[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 161 (Monday, November 2, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11001-S11005]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, most of us go home every weekend and talk 
to our constituents. In places such as Mansfield, OH, and all over our 
States, most of us are hearing a lot about people's problems with 
health insurance. I come to the Senate floor most nights or days and 
read letters from people in my State who have had difficulty because of 
their health insurance situation, and I hear a couple of things over 
and over. One I hear is that most people are generally pretty satisfied 
with their health insurance--not the cost but generally their 
coverage--until they get really sick and then they find out their 
health insurance isn't as good as they thought it was.
  I get letters from people all over my State--from Youngstown, from 
Toledo, from Bowling Green, to St. Clairsville--that a year ago they 
would have said they had very good health insurance, but they end up 
having a baby with a preexisting condition or their health insurance 
costs are so expensive because of an illness that their insurance is 
canceled. In some cases, a woman who has a C-section is considered to 
have a preexisting condition by insurance companies because the next 
baby would have to be a C-section, and in some cases, even women who 
have been victims of domestic violence are considered by their 
insurance companies to be a risk because that is a preexisting 
condition. If they were abused by their husband or boyfriend or 
whomever in the household, then it is likely that person will do it 
again, so that is a preexisting condition, and sometimes they are 
closed out of their insurance.
  A few weeks ago, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee chairman, Senator Harkin from Iowa--a committee I and about a 
quarter of the Senate sit on--held a hearing to examine how health 
insurance companies discriminate against women in the private market. 
Insurance companies often deny care and charge higher premiums to 
women. For instance, in the case of a 32-year-old man and a 32-year-old 
woman with very similar health backgrounds, the insurance premiums for 
a woman will be significantly more. She will pay higher insurance 
premiums than the man will pay. We also heard stories about what I just 
mentioned, that women who have been victims of domestic violence or 
women who have had C-sections are charged higher rates or sometimes the 
insurance industry literally rescinds--the industry term is 
``rescission''--their insurance coverage. That is only one example of 
how insurance companies make a profit at the expense of people in need.
  One of the reasons this legislation is so important is that these 
kinds of discrimination practices will be banned by our legislation: No 
more cutting people off due to a preexisting condition, no more cutting 
people off because they got sick and went over their annual cap or 
because they are too expensive to take care of; no more discrimination 
based on geography, gender, or disability. We are going to ban these 
practices--no more using preexisting conditions, no more caps, no more 
discrimination--but even with that, it is important that we have a 
public option--just an option. A public option will say to the 
insurance industry: We are not going to let you do that anymore. We are 
going to change the law, but we are going to help to enforce it with 
this public option.
  I commend Leader Reid for responding to the support of the Presiding 
Officer, Senator Shaheen from New Hampshire, and many of us who wrote 
to Senator Reid asking him to include the public option in the health 
insurance reform bill. He has done that. That is a response from many 
Members of the Senate, and it is also what most of this country wants. 
In poll after poll, roughly twice as many Americans want to see a 
public option as don't. A recent physicians poll by the Robert Wood 
Johnson Foundation--certainly a group that has no dog in this hunt--
found that 70 percent of doctors want to see a public option because 
they want to protect their patients. They want to make sure their 
patients aren't victimized by discrimination, by preexisting 
conditions, and by losing their insurance and all of that.
  It is time for our Nation to get more choices, and the public option 
does give more choices. In Ohio, one insurance company controls 41 
percent of the market. One company controls 41 percent of the market. 
Two companies control 58 percent of the market. In southeast Ohio, two 
companies control 85 percent of the market. What does that mean? That 
means little competition, it means lower quality, and it means higher 
rates. You put the public option out there, and you give people a 
choice. They do not have to choose the public option. They can choose 
Aetna or CIGNA or Medical Mutual--a not-for-profit company in Ohio--or 
they can choose WellPoint. Put that out there with the public option as 
a competitor, and you bet these companies are going to behave better.
  It is not just an Ohio problem. In fact, in some States it is worse. 
Two health plans control 80 to 100 percent of the market share in 10 
States. Two companies control at least 80 percent of the market in one-
fifth of the States in this country. In another 11 States, 2 health 
plans control 70 to 80 percent of the market. So you have 21 States 
where 2 companies control at least 70 percent of the market. That is 
not competition; that is an oligopoly, I guess is the term we learned 
in high school economics class. But whatever

