[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 67 (Thursday, May 13, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S5384]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, on a final issue, I want to comment on an 
issue that is dear to my heart. It stems from the fact that if you have 
health insurance in this country today you do better than if you don't. 
This week is a week that addresses the issues of the uninsured, both in 
this body, in the Congress, in the executive branch--indeed, all over 
the country.
  Last October I appointed a task force on health care costs and the 
uninsured, and earlier this week the task force, led by our 
distinguished colleague, Senator Judd Gregg, unveiled its 
recommendations. I thank Senator Gregg for his tremendous work and each 
of the team members for the work they put in, both studying this issue 
and then fashioning a plan and proposal in a document which helps all 
of us in this body understand but also gives us a direction to address 
this huge problem.
  Helping the uninsured gain more access to affordable, quality health 
care is one of the most critical and the most complex and most 
fundamental challenges in domestic policy that face us today.
  Under Senator Gregg's leadership, the task force has developed a 
detailed, pragmatic, and systematic way of addressing this issue.
  They cast a wide net to gather input from a broad range of resources. 
Their recommendations offer a serious and substantial framework to 
tackle what to many people seems to be an intractable problem of 
uninsurance in America.
  The first thing is so obvious when you look at what the task force 
presented. The uninsured is not just a single sector. It is not just a 
piece of pie on a pie chart. It is a very complex group. It is a 
diverse mix. They include the chronically uninsured poor, the working 
uninsured, college students, and other young, healthy adults who simply 
choose not to get health care insurance. That complexity explains why 
it is impossible to have a one-size-that-fits-all approach, and, thus, 
the task force has drafted distinct recommendations for each of these 
different cohorts.
  America offers the best health care in the world. We have the very 
best trained physicians, the very best trained nurses, top researchers, 
top medical research, and topnotch medical research facilities in the 
country doing the very best research with vast numbers of new and 
improved medical technology and prescription drugs. But in spite of the 
very best of health care, we have these chasms, these huge gaps, with 
the uninsured.
  We have worked hard to find definitive solutions in the past. But 
still the number of uninsured in this country continues to climb. 
Forty-three million people are uninsured. Of those, 21 million people 
are without insurance for a year or more.
  We have this coupled or working in parallel with the spiraling upward 
health care costs. For the second straight year, health care spending 
grew significantly faster than the rate of growth of the gross domestic 
product by a whopping $1.6 trillion. The cost is caused by a whole 
range of factors.
  We have improvements in technology, which we understand. We have 
frivolous lawsuits. Many doctors are having to conduct and practice 
defensive medicine where they overprescribe in terms of diagnostic 
tests, really just to protect themselves in the event there is an 
overly aggressive lawyer who is going to be going after them.
  The liability insurance rates continue to rise. With these increased 
premiums, doctors pay as much as $400,000 for liability insurance such 
as a neurosurgeon, even if he has never been sued before in the past. 
It ultimately simply has to get passed on to the system itself, and 
that drives up everybody's health care costs.
  We have medical information gaps that cause costly insufficiencies 
today. A lot of times doctors don't have access to up-to-date 
information on patients who come into the emergency room because the 
record for that patient may be at another hospital or in another town 
or in the basement of that hospital.
  We can address that by improving our information technology and 
investing appropriately in electronic medical records.
  Individuals don't have the same tax advantages if they are out 
working by themselves than they do if they are working with a large 
company. That inequity of the individual market has consequences that 
affect the uninsured in a way that is detrimental. Health care is 
expensive for small companies today.
  There are initiatives we can take in this body to address the fact 
that small companies' access is really disproportionate in providing 
health care, in part, because of the types of packages that are 
available to them and, in part, because of the tax treatment.
  We have to find a way to address this escalating cost at the same 
time we are addressing the issue of the uninsured. The task force 
materials will be shared with our caucus, and hopefully a number of 
these issues will be addressed and debated and brought to the floor in 
the appropriate form so we can really accomplish reducing the number of 
uninsured in this country.
  I close by once again thanking Senator Gregg and the members of the 
task force. Their recommendations are enlightening and they are 
promising. They give us a great template from which to operate as we go 
forward.
  I am optimistic that by working together in this body we can produce 
good ideas, we can significantly increase the number of Americans 
covered, and we can keep health care in America moving forward.

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