Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) believes that the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee’s version of health care reform legislation, which includes a public option, is right. (0:29)
By Courtney Costello-Talk Radio News Service
At a hearing Tuesday morning, Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) discussed their desire to provide affordable health care for Americans with pre-existing medical conditions.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is currently marking up The Affordable Health Choices Act, in which measures would be put in place to prevent insurance companies from denying people coverage, regardless of whether or not they have pre-existing health conditions.
“The present situation is unacceptable [and] it is unsustainable economically. We’ve got to move forward to get this legislation done, or we are going to bankrupt families,” said Dodd.
Title III of the bill, Improving The Health Of The American People, would include the preventive measures that would also help to drive down the costs of health care.
The bill would insure that Americans are not discriminated against by private insurance companies, said Harkin.
“Affordable quality health care is going to put a stop to a gross injustice in our current system, the denial of coverage to persons who have pre-existing conditions,” said the Senator from Iowa.
Senator Dodd hopes to have the amendment process for the bill finished by the end of this week.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing today on “Childhood Obesity: The Declining Health of America’s Next Generation.” Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), called the “champion of children” by Sen. Thomas Harkin (D-Iowa), presided over the hearing and said that the childhood obesity epidemic is one of the most urgent threats to American children. Dodd explained that “our children’s generation” may be the fist in the modern era to live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents. He also said that nearly one out of every three American children are obese or are at risk of becoming obese and children are increasingly being diagnosed with type 2, “adult-onset” diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. (more…)
