Floor Statements

I would like to thank my good friend and colleague, Congressman Carol Shea-Porter, for working with me on this amendment. Before I speak about this important amendment, I'd like to thank all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their great expression of support for me and my family over the last several days. It means so much to me and to my family that all of you have kept us in your prayers.

I'd like to say on behalf of this amendment my gratitude to the chairman and to the ranking member for their support for our troops, our Guard and Reserve, who are carrying the brunt of this battle in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and for whom we are just trying to extend this 24-hour suicide hotline so as to provide them the same extensive care and outreach that we have now provided those others of our veterans who now have benefited from such a hotline in our VA.

I think this is an appropriate addition to this DOD bill, and I am glad to see that it's adopted in this bill. I thank the chairman for including it in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 1134, legislation to support the goals and ideals of Mental Health Month. I would like to thank my colleagues and co-chairs of the Mental Health Caucus, Representative Napolitano and Representative Murphy, for their continued dedication to educating Congress on this most important issue.

It is critical for Congress to recognize May as Mental Health Month because we have the leadership role and the responsibility to transform mental health care in America. We are working to change the access, the delivery system and the outcomes of care. But we are also working to bring down the barriers to action that exist because of stigma, ignorance and misunderstanding of mental illness and substance use.

Congress must work to increase public awareness and understanding of mental illness and substance use by funding research in genetics and functional medicine and developing and translating this research into effective treatments. We have the evidence to show how the brain suffers from the effects of mental illness and substance use. We know also that people who suffer the long term effects of mental illness die at an earlier age, suffer from untreated diabetes, hypertension and other chronic disease, because it is so difficult to get the care they need to protect their health and functioning.

Several years ago, our Nation did not talk about cancer because of our fears, our poor understanding and our dread of losing our loved ones. Now mental illness is emerging from that same silence and neglect. As President Kennedy said, ``This neglect must end, if our Nation is to live up to its own standards of compassion and dignity.''

For all our citizens bearing the burdens of mental illness and substance use, and their families, especially their children, we are working to improve the awareness, understanding and effective treatment of mental illness. We owe it to our veterans to fully treat the damaging psychological wounds of war as well as their physical injuries. We owe it to their children to return them well and sound to be the parents and spouses they deserve to be.

This leadership is a shared responsibility with Federal agencies, State and local governments, employers, businesses, churches, law enforcement, schools, sports, the entertainment industry, and every part of our community. I thank my colleagues for bringing this resolution to the floor and join them in their support recognizing May as Mental Health Month.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 493, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. I would like to thank my good friends and colleagues, Representative Louise Slaughter and Representative Judy Biggert, for their tireless advocacy to bring this bill to the House floor today and then on to the White House for President Bush's signature.

There is nothing more personal and more deserving of protection than the genetic make-up of each and every individual in our Nation. Advances in science and technology during the past decade have allowed us to map the human genome and opened the doors to treatment and diagnostic capabilities that we are only now beginning to realize. With this power comes great responsibility to protect individuals who learn that they may be more susceptible to diseases such as breast cancer or mental illness.

Just as our Nation does not allow discrimination based on race or disability, we must not allow discrimination based on our own genetic identity. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act will prevent health insurers and employers from improperly using our genetic information to make coverage or employment decisions. I urge my colleagues to support this protection of our most basic human right by voting for H.R. 493.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1187) to expand the boundaries of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 1187, the Gulf of Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries Boundary Modification and Protection Act was introduced by our colleague from California (Ms. Woolsey) and is cosponsored by 51 additional Members. This bill would expand the Gulf of Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries to protect and preserve an additional 1,739 square nautical miles to the marine environment due north and west of the existing sanctuaries. These additions would protect virtually the entire upwelling region, which is critical to the ecosystem's productivity, particularly the health of many valuable commercial and recreational fisheries in the area.

I ask Members on both sides to support the passage of this important legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Well, I think that we should hear really from the person most knowledgeable about this legislation, the author of this, Representative Woolsey, to whom I now yield the balance of our time.

Madam Speaker, we don't have any more speakers, but before closing I want to note that the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans, Chairwoman Madeleine Bordallo, is presently en route from Guam and wouldn't be able to be here for this, but she does support passage of this bill. I just wanted to make note of that.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2342) to direct the President to establish a National Integrated Coastal and Ocean Observation System, and for other purposes, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 2342, the National Integrated Coastal and Ocean Observation Act of 2008, was introduced by our colleague from Maine (Mr. Allen). This bill establishes a National Integrated Coastal Ocean Observation System to gather real-time data on the ocean environment, to refine and enhance predictive capabilities, and to provide other immediate societal benefits, such as improved fisheries management and safer navigation.

