[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 117 (Friday, August 2, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9530-S9531]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                HEALTH CARE AND MINIMUM WAGE LEGISLATION

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise to say how pleased I am on behalf 
of the people of California that we have made such progress on raising 
the minimum wage tonight and passing a long overdue health care bill. 
The things that we did tonight are going to ripple throughout this 
country. There has been much discussion of the trickle-down effect. 
People who work hard at the bottom end of the economic ladder deserve 
dignity and an income to support their

[[Page S9531]]

families. Today is a good day for them. It is a good day for all of us.
  I also want to pay tribute to the senior Senator from Massachusetts, 
Senator Kennedy. I had the privilege and honor of standing with him at 
numerous press conferences and briefings. We brought small business 
people out who said that they paid their people more than the minimum 
wage, and they were proud of it. They had loyal and hard-working 
employees.
  At another, we had working women tell us that the difference to them 
between the hourly wage they are getting and the wage they will get 
after this 90-cent-an-hour increase meant that they could pay for some 
long overdue doctor bills. So we have done something very fine here 
today.
  And health care--two of the provisions of the Clinton health care 
bill were taken out of that bill and passed in the form of a Kassebaum-
Kennedy bill. People can take their health insurance with them from job 
to job. It is a lifting of a burden and a worry. People with pre-
existing conditions, like high blood pressure, will not be denied 
coverage. We should be very, very proud as we leave here this evening.
  Mr. President, in closing, I want to call attention to one issue that 
was not so good, not so kind, not so nice to the American people. When 
the minimum wage bill left the Senate, it had in it a provision that I 
was honored to author. It would have protected widows and widowers from 
poverty when the working spouse with a pension dies first. Currently, 
when the working spouse dies with a pension, the surviving spouse's 
pension is cut 50 percent under the only pension option required by 
federal law.
  We can fix this problem without any cost. We can offer those couples 
when they do their pension planning an option that ensures the 
surviving spouse pension is not cut in half. We could have done that in 
this bill. We did it in the Senate's bill on an overwhelming 96-2 vote. 
But the House leadership took the provision out.
  I look forward to coming back here after the break and working with 
my colleagues on the Family First agenda that Senator Daschle has laid 
out: Income security, pension security, health care security, security 
in our communities by putting more police on the beat.
  These are the things Democrats are working for. I know we can reach 
across this aisle, as we did on the two bills that just passed, to 
carry out that agenda. Then we can really feel good about what we do 
here in the U.S. Senate.
  Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

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