[[Page S11002]]

we call it, we know it is simply not working to keep health care costs 
down, it is not working to keep health insurance prices down, and it is 
not working to provide the kind of high-quality insurance that is 
needed.
  In the insurance industry, what have we seen happen in the last 7 or 
8 years? Insurance premiums have doubled. The reason they have doubled 
is because they can. There are fewer insurance companies, but they have 
gotten larger and larger. These insurance companies have a business 
plan. Their plan is basically twofold. First of all, they hire lots of 
people to make sure they deny coverage. You can't even buy insurance if 
you are sick or if you have a preexisting condition. Then they hire 
lots of people to deny your claim. Something like 30 percent of all 
claims submitted on the first go-round to private insurance companies 
are denied. So their business plan is to hire a bunch of bureaucrats--
the private, for-profit companies--to keep from buying insurance people 
who might be costly. Then on the other end they hire a bunch of 
bureaucrats to make sure they try not to pay out for health care costs 
people have.
  Lots of countries in the world have private health insurance. We are 
the only country that has private for-profits. This isn't a bunch of 
countries around the world that have socialized medicine. Many 
countries have private insurance doing it, but they are not-for-profit 
private insurance. So they do not add to the private insurance 
bureaucracy by hiring lots and lots of expensive people to keep you 
from buying insurance if you are sick or if you have a preexisting 
condition, and they do not hire a bunch of people on the other end to 
stop you from collecting on your insurance when you do in fact get 
sick. That is why the public option is so important. It is going to 
compete with these private companies. You won't see the kind of gaming 
of the system the private insurance companies are doing now.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, a strong public option 
in health reform, such as we provide for in the HELP Committee bill, 
would save the government $25 billion over 10 years--again, because a 
public plan wouldn't have to turn a profit.
  So what does that mean? It means that in the last 7 or 8 years, 
private insurance companies have seen a 400-percent increase in their 
profits. How do they make that profit? Well, by hiring a bunch of 
bureaucrats to stop people from getting coverage if they might get 
sick. They hire a bunch of bureaucrats, if they do get sick, to keep 
them from having to pay for it.
  At the same time, profits have gone up because those are good 
investments. Those bureaucrats who deny coverage are good for the 
industry if they deny a lot of claims, which, of course, they do. But 
look at the executive salaries, look at the trips they take, look at 
their sales meetings in Tahiti and their $20 million-a-year salaries. 
The CEO of Aetna last year made $24 million. The average salary of the 
CEOs of the 10 largest insurance companies is $11 million. To make $11 
million, you have to cut a lot of people off from getting their 
insurance, you have to keep a lot of people out, you have to deny a lot 
of preexisting conditions, and you have to deny a lot of claims. And 
they are very good at that. Again, that is why the public option is so 
very important. The private insurance industry has avoided risk at the 
expense of their enrollees when they should have been bearing risk on 
behalf of their enrollees.

