Sen. Mazie Hirono, who has stage 4 kidney cancer, fights tears during heartfelt healthcare plea
Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, called on her
Republican colleagues Thursday night to vote against the Obamacare repeal, and
show the American people the same compassion they showed her after her cancer
diagnosis in May.
Prior to the Senate narrowly defeating the bill that would
have repealed portions of Obamacare, Hirono stood in the Senate chamber and
begged her colleagues to take a step back from politics and focus on Americans.
She said repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act would
hurt the "sickest, poorest amongst us."
Hirono said when she was diagnosed with stage four kidney
cancer many of her Republican colleagues offered their condolences and wrote
her notes sharing their own battles with cancer.
"You showed me your care, you showed me your
compassion, where is that tonight?" she said banging her fist on the
table. "...I find it hard to believe we can sit here and vote on a bill
that is going to hurt millions and millions of people in our country."
Hirono said health care was deeply personal to her because
she grew up without it. Hirono noted
that she was probably the only Senator who was not born in a hospital, but at
home in rural Japan. She lost her two-year-old sister to pneumonia because her
parents could not afford care.
"She died at home, not in a hospital where she could
have been saved," Hirono said, fighting back tears.
Hirono said her mother, like many immigrants, brought her
family to this country for a better life.
"We came here with nothing," she said. "She
had low paying jobs; there was no health coverage. Growing up as a young girl
in Hawaii my greatest fear was that my mother would get sick, and if she got
sick how would we pay for her care. How would she go to work?"
She said having health insurance allowed her to focus on her
job and not on how to pay for her care.
"Now here I am a United States senator, I am fighting
kidney cancer and I am just so grateful that I had health insurance so that I
could concentrate on the care I needed rather than how the heck I was going to
afford the care that was going to probably save my life."
Republican Senators voted 49-51 for the bill, falling two
votes short of the 51 votes needed to pass the legislation. In addition to
McCain, the Republicans who voted against the bill were Sens. Susan Collins of
Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Source:
USA Today