Capitalizing on newer and better integrated technologies would help address huge information gaps and significantly advance our understanding of ocean processes. I would say coming from a State called The Ocean State, this is a particularly important piece of legislation, and representing a university that is a recipient of Sea Grants, we are very interested in passing this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I ask colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support passage of this noncontroversial bill.

Madam Speaker, on behalf of the Committee, I submit the following exchange of letters.

House of Representatives, Committee on Science and

Technology,

Washington, DC, March 27, 2008.

Hon. Nick J. Rahall II,

Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Rahall: I write to you regarding H.R. 2342,

the ``National Integrated Coastal and Ocean Observation

Act.'' This legislation was initially referred to both the

Committee on Natural Resources and the Committee on Science

and Technology.

H.R. 2342 was marked up by the Committee on Natural

Resources on March 12, 2008. I recognize and appreciate your

desire to bring this legislation before the House in an

expeditious manner, and, accordingly, I will waive further

consideration of this bill in Committee. However, agreeing to

waive consideration of this bill should not be construed as

the Committee on Science and Technology waiving its

jurisdiction over H.R. 2342.

Further, I request your support for the appointment of

Science and Technology Committee conferees during any House-

Senate conference convened on this legislation. I also ask

that a copy of this letter and your response be placed in the

Congressional Record during consideration of this bill.

I look forward to working with you as we prepare to pass

this important legislation.

Sincerely,

Bart Gordon,

Chairman.

I would just say once again, Madam Speaker, we are in the process as a Nation of taking an assessment of our coastal zones, and in particularly in light of our energy needs, for our wind needs, for the possibility of harnessing the oceans for purposes of energy in our oceans, and, of course, tabulating the effects of global warming. All of these things use data, and those data points can certainly be drawn from the passage of legislation like this that will integrate all of those data points through a coastal and ocean observatory system.

I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to the author of this legislation, Representative Allen, for the work that he put into authoring it.

At this time, I would like yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Madam Speaker, with no other speakers, I would just once again conclude that Rhode Island looks forward to hosting this ocean observatory system that the Representative from Maine has proposed, if not objected to by the gentleman from Hawaii, another sea-going State.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I would like to thank the gentleman from Maryland for his ambitious efforts on behalf of this issue. He has been tireless on behalf of spreading the word on the issue of prevention of colorectal cancer. I can recall for many years being invited to participate in events where he has been out there talking about prevention and prevention, prevention, prevention. I salute him for his efforts and thank him for his service to our country on behalf of this very important issue.

He said it as clear as anyone could say it, and that is that the most common reason people give for why they have not had a colorectal cancer screening is that it wasn't recommended to them. And the most common reason that people die of colorectal cancer is because they haven't been screened. So, what is the answer? The answer is we have to get people to recommend that they get a screening for colorectal cancer. If they get the recommendation that they get screened, then they have a 90 percent chance of survival. It's that simple.

Why are people dying of an illness that is so preventable? Because they're not being told, first, that the statistics are what they are, that this is preventable; and two, that the professions out there need to get about doing what they need to do to make those recommendations that people get the screening. If you're 50 and older, you need to get the screening. If you have it in your family, you need to get the screening. And these are the simple messages that we need to get out to the general public. And Al Wynn has been the leader in this Congress in making sure those messages get out to the public. And I want to thank Kay Granger for her efforts as well in sponsoring this bill.

But the fact of the matter is that we cannot sit idly by and think that this is something that simply is a matter of saving dollars. I want to thank my friend, Mr. Burgess, for pointing out that we save lots of money if we screen early. He pointed out accurately that the Lewin Group said that we spent nearly $8.5 billion just this last year treating colorectal cancer. Two-thirds of that will be paid by the Federal Government; two-thirds will be paid by our taxpayers. And imagine if we had screening, we could avoid that cost. If we had screening, the cost of a screening could avoid all the heavy expenses of that treatment. But imagine all the lives that it will save? Imagine all the fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and brothers and sisters who would be spared the awful trauma of having to be treated with cancer.

This is the right thing to do. It's not only the right thing to do, you know, financially, which should be a no-brainer for us in Congress, we're looking for ways to save money, this is a money saver, but this is the right thing to do for our people in terms of saving them the heartache. So, what do we need to do? We need to cover people.

