Clyburn: health-care reform 'the Civil Rights Act of the 21st century'

EFFINGHAM — Sixth District Congressman and House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn called health-care reform “the Civil Rights Act of the 21st century” while speaking at a public forum at Savannah Grove Baptist Church on Thursday night.

At the forum, hosted by the church and the Chi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., Clyburn addressed information in the new health-care law concerning women and children, immigration, Medicare and those who are impacted the most by lack of access to health care.

There are 45 million people in the country without health insurance, he said, and 600,000 of them are in South Carolina.

“There’s not a single soul in the United States of America that will not benefit from this law,” Clyburn said. “People can keep their insurance and people with no insurance will have more options for adequate medial care.”

“Women are, more often than not, paying twice the premiums that a man pays,” he said. “This law will outlaw that.”

The law also outlaws annual and lifetime caps on coverage.

Clyburn said a woman from Florence wrote him a letter concerning her child who was receiving cancer treatment. After her child’s next treatment, the woman wrote, her family would meet their lifetime cap on their policy and further treatment wouldn’t be covered.

“This new law will outlaw that,” he said.

Effective immediately, children cannot be dropped from health-care insurance for preexisting conditions. In fours years, that benefit will expand to adults.

Many attendees at the forum were were seeking more information about education benefits under the new health-care law.

Cerita Warren drove from her college in Orangeburg to hear Clyburn speak. She said the education benefits of the law were of particular interest to her for many reasons.

Warren, a student who worked her way through her first year of college, is considering majoring in political science or public health.

“I’ve heard people say the bill helps education, too, but I didn’t know exactly how. It was almost time for me to be dropped from my parent’s insurance, too, so I also wanted to tell him (Clyburn) thanks for the health care,” she said with a laugh.

The new health-care law will allow her to stay on her parent’s health insurance until she is 26.

Over the next 10 years, the bill will save the national government $143 billion and, 10 years later, $1.2 trillion, Clyburn said.

Originally, a reduction in the Pell Grant was proposed for next year, Clyburn said. The government was paying $69 billion to middlemen to handle the money.

“In this, bill we took that $69 billion and gave it to the child,” he said.

With the redistribution of funds, the Pell Grant will go from $5,200 to $5,400 next year, and to $5,900 in four years, Clyburn said.

Clyburn said health-care reform was past due since President Truman’s failed attempt to pass a reform 63 years ago.

He said passing the bill is a step that will affect the lives of American like nothing else.

“This is not a Democratic bill. It’s as much Democratic as it is Republican. They’re against it for what’s in the bill. They're against it because of who got credit for passing it,” Clyburn said, referring to former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole’s proposed health care plan.

“What we’re trying to do is build independence in people, and that’s what this health-care insurance is all about,” he said.

Mayor Stephen J. Wukela of Florence, Timmonsville Mayor Darrick Jackson and Florence School District 1 officials also spoke at the forum.

Earlier in the day, Clyburn served as keynote speaker for a panel discussion on the “State of the Young Child in the Pee Dee Region” at Florence-Darlington Technical College’s Southeastern Institute of Manufacturing and Technology in Florence.

That event was in observance of April as Child Abuse Prevention Month and the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s Week of the Young Child. Panelists were S.C. Education Superintendent Dr. Jim Rex; Francis Marion University Center of Excellence to Prepare Teachers of Children of Poverty Director Dr. Tammy Pawloski; S.C. First Steps to School Readiness Director Susan Devenny; S.C. Department of Social Services Child Welfare Services Interim Director Wilbert Lewis; FMU Associate Professor of Health Programs Dr. Janis McWayne; and S.C. Head Start Collaboration Director Mary Lynn Diggs.