Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Richardson) for a unanimous-consent request.

Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, because I stand in support of health care reform that helps more than half of women who cannot afford health care today, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I object.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Objection has been heard.

[release text following vote]

After hundreds of hours of committee, caucus and debate, I joined the Congress today in supporting legislation that represents a major turning point for our country...Today the United States joins every other developed nation as we take a step forward in our very humanity and once and for all say that access to affordable and quality health insurance is not just a privilege anymore.

In the 37th Congressional District, too many families are uninsured, too many families hit lifetime benefit caps and face financial crisis, too many people are losing their jobs and their healthcare at no fault of their own, too many are hurting, and too many are in pain. The Health Care Act is expected to provide health insurance to 98,000 people, more than one out of every seven district residents, who currently have no coverage. It will also aid small businesses in providing coverage to employees and improve Medicare coverage for seniors.

In our area, where we have watched hospitals close or be forced to cut back because of the inability of patients to pay for emergency services, this bill will provide $228 million for uncompensated care for hospitals...For our seniors, Medicare will be strengthened and prescription drugs will be made more affordable. For small businesses, with more than 15,000 in our district alone, assistance in providing your employee’s health insurance is on the way. No more penalties for preexisting conditions, no more fear that if you lose your job you will lose your healthcare and no more differences in the care between men and women. Today, we not only leave a legacy, but we have made one for the Americans of this generation and the next.

This attempt at sliding Americans into dependence on a government-controlled health care system brings bait & switch to a new low.

We have heard about the flaws of our current healthcare system, high costs, lack of portability, lose a job - lose health insurance, discrimination of those with preexisting conditions. Yes, many of the heart-wrenching stories we are hearing to justify this legislation are real. But correcting those maladies requires specific reform, not transforming healthcare in America into a bureaucratically-managed health care system that will cost hundreds of billions, including billions to provide healthcare for illegal aliens, while at the same time cutting Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars.

This so-called reform will destroy the freedom of the American people to make health decisions with a doctor of their choice. It will transform our system, rather than reform it. And what we will end up with is a system that is massively more expensive, less effective, and will be based on government controls and rationing, rather than the patient-doctor relationship.

You can touch our hearts with the stories of suffering brought about by defects in our current system, but it doesn’t follow that we have to buy into this monstrous federal power grab. It is too benign to call this scheme bait and switch.

Wake up America!!

This bill cuts healthcare for our seniors by hundreds of billions of dollars while providing subsidized health care of illegal immigrants, which will draw more illegals into our country.

Wake up America!!

This bill is structured so that private companies will find it profitable to dump employees into the government-run option, rather than continuing to offer private health insurance.

Wake up America!!

This ill-conceived power grab will bankrupt our country as it destroys our freedom.

The Congressional district lines were drawn by Sacramento Democrats in 2001, who erased a LB-centered 38th Congressional district represented by Rep. Stephen Horn (R., LB), shifting that district out of LB and splitting LB's voting power.

Roughly 1/3 of LB is currently in an OC-centered district (into which Sac'to Dems put all of SE LB and part of ELB), then and now represented by Cong. Rohrabacher, and putting the rest of LB (about 70%) into a SE L.A. County Dem dominated district, at the time represented by Cong. Juanita Millender-McDonald, now Cong. Richardson.

Congressional district lines are expected to be redrawn after the 2010 census, in or about 2011, by Sacramento lawmakers.