Pelosi Remarks and Press Availability at Daughters of Charity Health Center in New Orleans

Contact: Ashley Etienne/Caroline Behringer, 202-226-7616

New Orleans, LA – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and community leaders from the Daughters of Charity Health Center to discuss the importance of increasing coverage and lowering costs in the Affordable Care Act. Below is a transcript of the Leader's opening remarks and question and answer portion of the press availability:

Opening Remarks

Leader Pelosi. Thank you very much Mr. Mayor for your great leadership. You have taken this great city of New Orleans, which is in your DNA and post [Hurricane] Katrina, taking it to a place – leap frogged over some of the challenges that it had – and taking it again to a better place. And your partner in much of that have been the Daughters of Charity.

I want to thank Sister Bonnie Hoffman for her leadership, because as we talk about this in a value-based, spiritual way, when you talk about the dignity and worth of people. And when one takes the tour of this facility you see the respect for the dignity and worth of every person who visits here in need of quality health care.

Now the Affordable Care Act was built on the principle that health care for all Americans is a right, not just a privilege for the few. We are very proud of the legislation, it stands very comfortable with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act again was designed to meet the needs of the American people.

What we heard today was how it did meet the needs of some of our guests, from Johnnie Wagner, from Christina Royal, from Elvia Soloranzo, and you'll hear from Jeffrey Martorell shortly.

Their stories are our purpose, how to meet their needs in a way that makes them healthy. And the Affordable Care Act was about not only health care for all Americans but a healthy America so it was a prevention, nutrition, wellness, again, about making sure as many people as possible could have access. And when I say access, I don't mean access to an emergency room, I mean access to affordable quality health care.

The purpose of [the Affordable Care Act] was to improve quality and benefits, to expand access, the number of people who have the opportunity for insurance, as well as, to reduce the cost. And it has done all of those things.

Unfortunately, last week we saw an attempt to eviscerate that, to end that. Fortunately, last week we were able to defeat that attempt. And I can go more into it if you want to, but the fact is that it's not over. That fight is not over.

So for me to come here today, and see the impact both in terms of the delivery of service, but also the personal experience of people who are here, is very, very important proof that what we did was the right thing to do. Evidence that there's some more things that we need to do.

Let me just say, on a personal note, what an honor it is personally and of course officially to be with the Mayor. My brother, in the 1960's and ‘70s was the Mayor of Baltimore but he served with Mayor Moon Landrieu. So we've always had admiration, respect and real affection for this family, and of course of Senator Landrieu in Washington, as well.

But to see this Mayor, take this challenge, post-Katrina to the place that he has – you see him, I want you to know and respect him in Washington, D.C. when he comes back there. His voice is felt even when he's not there, but when he's back there, as he recently was, as a leader in the Conference of Mayors to talk about Affordable Health Care, Medicare, you name it.

I congratulate Louisiana, and their Governor for the expansion of Medicaid, very, very important. And I also want to acknowledge the leadership of [Congressman] Cedric Richmond, my colleague in the Congress, he isn't with us today because he has the honor of serving as the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and has responsibilities in South Carolina today. But I thank you for sending such a great leader there.

Again, this is another personal connection, when my father was Member of Congress, he served in the early days in New Deal with Hale Boggs and then I served with Lindy so again my connection with this community, is official but also very personal. But [I] recognize that great leadership springs from New Orleans.

With that, I yield to a gentleman who has really done such a tremendous, tremendous job here. Just a joy to hear him talk about affordable health care here, about the daughters of the charity, as well as issues of community health planning back in Washington. A very modest man, but the CEO of Charity Health Center, I'm smiling when I say that because he has so much to brag about -- Michael Griffin.

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Q: With all that's happening in Washington now there are some people that are concerned that perhaps that the health care act will slowly be dismantled, instead of a giant dismantle. Is that a legitimate concern?

Leader Pelosi. Yes. We won the fight last week and it was because the American people were united opposition to what the Republicans were putting forth, in fact a poll leading up to the vote said 54 percent opposed, 17 percent supported it. Now we've come out of that and they say they're going to come back and repeal it again and try to do another bill.

But in the meantime, we have two thrusts in our message. Resist repeal, and stop the sabotage. Because as you described they will try to defund the Affordable Care Act, that is one way to sabotage it, they will try to not enforce the law in terms of the mandate, and if you do those two things they would raise premiums about 30-35 percent and that increases the price to be just unsustainable.

Now, what they did in their own bill, increased premiums, had an age tax, dismantled part of Medicare and Medicaid and kick 24 million people off of care.

It also had a terrible effect on the 155 million people who get their health care through their work place, through their job. Increased benefits whether it's not being discriminated against on the basis of preexisting medical condition, no longer having caps over your lifetime. If your child is on your policy until they're 26 years old, no longer will being a woman be a preexisting medical condition. All of those things would be affected by what they did. But then they went even further and affected prenatal care, maternal care, mental health, prescription drugs, hospitalization all of those things. Which there's almost no reason to have health insurance unless all of it's going to be covered.

