Neil's Notebook Optimism grows for healthcare reform
September 9, 2009
Congressman Neil Abercrombie said he is “very optimistic” that Congress will be able to pass health insurance reform, in reaction to President Obama's address to a Joint Session of Congress Wednesday night.
Abercrombie was in Washington, D.C. and spoke to Hawaii reporters after the speech during a video news conference via satellite, saying “the President gave everybody a place to stand” and addressed virtually every lawmaker’s issue or concern on healthcare “in powerful fashion.”
Abercrombie said the President’s address made clear that Congress and the President have a plan that will contain rising healthcare costs and be affordable and accessible to all Americans.
He noted that the President made certain that “standing still on health insurance reform is simply not an option for us at this time, that accessibility and affordability is not only going to be the watchwords for the Obama/Democratic plan that’s coming out but that we’re still willing to reach out to those who are willing to work with us.”
Abercrombie said the President gave a “superb summary when he said that we did not come here to fear the future; we came here to shape the future.”
“Stability and security for all Americans is the basis for the plan,” Abercrombie said. “We’ll have more stability, more security for those who have insurance now and are very, very worried” that the cost of health insurance “is going to sail right out of sight, or are worried because of job insecurity that their healthcare may disappear. We’re gong to have affordable choices for everybody including a public option for those who have no other choice. They will, in fact, not be neglected, not by this country."
Abercrombie said the public option will remain in the overall picture, although it may be redefined. And, he agreed with the President that making health care accessible to everyone is a question, too, of “morality and social justice.”
Read the full text of the President's speech by clicking here.