In my State of Rhode Island, we already mandate, our insurance coverage already requires it. But unfortunately, as the American Cancer Society is trying to do nationally, we have 47 million Americans without health insurance. And until we get more people covered with health insurance, there are going to continue to be people who fall off.

That's why this legislation is so important. It sets up grants to States so that we can target those who don't have health insurance so that they can get the screening. If we know that they have colorectal cancer polyps prescreening, then we know we can get in there and make sure that they get the treatment early so that we're not stuck as a society having to pay down the road for the most costly and expensive kinds of treatment through the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

So, my friends, this is something that we need to do. I salute all of those in the cancer community who have been trying to preach this message. This is a message that needs to be preached. And I think that every month ought to be Cancer Awareness Month. I'm just happy that we now finally are getting about focusing on an illness that has been too quiet, too quiet. When you compare it to breast cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer screenings are the lowest of all of them, the lowest,

because it has been the most stigmatized of all cancers.

But colorectal cancer can no longer remain that way because too many people are dying as a result.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to have the following letters of support for H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act, submitted for the Record on the floor debate of this bill.

The Betty Ford Center,

Rancho Mirage, CA,

March 3, 2008.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Capitol Building,

Washington, DC.

Hon. John Boehner,

Republican Leader, House of Representatives, Capitol

Building, Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leader Boehner: On behalf of the

Betty Ford Center, I am writing to express my strong support

for H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction

Equity Act. This landmark legislation would prohibit

insurance discrimination against 80 million Americans

suffering from addiction and mental illness.

I am writing because our country cannot afford the

continued burden of untreated addiction and mental illness.

Untreated addiction costs Americans $400 billion each year.

Moreover, each year, 1.3 billion work days are lost due to

mental disorders, more than arthritis, stroke, heart attack

and cancer combined and workers with untreated alcoholism

cost their employers $135 billion in lost productivity

annually.

The time for the passage of parity is now. Over 25 million

people need mental health and addiction treatment but are not

getting it. Legislation to bring full equity to mental health

coverage has been introduced in the House in every Congress

since the 107th session but until this year, it never

received consideration in committees or on the floor despite

bipartisan majority cosponsorship. Now, H.R. 1424, introduced

by Representatives Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Jim Ramstad (R-

MN), has the support of the majority of the House with 273

cosponsors. The bill has been favorably reported by the Ways

and Means, Energy and Commerce and Education and Labor

Committees. In 2007, the Betty Ford Center was pleased to

join with families, providers, employers and state and local

officials at fourteen different field hearings held around

the country. These hearings documented the need for equity in

health plans for the treatment of addiction and mental

illness. The record shows parity is a priority that must be

passed now.

I am hopeful the House of Representatives will pass H.R.

1424 this week with a strong bipartisan majority. The Betty

Ford Center stands ready to assist you and your colleagues in

the Senate in making equitable treatment for addiction and

mental health in health plans a reality for all Americans in

2008.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Betty Ford.

Brain Injury Association of America,

Vienna, VA, March 3, 2008.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker of the House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. John Boehner,

Republican Leader, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leader Boehner: On behalf of the

Brain Injury Association of America, I am writing to express

our support for H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health

and Addiction Equity Act, which would prohibit insurance

discrimination against 80 million Americans suffering from

addiction and mental illness.

An intricate and intertwined relationship exists between

substance abuse, mental health, and traumatic brain injury

(TBI). Substance use and abuse is often both an antecedent to

and a consequence of TBI. Incidence data indicate that

substance abuse significantly raises an individual's risk of

sustaining a brain injury. TBI is one of the most common and

tragic consequences of substance abuse, especially by

teenagers and young adults. In addition, neurobehavioral

problems commonly arise as a direct result of TBI, and

psychotherapeutic services are integral to successful

neurorehabilitation programs. Access to comprehensive and

specialized addiction and mental health services is critical

to maximizing the recovery of individuals brain injury.

The time for the passage of parity is now. More than 25

million people need mental health and addiction treatment but

are not getting it. Legislation to bring full equity to

mental health coverage has been introduced in the House in

every Congress since the 107th session but until this year,

it never received consideration in committees or on the floor

despite bipartisan majority cosponsorship. Note, the Paul

Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act (H.R. 1424),

introduced by Representatives Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Jim

Ramstad (R-MN), has the support of the majority of the House

with 273 cosponsors. The bill has been favorably reported by

the Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce and Education and

Labor Committees. Remarkably, 14 different field hearings

documenting the need for equity in health plans for the

treatment of addiction and mental illness were held around

the country in 2007. The record shows parity is a priority

that must be passed now.