  There is no better way to keep the private insurance industry honest 
than to make sure they are not the only game in town. When they are the 
only game in town, when there are only two companies in southwest Ohio, 
you bet executive salaries are high and profits are high and quality is 
low, and you bet cost is high for those small businesses and 
individuals and large businesses, too, that are buying that insurance.
  Too often, the private insurance industry has cast out the sick 
instead of covering them. Too often, the industry has promised 
financial protection and has delivered disillusionment. No small 
business is safe from unheard-of premium increases, even if they are 
paying in more than they got out from their insurance company year 
after year.
  There is a small business in Cincinnati, in southwest Ohio, as I 
mentioned earlier, that I believe has been in business for a quarter 
century. He would like to take the money he has made and plow it back 
into the business and take a lot more of his revenues and plow that 
back into the business to grow his business, but he is spending more 
and more of his money--all of his discretionary money--on insurance, to 
the point now where it looks as if, from what insurance companies say, 
he may not even be able to cover his employees at all in the years 
ahead.
  Tomorrow, the HELP Committee--the committee that held the hearings on 
discrimination against women in health insurance--is holding a hearing 
entitled ``Increasing Health Costs Facing Small Businesses'' to examine 
how exorbitant premium increases are affecting our small businesses. In 
the past 2 years, half of small businesses that have offered coverage 
reported switching to plans with higher out-of-pocket costs in response 
to rising premiums.
  So what is happening all over this country, the small businesses--and 
large businesses--in order to get coverage are forcing their employees 
to pay more money out of their own pockets for their insurance. 
Employees are often not getting raises, in part because of the 
recession, certainly, but also because the company is spending so much 
money on health insurance and people are having to dip into their own 
pockets much more. Small businesses make up 72 percent of Ohio's 
businesses but only 47 percent offered health benefits in 2006, and 
that was down 5 percent from half a decade earlier.
  So it is important that we have this hearing tomorrow, but what 
really matters is that our health insurance bill will, in fact, give 
small businesses several options. It will mean they can go into a 
larger pool, if they would like, where their costs will be less. We 
know a small business pays much more than a large business pays per 
employee. Small businesses will get a tax break. Small businesses that 
have 24 employees, 22 employees, have been paying too much for health 
insurance. If one or two of their employees gets really sick, you know 
what happens: their insurance prices spike up and they may even lose 
their insurance overall or they may get canceled. But if you take the 
small business and put it into a pool, you are going to see much more 
evening. You won't see those price spikes when a handful of people get 
sick because you could spread that around the whole risk pool. That is 
why this is so important. It is so important for these small businesses 
to have a public option because it will, again, keep the insurance 
companies honest. It will mean more competition. It will mean insurance 
companies have to compete on price.
  The people running the public option in every State are not going to 
be paying $24 million to their CEO. You can bet they are not going to 
hire a bunch of people to try to keep people off of their insurance 
rolls. You can bet they are not going to hire a bunch of bureaucrats to 
stop the insurance companies--the public option--from having to pay. 
Medicare doesn't disallow or throw people off for a preexisting 
condition. The public option won't either. Just by existing, the public 
option will keep the private insurance industry more honest.
  Madam President, let me just close--and I think Senator Merkley is 
going to be joining us in a few minutes--with a couple of letters from 
people who have been victimized, in some sense, by this insurance 
system.
  This is Sheila from Richland County, the county where I grew up, in 
north central Ohio--the Mansfield, Shelby, Shilo, Plymouth, Lexington 
area. Sheila writes:

       I moved to Ohio five years ago to be with my granddaughter. 
     I've worked hard all my life, and now, I'm 60 years old still 
     working and paying my own insurance. The other day I learned 
     my health insurance has doubled. I am alarmed because I'm 
     wondering how long I will be able to pay for my benefits. 
     I've talked to some other people my age and they are feeling 
     the same way. I have always worked, never sat down, or 
     expected hand-outs. But insurance companies are downright 
     greedy. I do have a problem with Seniors being gouged because 
     of age and health issues.

  Sheila brings this to mind. There are a lot of letters we received 
that are

[[Page S11003]]

from people like Sheila. She is 60--they might be 63; they might be 58. 
They are typically from people who worked hard all their lives, as the 
great majority of people in my State have worked hard, played by the 
rules, and it is not always so easy, of course. Sheila suggests, as 
many do, she knows she is Medicare eligible in 5 years. She is 60 now--
4-plus years. A lot of letters I get, in addition to people thinking 
they had good insurance until they got really sick, a lot of letters 
are from people in their early sixties. They just want to hang on until 
they are Medicare eligible because they are paying such high premiums. 
She said her costs doubled.
  She knows Medicare, which looks a lot like the public option, is 
something that will ultimately protect her and will matter as she lives 
out the last 10, 20, 30 years of her life. That is why it is so 
important.
  Linda, from Muskingum County, the Zanesville area of the State, east 
of Columbus, eastern Ohio:

       I'm 60 years old and a mother of two grown sons. Since my 
     divorce earlier this year, I've had to start my life all 
     over--after 33 years of working hard and paying off bills and 
     our mortgage.
       In May, I selected a standard plan from a private insurer. 
     As expensive as it was, I had to pay the $625 a month they 
     quoted.
       As of September, I did not receive a policy or information 
     on my benefit plan, despite asking for a copy of my plan and 
     being charged monthly premiums.
       The insurance company finally notified me that they 
     misplaced my form and that I would receive some information 
     in August.
       In that time--I didn't see a doctor or use the policy in 
     any way, but I still paid the monthly premiums assuming I was 
     covered. But in just 3 months the insurance company increased 
     my premiums from $625 a month to $1,000 a month. The 
     explanation I got was that the insurer was required to 
     increase the premium in order to maintain enough money to 
     fund the plan I selected. The only thing they did was to take 
     my payments for three months for something I wasn't able to 
     use. I don't think it is fair they can increase the premium 
     that quickly or even within a year.

