in the beginning. In the 1990s, when they took in the majority in the Congress, their goal was to make sure that Medicare withered on the vine. Withered on the vine. And now, in the budget of the Republicans in Congress, they have a provision that says, ‘We will remove the guarantee of Medicare.' Medicare is a guarantee. If you remove the guarantee, you destroy Medicare.
"So that is what is happening. It's an attitude toward the role of government meeting the needs of the American people. All we're interested in are results. If they have a good idea, let's hear it. They have had six years to come up with their ‘replace.' ‘Repeal and replace,' they say – it's alliterative, but it's not realistic because we haven't seen yet what they would do. But, we would hope that what they do – and our standard is the following – that they do not reduce the number of people who are covered. We are trying to expand that. Not reduce the number, not increase the cost and diminish the benefits because that is exactly what the Affordable Care Act – its goal was to expand access, to reduce costs and improve benefits. It has lived up to that test. And there are some increases, as you have heard, and they use those as examples but the fact is: the medical cost to our economy is the slowest rate of growth in the 50 years – more than 50 years that they have been measuring that.
"So, we had no other reason to do the Affordable Care Act. We had to do it because cost was unsustainable to individuals, to families, to state government, to small business to corporate America – they were paying the price. Now, we have some hospital folks who are here and you know the fact that uncompensated care is a burden that hospitals were carrying before the Affordable Care Act to the tune of billions of dollars in Los Angeles County, billions of dollars. They overturn the Affordable Care Act, the coverage that was there for people going to the hospitals who couldn't pay, uncompensated care, who now are on Medicaid or in the exchanges, that would be costing billions of dollars for hospitals. Therefore, the hospitals are mobilizing across the country to say: we can't do this. It's unsustainable. That's why the mental health community across the country, Dr. Garcia, is mobilizing – and thank you, [Congresswoman] Grace [Napolitano] – across the country about this. And they're saying: these are not just issues that are about the subject at hand, they're about the entire Affordable Care Act, that Congresswoman Sánchez, our Vice Chair, talked about.
"Over one hundred million people have an existing medical condition. They can be discriminated against in the workplace. You take away the Affordable Care Act, the cost of coverage for them is impossible, is astronomical. She mentioned that, she mentioned the lifetime cap, she mentioned the job less, et cetera. The list goes on. So we're about results. If they have a proposal, as results, we're interested in looking at it.
"Today is Rev. Martin Luther King Day. Happy birthday, Dr. King. Thank you for being born.
[Applause]
"What a savior he was to our country. And this morning I started in San Francisco at our MLK breakfast and we had this exact quote as our theme. It says it all. That quote was made by Dr. King in June, 1966 – 50 years ago, more than 50 years ago. It's still true. It's still true. Our work is not done. We want to improve what we have done, not to have to fight for its survival.
"But I feel very confident that people understand the urgency, they understand the urgency – we talked about this today – understand the urgency. They know that we have a responsibility to get it done because we see the urgency because we see the impact on Patti's life, the story of Dr. Garcia and Mary Ann and Doug. And, therefore, we have an opportunity. And we all have to take that opportunity to hit the streets, to do whatever it takes.
"We had 3,000 people in San Francisco listening silently to the stories of our special guests as you all did here today. There were people gathering in the streets yesterday. You had your MLK march this morning, didn't you, [Congresswoman] Maxine [Waters]? It's all the same thing. It's about respecting the dignity and worth of people and having our social compact to meet their needs.
"As our colleague, [Congressman] John Lewis – aren't we proud of him?
[Applause]
"As he once said: there's a spark of divinity in each of us that means that we all have to be respected, but it also means that we have to use our own spark to respect other people and get the job done. Our colleagues talk about faith, and we said we want to join you. And the faith-based groups are joining with us to respect that spark and to meet the needs of the American people. As my colleague, Mr. Correa, said: we're not going back. We are not going back. Understand that.
[Applause]
"When they talk about Medicare, removing the guarantee, they also have in their budget that they would defund Planned Parenthood, which is a very, very bad idea say I – a mother of five children and nine grandchildren. That's such a wrong thing to do. But again, a disrespect for decisions that family have to make about their wellbeing and their health, their economic security.
"The Affordable Care Act stands there as a pillar of economic and health security for the American people alongside Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – the Affordable Care Act. It's a very strong institution. We will protect it, and I feel confident that we will because of all of you and all that you represent and all that you do. It's a value we share and it's a fight that we're prepared to make. And hopefully, as Lincoln said, ‘Public sentiment is everything,' the public sentiment on this subject will take us all to a place that says, ‘Okay, show us your idea. If you want to see a replacement, it might be something that we can respect but we have our standards and those standards be – just as Dr. King said – that we not have a shocking and inhumane attitude to people in our community.
"So, thank you all and happy Dr. King day. Thank you for your involvement. We have a saying: they want us to go from affordable care to chaos. They're going to Make America Sick Again. We're not going to let that happen. We're not going back. Thank you all very much."
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