[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 4, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5707-S5708]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM LEGISLATION

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Senate and House of Representatives 
have an excellent chance to complete action this week on the Health 
Insurance Reform Act--if Senators and Representatives are willing to 
put aside partisanship and Presidential politics and act in the public 
interest.
  This legislation is what the American people need and deserve. If it 
were sent to the President today it would be signed into law tomorrow. 
But it has been languishing in Congress for several weeks, primarily 
because some Republicans insist that the bill must also include a 
highly controversial provision on medical savings accounts.
  Senator Dole has said on several occasions that he would like to 
achieve final action on this legislation before he leaves the Senate. 
If Senator Dole is serious about such action, it is difficult to 
believe he cannot make it happen. We can break the logjam this week and 
pass a bill that both Republicans and Democrats can be proud of.
  The consensus reforms in this legislation are essential and long 
overdue. Twenty-five million Americans a year will benefit from its 
provisions. The legislation eliminates the worst abuses of the current 
health insurance system. Under the current system, millions of 
Americans are forced to pass up jobs that would improve their standard 
of living or offer them greater opportunities, because they are afraid 
they will lose their health insurance. Many other Americans abandon the 
goal of starting their own business, because health insurance would be 
unavailable to them or members of their families. Still other Americans 
lose their health insurance because they become sick or lose their job 
or change their job, even when they have paid their insurance premiums 
for many years.
  With each passing year, the pitfalls in private health insurance 
become more serious. More than half of all insurance policies impose 
exclusions for preexisting conditions. As a result, insurance is often 
denied for the very illnesses most likely to require medical care. No 
matter how faithfully people pay their premiums, they often have to 
start over again with a new exclusion period if they change jobs or 
lose their coverage. Some 81 million Americans have illnesses that 
could subject them to exclusions for preexisting conditions if they 
lose their current coverage. Sometimes, the exclusions make them 
completely uninsurable.
  The reforms that passed the Senate 100 to 0 last April deal with each 
of these problems. Insurance companies are limited in their power to 
impose exclusions for preexisting conditions. No exclusion can last for 
more than 12 months. Once persons have been covered for 12 months, no 
new exclusion can be imposed as long as there is no gap in coverage, 
even if they change their job, lose their job, or change insurance 
companies.
  The bill requires insurers to sell and renew group health policies 
for all employers who want coverage for their employees. It guarantees 
renewal of individual policies. It prohibits insurers from denying 
insurance to those who move from group to individual coverage. It 
prohibits group health plans for excluding any employee based on health 
status. Individuals with coverage under a group plan will not be locked 
into their job for fear they will be denied coverage or face a new 
exclusion for a preexisting condition.
  The bill will also help small businesses provide better and less 
expensive coverage for their employees. Purchasing cooperatives will 
enable small groups and individuals to join together to negotiate lower 
rates. As a result, they can obtain the kind of clout in the 
marketplace currently available only to large employers.
  There is nothing radical or extreme about these provisions. They were 
included in every proposal, Republican or Democratic, introduced in the 
last Congress, including Senator Dole's, When it became clear in 1994 
that President Clinton's comprehensive health reform bill could not be 
enacted into law, Senator Dole said that we should simply pass the 
things we all agree on. As he stated in August 1994 on the floor of the 
Senate.

       We will be back . . . And you can bet that health care will 
     be near the top of our agenda. There are a lot of plans and 
     some have similarities. Many of us think we ought to take all 
     the common parts of these plans, put then together and pass 
     that bill.


[[Page S5708]]


  A week later, Senator Dole described those common parts--provisions 
to help Americans who cannot afford insurance, who cannot get insurance 
because of preexisting conditions, or who cannot keep insurance due to 
a job change.
  The bill that Senator Kassebaum and I introduced in 1995 followed 
that suggestion. It included only those reforms that had broad 
bipartisan support in the last Congress. We agreed to oppose all 
controversial provisions--even provisions we would support under other 
circumstances.
  With Senator Kassebaum's leadership, the legislation was approved by 
the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee by a unanimous vote. By 
the time it was debated on the Senate floor, it had 66 cosponsors--28 
Republicans and 38 Democrats--ranging from the most conservative 
Members of the Senate to the most liberal.
  When the bill was taken up by the full Senate, Senator Dole and 
Senator Roth offered an amendment that had many constructive, 
noncontroversial provisions which strengthened the bill--fairer tax 
treatment for small businesses, deductibility for long term care 
expenses, tax relief for the terminally ill, and provisions to crack 
down on fraud in Medicare and Medicaid. Senator Kassebaum and I 
welcomed these provisions and accepted them.
  But their amendment also included medical savings accounts, a 
proposal that would kill the bill. Fortunately, the Senate decisively 
rejected that proposal, and the amended bill, without medical savings 
accounts, passed the Senate unanimously.
  Since then, unfortunately, a major impasse has developed over this 
issue. If the impasse can be resolved, the bill will pass. If not, the 
bill will die. Our best chance to resolve the impasse is now--this 
week. Senator Dole wants the bill to pass before he leaves the Senate, 
and other Republicans are unlikely to reject a genuine request for 
action from their party's leader. Once Senator Dole is gone, the 
prospects of ending the impasse are much more bleak.
  Reasonable compromises are easily within our grasp on medical savings 
accounts. It is irresponsible for Republicans to hold the other 
bipartisan reforms in this bill hostage, if they can't get their way on 
medical savings accounts.
  What happens to this bill is not going to make a difference in the 
outcome of the 1996 Presidential election. But it will make a 
difference, a very large difference, to the 25 million Americans who 
will benefit immensely from these needed health reforms. If we keep our 
eyes on them--if we keep those deserving families in communities across 
America uppermost in our minds, this bill will pass.
  It is also clear who will get the blame if this bill dies. To kill 
this entire bill because they can't get all they want on medical 
savings accounts would be a flagrant and despicable abuse of power by 
the Republican Party--and the American people should vote accordingly 
in the elections in November.

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