  Linda reflects--she is the same age as Sheila. They are both from 
sort of small, medium-size towns in Ohio. Some of the same problems--60 
years old, onerous, very expensive premiums that they seem to have no 
control over.
  Again, what our health insurance bill will do, as we see more 
competition from the public option, we will see more spreading of the 
risk so she doesn't have to buy an individual policy like this so if 
she gets sick she will be covered.
  Robert and Monica from Cuyahoga County, Cleveland area, northeast 
Ohio, write:

       Our son Jon will have no health insurance as of March, 
     2010. He's 25 years old and working on an associates degree 
     in landscape design at a community college. Our son Jon 
     supports himself as a landscaper, despite being deaf. He 
     makes just enough to buy food, pay rent and pay for some of 
     his courses. While he could file Supplemental Security 
     Income, he has never collected a penny of government 
     assistance.
       But in March of next year, Jon will be dropped from our 
     health insurance plan. Please help Jon and millions of 
     Americans who are uninsured.

  Jon is 25. In many cases people like Jon are dropped from their 
insurance plan when they are 22. One of the things our bill says is no 
longer will someone coming home from the Army or coming home from 
college, someone who moved back in with their parents, whether they are 
22, 23 years old, be dropped from their insurance. Under our bill that 
passed out of the HELP Committee, anyone can stay on their parents' 
policy until the age of 26. But even at 26, what will happen is much 
preferable, obviously, to what is happening to Jon.
  What is happening to Jon is--his parents say they are dropping him 
without much prospect, it sounds like, of getting insurance. What our 
bill says is that anyone who is uninsured, like Jon will be, at 
whatever age he would become uninsured, anyone will be able to go into 
the insurance exchange, and Jon will be able to choose from a whole 
menu--Aetna, Wellpoint, Medical Mutual--or does he want to choose the 
public option?
  Because Jon sounds like he is pretty low income, Jon will get some 
assistance from the government, from taxpayers, to buy insurance so he 
will be in this large insurance pool with, more or less, tens of 
millions of other Americans, which will keep prices in check because of 
the expanded universal pool of people. But Jon will be in a much better 
situation because he will have insurance under this legislation.
  Melissa, the last one I will read, from Lake County just east of 
Cleveland, Willowwick, Wickliffe, Eastlake, Madison, that area of Ohio:

       I'm a young, college-educated professional who has always 
     had to purchase my own health insurance because employer 
     plans were not available.
       Even as a healthy young woman with no health problems and 
     no pre-existing conditions, my monthly insurance costs are 
     very expensive. I teeter on the brink of dropping coverage.
       I would love to participate in a public option, and 
     especially want it to be available to family members and 
     people in my community who desperately need it.

