[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 48 (Thursday, March 22, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1956-S1957]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, 2 years ago tomorrow President Obama signed 
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. It was the 
greatest single step in generations toward ensuring access to 
affordable quality health care for every American, regardless of where 
they live or how much money they make.
  Millions and millions of Americans have already felt the benefit of 
this law. Seniors are saving money--millions and millions of dollars--
on their prescriptions and their free checkups. The doughnut hole is 
rapidly disappearing because of this law.
  Insurance companies can no longer set arbitrary lifetime caps on 
benefits, putting millions of Americans one car accident or heart 
attack away from bankruptcy. People think they are in good shape; they 
have a health insurance policy. Then they get into a car accident or 
they get cancer or some other dread disease and they are in the process 
of being taken care of and they are told their bills are not going to 
be paid anymore; their limit is $10,000 or $50,000 and insurance 
stopped paying the benefits.
  Under this legislation that can no longer be done. That is why the 
President signed the bill. Under this legislation that is now law, 
children can no longer be denied insurance because they have 
preexisting conditions. The protection will soon extend to all 
Americans, and in 2 short years--in fact, less time than that--
virtually every man, woman, and child in America will have access to 
the health insurance they can afford and the vital care they need. They 
will have the same kind of insurance the Presiding Officer and I have--
basically the same insurance. People rail against this plan of 
President Obama's. I haven't seen a single one of the Republicans rail 
against this law saying: We don't want our insurance because it is 
government insurance.
  Every Member of the Senate has the same insurance that we are by law 
giving to everyone in America. So my Republican colleagues who berate 
this bill, let them drop their government insurance. If they hate this 
coverage so much that we are trying to give to the American people, 
they can drop what they have because it is the same thing basically.
  No longer will hundreds of millions of Americans live in fear of 
losing their insurance because they lose their jobs, and no longer will 
tens of millions rely on the only care they know exists--an emergency 
room. The most expensive care in America is an emergency room visit. 
Some people go without care because they have no insurance at all.
  This is not just a story I have heard from other people. There are 
people today who have no insurance just like my family had no insurance 
when I was growing up. We didn't go to the doctor. We had no insurance. 
The only time I can remember going to the doctor was when I was deathly 
ill--literally deathly ill.
  My parents had no car, and I had something wrong. I had been sick for 
a long time. My brother had somebody visit him, and my mother asked if 
they would be good enough to take us over to the hospital, which was 50 
miles away. They did, and I had a growth on one of my intestines. I was 
very, very sick.
  There are many people today just like I was as a little boy; they 
have no insurance, and they may have the same situation I had, with no 
transportation and having a visitor take them to the nearest emergency 
room. That is what happened to me. In my case, the emergency room was 
50 miles away.
  Unfortunately, Republicans continue to target the rights and benefits 
guaranteed under that law. If Republicans have their way, insurance 
companies will once again be allowed to deny care to sick children 
because they have asthma or diabetes or some of the other situations 
young people get. In Nevada, thousands of children with preexisting 
conditions would once again be at the whim of insurance companies that 
care more about making money than about making people better. If 
Republicans have their way, young adults just out of college will be 
kicked off their parents' insurance plans. That is also something I 
know exists today.
  In the little town of Searchlight, where I have my home, a young man 
named Jeff wanted to go to school. He started at community college and 
was doing pretty well when he got pain in his groin. At first it 
started out as a little ache, and then it got to the point that he 
couldn't take it anymore. But because he was at an age where he was no 
longer able to stay on his parents' insurance policy, he didn't know 
where to go. So he went to the so-called county hospital, indigent 
hospital. He was diagnosed with having testicular cancer. He had been 
on his dad's insurance policy, but he arrived at an age where he was no 
longer eligible. His parents certainly did not have much. His mother 
worked part time in a post office, and his dad worked at a steam-
generating plant 50 miles away from Searchlight. So they begged--I am 
stretching a little bit--but they borrowed and borrowed and borrowed to 
take care of his two surgeries, a number of hospital visitations, 
chemotherapy. They paid for that--thousands and thousands of dollars 
that they had to find a way to pay for for their boy.
  Under the law that is now in existence, young people can stay on 
their parents' insurance policy for 3 or 4 years more, allowing many 
who are finishing college to go find a job while staying on their 
parents' insurance policy.
  In Nevada, thousands of children with preexisting conditions would, 
once again, as I have indicated, be without the ability to be taken 
care of when they are sick.
  Almost 23,000 young adults in Nevada would once again have to defer 
their dreams to take a job or, as I just indicated, go to college or 
risk going without any care.
  If Republicans have their way, our seniors will pay for more 
prescriptions and checkups. We have had about a quarter of a million 
Nevada seniors who now get wellness visits, cancer screenings, and 
other preventive services. If this goes away, it will not happen 
anymore.
  Tens of thousands of seniors who saved millions and millions of 
dollars in Nevada alone on prescription drugs last year will once again 
be forced to choose between buying food and buying medicine. If 
Republicans have their way, taxes will increase for small businesses. 
So will the deficit. Repealing health care reform would add almost $1.5 
trillion to the Federal debt--not billion, trillion. But when Democrats 
undertook health care reform, it wasn't just about saving money, it was 
about saving lives, and we did that.
  While the numbers I have just discussed are very important, there is 
one number that matters more than all the others: 45,000. In the year 
2011, 45,000 Americans died because they lacked health insurance. That 
is almost 1,000 a week. That doesn't include the tens of thousands more 
who are sick or dying because they have health insurance but still 
can't afford the care they need.
  After the rest of the affordable care act has taken affect over the 
next 1\1/2\ or 2 years, no American will have to bear what President 
Lyndon Johnson called ``the injustice which denies the miracle of 
healing to the old and to the poor.'' President Johnson knew that 
living in a country with the best medical care in the world doesn't 
matter if people can't access that care.
  That is why almost 47 years ago he signed Medicare into law. On that 
day in July, President Johnson celebrated an American tradition that 
``calls upon us never to be indifferent toward despair. It commands us 
never to turn away from helplessness. It directs us never to ignore or 
to spurn those who suffer untended in a land that is bursting with 
abundance.''
  So we saved $500 billion in wasteful programs and other things in 
Medicare, we extended the life of it for a dozen years, and gave 
seniors the things I have talked about today: Filling the doughnut 
hole, prescription drugs, wellness checks, and all the other things 
that are so important to them.
  The affordable care act continues the tradition President Johnson 
celebrated because it calls upon us never to be indifferent toward 
despair, commands us to never turn away from helplessness, and directs 
us to never ignore or to spurn those who suffer untended in a land that 
is bursting with abundance.

[[Page S1957]]

  The law makes certain that the richest Nation in this great world of 
ours never again turns its back on the despair, helplessness, and many 
times hopelessness and suffering of the least among us. It guarantees 
no insurance company will ever again be putting a pricetag on human 
life.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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