Because of the critical nature of this legislation, the

Brain Injury Association of America urges you to pass H.R.

1424 when it comes to the floor this week. Our organization

stands ready to assist you toward the goal of achieving

fairness in health plans for all Americans.

Sincerely,

Susan H. Connors,

President/CEO,

Brain Injury Association of America.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 132 and 133, I was speaking at the National Press Club on the National Neurotechnology Initiative Act. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

I thank the chairman for yielding me this time, and I want to thank him for all of his hard work and that of the other chairmen, Chairman Dingell, Chairman Rangel, Chairman Miller, Chairman Stark, and obviously you, Chairman Pallone, for hosting that committee hearing in your district, as well as Chairman Andrews for all the work he did on this issue to bring H.R. 1424 to the floor today.

Without all of your markups, this bill would not have made it as far as it did today to come to this floor as one of the most important public health bills that we have seen on this floor in decades. Of course, that would not have happened had it not been for the great support of our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Leader Hoyer who without their support this would not have happened as well. I am indebted to them for their support.

Today, this House of Representatives takes up a truly landmark piece of civil rights legislation. Why civil rights? Because just as it would account for the color of your skin, or any other immutable fact about you, you don't choose if you're born with a congenital defect or if you're born with

one characteristic or another, just as you don't choose to have a predisposition to cancer, a predisposition to having asthma, a predisposition to dying early of one disease or another. And that applies true with those with mental illness. Yet when you have health insurance in this country, you expect to buy health insurance and it should cover your whole body.

But unfortunately, unbelievably, the brain is still relegated to that part of the world where people think of it as something that should be in your control, something that you should take charge of and so forth; that even though you might have a biochemical imbalance in your brain, that it is your fault if you have that biochemical imbalance in your brain.

So if you had diabetes and you don't produce enough insulin and you eat the wrong food and have sugar imbalances, no one holds it against you if you have complications to diabetes. But God forbid you have a dopamine imbalance in your brain that causes you to use alcohol or drugs, or you have a dopamine imbalance that has you in a depression or an imbalance in your brain that has you have a mental illness like schizophrenia. Then you are held to account because someone says that is your fault. And if you wander around the streets or if you are homeless, that must be your fault.

Those are the physical symptoms of a mental illness. Yet an insurance company will hospitalize you for the symptoms of a chemical imbalance called diabetes, but they won't hospitalize you for the physical and chemical imbalances of a brain illness as a result of dopamine imbalances or glutamate imbalances. What sense does that make? It doesn't make any sense. But it is stereotyped in an old dark ages mindset that has people hanging in the shadows because they are afraid someone is going to point someone out and say you should be ashamed of yourself because you have a mental illness.

My friends, I have a mental illness. I am fortunately getting the best care this country has to offer because I am a Member of Congress. If it is good enough for Members of Congress to have full parity, then it ought to be good enough for every American in this country who buys health insurance not to be discriminated against.

If we care about health care in this country, why are we not taking care of health care, rather than sick care? We ought to be taking care of people before they end up sick. We are spending in our emergency rooms too much money taking care of all of the acute cases as a result of mental illnesses, the car accidents, stabbings and intubations. Why not take care of people before they end up ending up in the emergency rooms? Why not take care of the people before they end up in our jails?

Let's pass mental parity, make this country stronger, make our people stronger, and let's make this day a great day for civil rights for all Americans.

I want to say this couldn't have been done without my good friend and colleague Jim Ramstad. Let's put this bill on the floor and do it this year and make it a tribute to Congressman Jim Ramstad, who has fought for this bill so long and hard.

I just want to take issue with the point that this is giving some kind of preferential treatment to mental health benefits. If the gentleman would yield for a second on the point, we're having to state that mental health benefits need to be in the bill because no one questions when you get a broken arm, that it's automatically covered. But if it's a mental illness, it's discriminated against. Why we have to put this in the bill is because if we don't, it gets discriminated against. It's as simple as that. That's why we're on the floor today because we have to put it into civil rights law so it's not discriminated against. That's why we're on the floor today. That's not preferential treatment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 978, supporting ``School Social Work Week.''

I introduced this resolution in order to recognize and support the critical, unsung work performed by social workers in schools across our country.

