[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 79 (Thursday, May 21, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5875-S5876]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SENATE RESOLUTION 156--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE THAT REFORM 
OF OUR NATION'S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM SHOULD INCLUDE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 
                   A FEDERALLY-BACKED INSURANCE POOL

  Mr. BROWN (for himself, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Dodd, Mr. 
Schumer, Mr. Bingaman, Mr. Durbin, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Harkin, Mrs. 
Boxer, Mr. Reed, Mr. Levin, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Whitehouse, 
Ms. Stabenow, Mr. Casey, Mrs. Gillibrand, Mr. Merkley, Mr. Udall of New 
Mexico, Mr. Inouye, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Kaufman, Mr. Burris, Mr. 
Lautenberg, Mrs. McCaskill, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr. Cardin, and Mr. Akaka) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions:

                              S. Res. 156

       Whereas in the presence of a federally-backed insurance 
     pool, those Americans who have become unemployed, live in 
     rural and other traditionally underserved areas, or have been 
     unable to attain affordable health insurance would benefit 
     from consumer choice: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate recognizes that any efforts to 
     reform our Nation's health care system should include as an 
     option the establishment of a federally-backed insurance pool 
     to create options for American consumers.

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, in my approaching 2\1/2\ years in the 
Senate, I have held some 140 roundtables across my State--from Bryan, 
to Saint Clairsville, to Ashtabula, to Cincinnati--where I have had the 
opportunity to listen to health care professionals and advocates and 
their families speak about their circumstances and struggles. Through 
these discussions, one thing has become painfully obvious: Health care 
reform must include insurance reform, and health insurance reform must 
include the option of a federally backed health insurance plan. That is 
why I am here today to introduce a resolution, along with 26 of my 
Senate colleagues, to express the importance of including a federally 
backed health insurance plan in health care reform.
  As we work to reform our health care system, we must protect what 
works and fix what is broken. It is important that we preserve access 
to employer-sponsored coverage for those who want to keep their current 
plan. That is what President Obama is insisting on. If you are 
satisfied, you keep what coverage you have. But with more and more 
Americans losing jobs and seeing their health insurance scaled back, it 
is important that people have access to something else. Americans 
deserve the chance to go with a private or a federally backed health 
insurance plan. It is their choice, and this choice is good policy. 
This choice is good common sense.
  Americans are tired of trying to get health insurance coverage and 
being turned down because they have a preexisting condition. They are 
tired of premiums and deductibles and copays that they simply can no 
longer afford. They are tired of having to fight for every penny when 
they have paid their insurance premium month after month. They are 
tired of having to fight for every penny that the insurer owes them 
when they try to use their insurance and waiting all too often for 
months to get their claims paid. They are tired of wondering whether 
their insurance will pay for them at all to see the specialist they 
need, to get the medicine they need, or to have the operation they 
need. That is not what insurance should be.
  They are tired mostly of the uncertainty surrounding health 
insurance. If they lose their job, they lose insurance. If they get 
sick, they can't get insurance. If they submit a claim, it may be paid 
in 2 or 6 months, or sometimes, even though they are fighting their 
insurance company and asking and pleading and begging, they may not get 
the claim paid at all.
  To be meaningful, health care reform must be responsive to all of 
these shortcomings in our current system. To be responsive, health care 
reform must address insurance affordability, reliability, and insurance 
continuity. To achieve these goals, health care reform must provide 
Ohioans and every American with more options. People should be able to 
choose whether to keep the coverage they have or to purchase coverage 
backed by the Federal Government.
  A federally backed plan would provide continuity. It would be 
available in every part of the country, no matter how rural, in western 
North Carolina or in southeast Ohio. Its benefits would be guaranteed, 
and its cost sharing would be affordable because of the problems of 
cost shifting--no ifs, no ands, and no buts. A federally backed plan 
would be an option but certainly not the only option. Americans who 
have employer-sponsored coverage would still have that coverage. 
Americans who have individual coverage through a private insurer would 
still have that coverage. A federally backed plan would be an option, 
not a mandate. Some will choose it; others will not. That is the kind 
of choice we ask for.
  One reason such an option is important is because hundreds of 
thousands of Americans are losing their jobs and have no affordable 
coverage option. This would give them one. If you have ever tried to 
purchase affordable coverage in the individual insurance market--and I 
have--you understand why a federally backed insurance program is so 
important. If you live in a rural area where quality, affordable 
coverage is unavailable, you know why a federally backed insurance 
option is so important. There needs to be an option for people who 
can't find what they need in the private insurance market, just as 
Medicare is there for seniors. The federally backed option will give 
those under 65, if not yet eligible for Medicare, a place to turn.
  The resolution I am introducing today, with half of the Democrats in 
the Senate already signed on as cosponsors--there will be more later--
demonstrates broad support for a federally backed insurance option and 
health care reform. I encourage all colleagues to support this 
resolution.
  The majority of the HELP Committee are cosponsors of this bill. That 
is the committee that will help to write the health insurance bill with 
the Finance Committee. If consumers have more options, including the 
option to purchase federally backed coverage designed to provide the 
three things that matter most--affordability, reliability, and 
continuity, the three things that too often are absent from private 
insurance plans--we will have gone a long way toward making the U.S. 
health care system work for every American. That is why this resolution 
matters. That is why the option of a federally backed insurance plan 
makes so much sense.

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