  Melissa is in a situation like so many. She works for an employer, 
could be a small business--whomever she works for--that doesn't provide 
health insurance. It sounds like she has had decent jobs, but they 
don't provide her health insurance. She has had to buy it herself. It 
is incredibly expensive, and it is increasingly expensive to buy 
insurance on your own, even if you don't have a preexisting condition, 
even if you have not been sick, the way Melissa is. But she would like 
the option of going into the insurance exchange and going into the 
public option that would inject competition. It would keep prices more 
in check. She would be part of a larger pool, and she would have those 
protections, the consumer protections that our legislation offers.
  She, Melissa, is specifically asking to join the public option. That 
is her choice once this legislation is passed.
  I thank you for the time on the floor. I add, this bill we are going 
to debate in the next couple of weeks, this legislation, in so many 
ways, makes sense for this country.
  First of all, anyone who is satisfied with their insurance can keep 
what they have, and we will build in consumer protections around it so 
people can't lose insurance because their costs were too high or a 
preexisting condition. They might have had a C-section as a young woman 
or might have been a victim of domestic violence. Losing their 
insurance for those things will not be allowed anymore.
  This will help small businesses with tax incentives and other ways to 
spread their costs around so I guess they go into a bigger insurance 
pool. It will help those who do not have insurance. They will have the 
option to buy it. If they are low- or middle-income Americans, they 
will get some assistance to pay for their insurance.
  Last, this bill will have a public option which will help to 
discipline the insurance market, will compete with them, will make them 
more honest, and help to bring prices down as good, old-fashioned 
American competition does.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I rise this evening to address the 
issue of health care in our society, and specifically the public 
option. Earlier today I had a chance to listen to some of my colleagues 
defend the status quo system. They wanted to argue that health care 
reform should not occur now--maybe sometime later. I guess the 100 
years we have spent as a country, working to have affordable, 
accessible health care for every citizen, the 100 years we spent in 
that debate isn't enough.
  There is a novel by a couple of ladies who were turning 100. They 
titled their novel ``The Second Hundred Years,'' or ``Our Second 
Hundred Years.'' That was a beautiful glimpse into the possibility of a 
life well-filled and a life of anticipated fulfillment as they went 
into their old age post-100.
  We are in a different situation with health care. This 100-year 
debate should not go on for another 100 years; another 100 years for us 
to consider the possibility, the principle that every single person in 
America should have affordable, accessible, quality health care.
  I heard earlier today a lot of scare words thrown out to defend the 
current system and encourage citizens to be

[[Page S11004]]