Each day across the country, school social workers can be found assisting educators to understand family, cultural, and community factors affecting students and meet the demands of providing quality educations for students of diverse backgrounds.

Each day they can be found working with administrators to design and implement effective prevention programs and policies that address school attendance, teen pregnancy, school violence and school safety, child abuse and neglect, special education, and more.

Each day school social workers can be found working with parents so that they may effectively participate in their child's education, improve their parenting skills, understand special education services, and access school and community services related to their child's needs.

Services provided by school social workers strengthen the ability of children to learn and to improve their futures.

It is a shame that fewer than 1 in 5 of the 17 million children in need of mental health services actually receive them. Improved and expanded school mental health programs would help to provide these services. The kinds of services that so many students desperately need are precisely the type of services that school social workers can provide.

That is why I am proud to be the sponsor of this resolution. I would like to thank the chairman and ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee for allowing this resolution to come to the floor, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

I too want to join in support of this resolution and commend my colleagues from Washington State, particularly my colleague Brian Baird.

I have always thought, and I have talked to the Bank of America about this and have an appointment with former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin to discuss a Veterans Visa. We all have credit cards and we all have the affinity cards. They sell us cards where they have the affinity, where you get your bonus miles with American Airlines, you get your bonus miles if you use your card with a particular institution and so forth.

I figure Americans, when they use their credit card, could send their bonus miles or the equivalent of those to veterans, and they would be happy to lay down their credit cards, whether it be American Express or Visa or whatever, with a big red, white and blue credit card. And someone say, what kind of credit card is that, that it's that color? And they say, That's the Veterans Visa. That means all those bonus miles that would have gone to me being able to get a little extra bonus vacation or whatever is going to go to help our Nation's veterans. And I will tell you, I think there would be a lot of Americans out there who would be more than happy to be able to show their patriotic sense of duty when they are going around, especially those who are very comfortable and sitting in the business board rooms of this country doing business transactions all across this country and are sitting comfortably home while our young men and women are overseas fighting for this country, to be able to lay down that Veterans Visa card and have those affinity dollars go to those veterans groups. I think we could send that directly to the very great organization in New York, the Fisher Foundation which has a grade A transparent ruling for all the dollars that it sends to the Intrepid Organization and to the poly- trauma centers and all the vet centers across the country.

I think this is a terrific notion of the certificate of deposits, having a percentage of those interest payments going to veterans, and I think this is one that I am hoping to get started as well. And it follows on the same concept that you are working on here in Washington State. I hope to take your concept that you are doing in Washington State and bring it to my State of Rhode Island. I commend you on it, and I just want to salute you for the work that you are doing out in Washington State.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his work in this area and just say, having just returned from another part of the world that has been turned upside down by election disturbances in Pakistan, with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, it's clear to me that the United States' interest in monitoring elections is paramount because of the national security implications in all of these parts of the world, that we have election monitors stationed in all of these places of the world where there are elections.

I know that the NDI and the NRI, the National Democratic Institute, National Republican Institute and these organizations that we promote as a country, we need to, as a Congress, continue to support those organizations because they are absolutely indispensable towards our national security in helping to secure better faith and confidence in these elections that are taking place around the world. If there is confidence in these elections, and, clearly, these elections have been called into dispute, especially here in Kenya, then there is going to be an unraveling of confidence, and, as we have seen, an occurrence of violence. That occurrence of violence is going to be destabilizing, not only to the region but also to our own national security interests.

That is why I support this resolution and certainly want to salute my colleagues in saying that in the future, we need to do more to support these efforts of monitoring these elections and giving the support that they need on the ground to make sure that they really are transparent elections in every sense of the word.

I thank the gentleman for his leadership.

I thank Chairman Pallone for his work in bringing the extension of this mental health parity law to the floor. I want to acknowledge his help on H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Act, and say I join him in saying today is a great start in us extending this law on lifetime and annual limits. But, as he mentioned, we want to get full parity, which means we want to get the real bill that extends full coverage of mental illnesses to all health insurance plans. Just as we would expect health insurance plans to cover the rest of our body, cancer, diabetes, everything else, we shouldn't expect any less for mental illnesses.

And yet, unlike many other physical illnesses, mental illnesses are excluded from most health insurance plans. In fact, 98 percent of our health insurance plans in America charge higher copays and deductibles for mental illnesses simply because of stigma, simply because of discrimination.