So they have an unraveling in their own bill, what they can do outside of legislation, just administratively, is the fight that we're in now. So this is about health and economic security in the lives of the American people, and one other issue to mention is with their bill we would lose nearly 2 million jobs with health professionals, administering to the needs of people.

And so I'm glad were here with Dr. Robinson, Dr. Post and Dr. Howard. They know the impact of individual person's health, which is the priority but also the impact of dismantling that. Especially if you're in a rural area, those hospitals will close.

So whether [the Republicans] care about that, that remains to be seen, but what they will do impact it – so we have to have the highest visibility on what they're trying to do because it has a direct impact on the good health of the American people.

And the guests we heard from today – I told them the most privileged person in America has better health care because you have better health care, because we learn from our teachers. In terms of that, that is our priority, how we address the needs of people and nobody does it better than Daughters of Charity, so thank you again.

Q: Can I ask you what you've heard today that tells you what works and doesn't work in the ACA? If so can you make those changes or are you just going to have to follow the ACA as it is now?

Leader Pelosi. No, well let me just say, there has never been a perfect bill that has passed the Congress of the United States. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, they've all been amended once you see the implementation. So some of the thoughts that we've heard today, reinforce for me that one of the things we have to do is make the access to it cover people at a little higher income that are there now.

Right now it's 400 percent of poverty benefits should go to 500 percent – that's related to poverty, but there are just some people who have fallen at this place where they're just above, and don't make the cut for subsidies and that is – in the Affordable Care Act if you were talk about some things, the individual market where those people fall is a place where we need to address, more access, more affordability. It wasn't exactly brought up here but it is self-evident in their remarks that they were able to access for one reason or another other may not, be able to access.

One of the points that was made over and over again was access to affordable pharmaceutical drugs. This is very, very important, it's something we've reached out to the President, we've reached out to the Republicans, over and over again to have a change in the law regarding prescription drugs.

We believe that the Secretary of Health and Human Services should have the ability to negotiate for lower prices, that there are other provisions we can discuss. The President said during the campaign that he was interested in doing that. He has even reached out to two of my colleagues on that score, that would probably be one of the things that we do that affects so many people because access to prescription drugs is – the doctor talked about giving them a stack of prescriptions, but unless they can afford the prescriptions well... Now, much of it is covered in the Affordable Care Act unless you fall into that place where you don't quite make the cut. So again, it comes down to how we can make the benefit more affordable.

These are not changes to the Affordable Care Act but things the Republicans are allowing now to happen with the Affordable Care Act. For example we had, reinsurance, that was really important in terms of the private sector aspect of it. It's a private sector initiative this was developed by the Heritage Foundation. They developed this individual mandate and recognition that everyone could not afford to take responsibility for the mandate so subsidies went with that. We're saying here, let subsidies go to a little higher income folks.

We had reinsurance in the program and that is lapsing so we want Republicans to allow reinsurance which is helpful to the private sector aspects of it. There's things called "risk corridors" – not to get into the technicalities of it but where the money is there to cover the risk but Republicans would not let that money get spent.

So it's not always just improving the enforcement of the bill and that's something I hope we can do, because the goal would be bring costs down. That was one of the primary goals of the Affordable Care Act, it did that and with it, it brought costs back down place lower than any place in 50 years or more that they've been measuring that.

Those are some of the things, but again the need for prescription drugs, the need for people to have access perhaps at a higher level, again some of the other parts of it are on the more structural side of the bill that relate to cost, to access and to quality. Thank you.

Closing Remarks

Leader Pelosi. Mr. Mayor, if I may just tell this story because this was a big fight – the Affordable Care Act. It was a big fight when we had the fight. And I was in communication with the Daughters of Charity in California who have a big presence there. They are saintly, as Sister Bonnie – the work that they do; it's just a remarkable thing.

So, when I would visit them about what worked best, or this or that, they knew I was in a big fight and I was a target in that fight, and I became a target because we were successful in passing the bill. And those who did not believe in the public role in health care access, I was their target.

So, Sister Joyce – a Daughter of Charity in California – she said this prayer for me, and I tell my colleagues all of the time this prayer for themselves as well because everybody was taking a hit for doing the right thing: there was a Presbyterian bishop in Africa and he went to this hospital there and he posted this prayer on the wall, and it said: when one day, I will happily visit my maker in heaven, he will say to me 'show me your scars.' And if I say: 'Lord, I have no scars.' He will say to me: 'Was nothing worth fighting for?' I told my Members that story and I said, 'you better get some scars so you can pass muster when you go to heaven.'

[Laughter]

So, the Daughters of Charity, in their work, they are the best – the compassion, dignity and respect that they extend to all, and you can just see it. Their inspiration is just endless. Thank you, Daughters of Charity, for your great work.

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