Figures: ‘Healthcare Access Is Something That Is Deeply Personal to My District, and to Make the Cost of Healthcare Unaffordable for People Is Something That Is Irresponsible and Something That We Have the Ability to Be Able to Stop.’

WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Shomari C. Figures (AL-02) joined the House Democrats Weekly Press Conference to deliver remarks on their efforts to protect Americans’ healthcare and emphasize the importance of ACA subsidies in an already struggling healthcare landscape. 

Watch remarks here!
 

Below are Congressman Figures’ remarks, as delivered:

We are in the middle of a healthcare crisis, and the stakes could not be higher. Millions of Americans rely on healthcare subsidies to be able to afford coverage, and 50,000 of those Americans are located in my district in Alabama. And it's not just a talking point back home. This is real life for people. I represent one of the poorest districts in the country. The individual median income in my district is just north of $32,000. To say that another way, 50% of the wage earners in my district earn less than $32,000.

And so when we talk about 50,000 people's healthcare premiums, on average, increasing by little more than double in a district where the income is just north of $32,000 on average, it's more than a talking point. It's something that hits people in real ways in real life. It's not something people can afford.

And beyond the personal side of it, my district as a whole is one of the worst for healthcare access and outcomes in the country. I have 13 counties in my district, you can only deliver babies in two of the 13. 10 of the 13 counties either have hospitals that have closed, are in the process of converting to REHs (Rural Emergency Hospitals) so they don't close, or are on literal financial life support under the threat of closure. And, by the way, the largest hospital in my state capital of Montgomery, which I also represent, which is one of only two hospitals in that county, is in the middle of a bankruptcy.

And so healthcare access is something that is deeply personal to my district, and to make the cost of healthcare unaffordable for people—completely unaffordable, to put it completely out of reach for people—is something that is irresponsible and something that we have the ability to be able to stop. Because it's going to put more stress on the hospitals that we still have, and people are going to continue to suffer some of the worst healthcare outcomes. Because all of that that I just said is all in a district that has the third lowest life expectancy in America.

So, this is something that we have to get Republicans on board to fix. We just need a few. We just need a few to join us to do the right thing. We need a few to step up to the plate—to show that they understand and they know that supporting life doesn't end at birth. It is something that we can do, and something that we need to do here in Congress, to make sure that the American people, in the richest nation that the world has ever known, that healthcare coverage—healthcare access—is not something that is a luxury that is only available to the wealthy, something that is only available to the few.

And so, I am proud to stand here with my colleagues to bring up this issue once again—something that we have been pressuring since I've been here in Congress, for the better part of the last 10 or 11 months, but something that obviously Democrats have been pushing for decades. And we're going to continue to wave this flag. We're going to continue to beat this drum. We're going to continue to do this on behalf of the constituents in Alabama's Second Congressional District and those across this country, because it's the right thing to do.

Thank you.

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