Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, in his capacity as a senior member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) released a statement following a hearing on the nomination of former Senator Tom Daschle to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In the portion of the statement excerpted below, Sen. Dodd begins making the case for health care reform by citing facts about how the broken system fails to fully serve his constituents in Connecticut:
The case for reform of our health care system has never been stronger. Many say Americans have the best health care in the world and for many Americans that may be true. But how effective can that system be if it is unaffordable and inaccessible to millions of Americans? In [Connecticut], health care premiums have shot up 42 percent in the last 8 years – in the last two years, nearly 1 in 10 of our people have had no health insurance at all.
And how can we have a world-class health care system if high-quality care and value are inadequate in many parts of the country despite $2 trillion in annual health care spending?
At the same time, our health care system is failing millions of our nation’s children and adolescents. The U.S. is a leader among industrialized nations in infant mortality, affecting African American babies at more than two times the rate as non-Hispanic white babies. That is unacceptable.
Our system is creating a generation of children who may well be the first generation of American children who will live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents. That, too, is unacceptable.
This is happening, in part, because our system is driven not by the prevention of illness and disability but the treatment of illness and disability. It’s completely backwards – and it has to change. And with [Tom Daschle's] leadership and the work of this committee, I believe it can and will change.
(emphasis added)
You can read the full statement and watch a video of the hearing at this link.
Senator Dodd will also be kicking off a listening tour in state called Connecticut Prescriptions for Change starting in East Hartford on January 23rd. Details here.