Because of the shame and because Americans are too afraid to say that they are willing to say enough is enough, and they're not willing to say that's wrong, and they're not going to sit idly by while insurance companies say that they can get away with it, we in the Congress ought to stand up and say, enough is enough. We are going to pass the law that says civil rights matter in this country, and if you are born with a mental illness, just as if you were born with any kind of physical disability, you should not be discriminated against. And that is what we mean when we say we want to pass the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act. We can't afford any more days without this law.

As my good friend said over here, each year 1.3 billion workdays are lost due to mental disorders, more than any other, arthritis, stroke, heart attack, or cancer combined.

We cannot afford one more day without parity because the Department of Justice estimates that drug-related crime costs our Nation $107 billion a year. We cannot afford one more day without parity because 80 percent of the trauma-related admissions in our emergency rooms in this country are drug- and alcohol-related, implicated in car accidents, shootings, stabbings, and domestic and violent incidences, as well as overdoses.

We cannot afford one more day without parity because workers' untreated depression cost their employers $31 billion a year in lost productivity and cost their employers $135 billion in lost productivity just due to alcoholism alone.

I will tell you this: We are paying for this in so many other ways, we cannot afford not to spend the money on treatment up front.

But the fact of the matter is, insurance companies continue to deny treatment. Just take one case of Katie

Kevlock, a 16-year-old from Pennsylvania. The insurance company said to her, It is not enough that you came in here hooked on heroin. We need to see you overdose before we are going to give you treatment coverage.

Guess what her mother said? Well, I'm not sure my daughter's got an overdose in her before I can bring her back for her treatment.

Well, guess what? She, of course, overdosed, and she didn't survive that overdose. But that's what that insurance company demanded. They demanded that she have an overdose before she qualified for treatment, but she didn't survive that overdose. She died like millions of other Americans, and that is the cost of us not providing treatment.

Treatment works. Recovery works. We need to end the stigma of mental illness and addiction in our society. That's why we need to pass H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act; and that's why we need to extend the bill today to provide one more year of annual lifetime limits for the current parity law.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my sympathies to a wonderful Rhode Island family who has lost a devoted loved one named Jacqueline Monteiro Dacosta and to briefly share with you the impact she had on so many lives just by being kind.

Jackie was a loving mother, sister and daughter who always exuded a sense of comfort to all. That's why she was perfect for her job as a constituent case worker in my district office in Rhode Island. For the past 11 years she reached out to countless people who sought her advice and help on a multitude of issues and she always put them at ease while they told her their life problems. She reassured them--people she had just met--that she would do what she could to help, and then she did. I have a file of letters in my office from people who wrote to me just to praise Jackie for her hard work and more than that, to recognize her kindness.

Her sudden passing took us all by surprise. We knew instantly our office would never be the same without her presence, her funny stories, her smile. When thousands showed up for her wake and funeral to celebrate her life, it was such a testament to how truly loved she was in the community. No one had seen anything like it. Her family has been overwhelmed with an outpouring of support and sympathy from all over the state.

On my next trip to Cape Verde, her family members and I will plant a tree in Jackie's memory. Her spirit on earth will be forever surrounded by the unspoiled beauty of her homeland and the sounds of the island music she loved so much. We will never forget Jackie and her special qualities that touched so many lives and made life that much better.

We join Jackie's parents, Jose and Adelisa Monteiro; her children Stephanie and Justin and her siblings, Filomena, Osvaldo and Jose Jr. in continuing to honor Jackie's memory and her joyous spirit.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my sympathies to a wonderful Rhode Island family who has lost a devoted loved one named Jacqueline Monteiro Dacosta, and to briefly share with you the impact that she has had on so many lives here in Rhode Island.

She worked in my office for 11 years, and during that time she touched countless lives who sought her advice and help on a multitude of issues. At the end of it, she always made them feel at ease. She worked in my office and filed many claims and issues; but in the midst of all of it, she made people feel good about themselves, and always did her work. The number of letters I have for her are extensive, and the testament of her good works were in the wake that she had, where thousands of people showed up to pay tribute to her life and celebrate it. Next month, I will take a trip with her family to the islands of Cape Verde, her ancestral homeland, where we will plant a tree in her memory.

I just want to extend my condolences to her family: Jackie's parents, Jose and Adelisa Monteiro; her children, Stephanie and Justin; her siblings, Filomena, Osvaldo, and Jose, Jr., in continuing to honor Jackie's memory and her joyous spirit. We will miss you, Jackie, we love you, and we will never forget you.