Supports Extending Health Care Benefits for Unemployed Workers
Today on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued the following statement in support of a Democratic drive to sign a discharge petition to extend health care benefits for unemployed workers. Her remarks came during debate on a rule to consider H.R. 2341, The Class Action Fairness Act of 2002.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
I rise in opposition to this bill because of its substance--which I oppose--but also because of the very fact that it is being brought up at a time when we should be bringing up legislation to provide unemployment benefits and health benefits to those people affected by the September 11 attacks.
We lost no time in bailing out the airline industries after the tragedy of September 11, and that was something we probably should have done. At the same time, we should have had legislation on this floor in order to help those workers who were left unemployed after that tragedy--but we did not. Here we are six months later still fighting for time to address this pressing issue.
Last week we passed legislation, which was the very least we could do, to extend unemployment benefits for workers. But many, many people cannot avail themselves of that benefit, and the bill did nothing last week to address the issue of loss of health benefits by America’s workers. As workers are losing their jobs, they are also losing health benefits provided by those jobs. And they cannot afford to pay expensive insurance premiums.
So I am asking our colleagues today to redirect our priorities and allow Democrats to bring a comprehensive unemployment insurance bill to the floor that includes health care benefits for unemployed workers. Instead of passing anti-consumer class action legislation, let’s bring legislation to the floor to help unemployed workers.
It is not a question of Democrats and Republicans deciding on how to help unemployed workers. It is a question of whether we are going to fully help unemployed workers. The Democrats say yes, the Republicans say no.
Still, it is surprising that with all of the headlines on Enron and Arthur Andersen, that instead of helping workers laid-off by the current Enron catastrophe and recession, the Republican leadership wants to make it harder for consumers to file class action lawsuits.
This morning, we met with James Dodrill, an unemployed worker from Cleveland whose health benefits expired last week, at a time when his wife has been diagnosed with a serious illness. Under the current law, James would have to spend more than $7,000 a year to pay for his COBRA health care benefits.
The legislation in our discharge petition would help pay for 75 percent of that and fund the states to pick up the other 25 percent, so that unemployed workers could continue their health benefits and would expand the number of people who fall into that category. It would also include some workers who were never eligible for COBRA to be included in Medicaid.
It is a good discharge petition. I urge my colleagues to sign it.