Representative Sutton Speaks in Support of Health Care Reform

We are all familiar with the numbers: The millions of uninsured Americans, the millions more underinsured, the vast number of bankruptcies arising from health care debt experienced by individuals who assumed they had "good coverage."

These numbers speak loudly. But it is not the numbers themselves that require us to address health care now. It's the people that the numbers represent.

Mr. Chairman, the fear tactics are in full swing. Those who have been profiting so long by denying health care are piling it on. The Washington Post reported that the health care industry is spending $1.4 million a day in this fight.

But the American people are smart. By 70 percent, they support a public option to compete with private insurance to improve our system.

As a State Representative, I worked to try to stop insurance companies from unreasonably delaying or denying care that people had paid for. During my work, I came to know a bright young woman by the name of Linda. Linda worked in Human Resources for an insurance company, and she had a family history of a very aggressive type of breast cancer.

So, when Linda was stricken, her doctor wanted to treat her disease aggressively, but her insurance company overruled her doctor and denied her coverage for the care she needed.

So, Linda and her family tried hard to raise money and after months of delay, eventually she had the procedure. We can calculate the financial costs to the family for the denial of care Linda experienced at the hands of her insurer, but we will never know how much the delay cost Linda by way of her health.

Linda died the following year, but she kept fighting until the end to ensure that others with insurance would not be denied by an insurance administrator the care that their doctor determined was needed.

At Linda's funeral, her young daughter read an essay that she had written about how her mom was her hero because not only did she fight against her disease, she also fought her insurance company and fought to make sure that others would receive the care they need when they need it.

Shortly before her death, Linda sent me an e-mail that I have kept ever since. She apologized that because of her illness she could no longer come out in public to continue the fight. Can you imagine? She was dying, and she apologized because she was not physically able to come out and fight to make our system work.

Well, I am here to fight to make our system work.

By injecting competition into a system that has allowed unreasonable delays and denials of claims to persist, doctors will once again be able to treat patients.

Mr. Chairman people need access to affordable quality coverage and care. It is not just they who will benefit, but as a whole we will all benefit. As health care costs continue to rise, year after year, families, doctors, hospitals, and businesses are all struggling to pay the rising costs.

The details of what we come out with will matter. And I hope, Mr. Chairman, when we are done, that there will never be reason for a child to ever write and read an essay at her mother's funeral about how her mom was her hero because she fought her disease and her insurance company at the same time.