afraid of reform. Those scare words are very unnecessary because 
citizens in America know our health care system is broken. They know it 
from their personal experience. So opponents of reform, they don't want 
to have a plan, they simply want to scare citizens into sticking with 
the broken status quo.
  Indeed, sometimes there is a certain concern about change, what 
change will bring. Well, let's look for a moment at what the status quo 
is bringing us. Our health care costs are doubling every 6 to 8 years. 
That means a lot of folks who could afford health care just a few years 
ago cannot afford it today. A lot of small businesses that could afford 
health care 6 to 8 years ago cannot afford it today. A lot of big 
businesses that are competing internationally were more competitive 6 
to 8 years ago than they are today.
  I would like to be able to tell you that the rate of increase in the 
cost of health care has declined but, if anything, it has increased. We 
are looking at another doubling over the years to come, over the next 6 
to 8 years.
  I do not know about anyone else, but given how high health care costs 
are today for the American family, do we want a system, a broken 
system, that is going to double those costs again in the very near 
future? Is that a good future for America? Is that affordable health 
care? Is that accessible health care? Is that an ability to acquire 
quality health care, which I think every American citizen knows in 
their heart that, indeed, that is not affordable or accessible or 
quality health care, to have a system that is doubling every 6 to 8 
years.
  The other thing we know about health care in America is that folks 
who have insurance still have a lot of challenges. Well, the first is 
getting insurance in the first place because our current system allows 
insurance companies, as incredible as this might seem, to say: No, we 
do not want you. You have a family history of diabetes. You have a 
preexisting condition. It might simply be a skin rash. It might be 
anything. People are turned down for health care day and night in our 
country.
  Well, those are a lot of American citizens who do not get to 
participate in our health care system. What about those folks who do 
get insurance and they go along paying their premiums year after year, 
10 years, 15 years, and then they finally have a health care problem 
and they get a letter from their health insurance company that says: We 
are dumping you off your health care plan. Now that you are sick, we do 
not want to cover you anymore.
  What kind of fairness is there in that for the American citizen, that 
companies can dump you off your plan when you finally need health care, 
after you have been paying your premiums month after month, year after 
year, or decade after decade, and finally you have an illness that 
needs to be covered and, whoosh, your health care coverage is gone. 
That is not a fair system for those who have health issues in our 
Nation.
  So we need to reform this system. It starts by ending the unfairness 
for those who have it. It is called insurance reform. No more blocking 
folks from being accepted into health care--universal guaranteed 
access. No more dumping of folks off health care insurance once you 
become ill--an end to dumping, an end to preexisting conditions.
  In other words, health care reform for those who have insurance is 
all about fairness. There were some other words thrown out earlier 
today, words such as ``deficit,'' ``government takeover,'' ``increases 
in premiums.'' All those are scare words designed to mislead the 
citizens from following the logic of their own experience, their own 
common sense about the broken health care system we have in America.
  But let's consider some other words. How about ``competition.'' It 
may surprise some to find out we do not have much competition at all in 
health care here in America. Why is that? It is because the health care 
insurance industry is exempt from competition. They are allowed to work 
together as an exemption for antitrust. They are allowed to coordinate 
and to compare. That works to the benefit of the companies, but it does 
not work to the benefit of the citizens.
  In addition, a lot of markets in this country have a single dominant 
provider, often 80 percent of the market. That does not work toward 
competition. What do you get here in America in a market where you have 
no competition or very little competition? What you get are 
extraordinarily high costs that are doubling every 6 to 8 years. That 
is not a system that works for citizens.
  So how about we introduce competition. That is as American as apple 
pie. How can we do that? What we can do is have a health care 
competitor dedicated to healing, not dedicated to corporate profits. 
That health care entity, that publicly created structure of health 
care, indeed healing, they are not trying to maximize their profits at 
the expense of citizens; they are trying to invest in the citizens to 
maximize wellness.
  It is a completely different model. It is a model about prevention. 
It is a model about disease management. It is a model about healthy 
choice incentives. That is the competition that a public option or a 
community health plan will introduce with health care all over our 
Nation.
  I think lower costs and competition are good things. I think giving 
citizens more choice is a good thing. Here are some brilliant aspects 
of this. If you do not have competition right now due to the antitrust 
provisions or due to the dominance of a single payer, then the citizens 
can look at the possibility and go: Well, they are all about the same. 
That is not real competition.
  But now, if you introduce a player that is not there to maximize 
profits, is there to maximize wellness, that is real choice. Nobody 
would be asked to take a public option or community health care plan 
choice over a private insurance company. That is why they call it 
choice. That is why they call it an option. You would get to choose.
  Let us empower our citizens through choice in the marketplace. Again, 
this is red, white, and blue American competition to benefit consumers 
of health care services.
  We have had a lot of conversation about health care this year. It has 
certainly been an intense conversation since January. We have five 
bills that have come out of committees. Many folks like to stack up all 
those bills and say: Look how complicated it is. Look how complicated 
health care reform is. Well, it is a bit complicated because we have 
multiple health care systems in our country.
  We have a Veterans' Administration system. We have a Medicare system. 
We have a Medicaid system. We have private insurance companies in the 
system. We have another system for all those folks who cannot qualify 
for any of the first ones. It is this: Save your money and hope you 
have enough when you get sick. If you do not, then I am sorry, you are 
in trouble.
  There are some statistics on this: 45,000 Americans a year die 
because they do not have access to health care, 45,000. That can be 
compared to just about virtually anything else that happens in this 
country. That is a pretty big total. That is a lot of suffering. That 
is not just folks who get sick and suffer, all those folks who get sick 
and suffer and die.
  We had a gentleman in central Oregon who had a tumor growing on his 
spine. His doctor asked the private insurance company for an MRI, 
permission to do imaging so they would understand what was happening. 
The insurance company, the private insurance company, turned him down. 
So the patient and his doctor found a second expert. The second expert 
went over the man and said: He needs to have an MRI. They sent a 
request to the insurance company. The insurance company turned him 
down, again.
  He died from that tumor on his spine. He actually had health 
insurance, but he had health insurance with a private insurance company 
coming between him and his doctor. Some of my colleagues like to say 
under a public plan the government gets involved. Well, not really. It 
is you and your doctor. Right now we have insurance companies that come 
between you and your doctor every single day. Why not give the American 
citizen this choice to have a different system, a system dedicated to 
healing, a system that will create competition, a system that will hold 
the private insurance company's feet to the fire.

[[Page S11005]]

  That is the community health care plan or the public option. I will 
conclude with this notion, that competition that lowers costs, 
increases choice, and improves service is a wonderful direction for 
health care reform to go. We have made many steps in that direction. 
But we have not gotten that bill to the President's desk. Let's do 
that. Let's get that bill that increases choice, improves service, and 
lowers costs, let's get that bill to the President's desk by Christmas.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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