[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 135 (Thursday, October 3, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7159-S7160]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EXTENSION OF MORNING BUSINESS

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the period of 
morning business for debate only be extended to 5 p.m., with Senators 
permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, 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. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, the Founding Fathers set up a system of 
government which intentionally made social change in this country hard 
to achieve. They set up a pretty complicated legislative process with 
an innovative bicameral legislature in which you have to get the exact 
same bill with the exact same text passed through two different 
Chambers. They set up courts that could overturn those laws if they 
didn't abide by the Constitution. They set up an office down the street 
in the White House with a veto power that could cancel out actions of 
the majoritarian legislature. Then they built in pretty frequent 
elections so that if people didn't like what happened here, they could 
change the composition of the legislature to try to get something 
different to happen. So I imagine that is why it took 100 years since 
Teddy Roosevelt first proposed that this country make a commitment to 
universal health care that we actually got here. All the while, we 
watched as every other industrialized nation in the world decided that 
the compassionate thing to do was to make sure people didn't die 
because they didn't have enough money to get into the health care 
system, and they committed themselves to universal health care while 
the United States sat on the sideline.
  What happened is a couple years ago when, after 100 years of debate 
and consternation and gridlock, we finally made a decision as a nation 
to move forward with a health care reform bill that finally puts us on 
the road to guaranteeing that everybody in this country at least gets 
some basic access to health care, no matter how much money you have in 
your wallet or pocketbook. What happened is the system was literally 
crashing down around us. We finally woke up to the reality that we were 
paying twice as much for health care as any other country in the world 
and getting so much less--not only in that there were tens of millions 
of people who were sitting on the sidelines, but also in that the 
outcomes we were getting weren't good enough for the amount of money we 
were paying.
  Finally the American public sent Members of the House of 
Representatives to make a change. They elected Senators determined to 
make a change. They elected a President who campaigned on making a 
change. So in 2010, we overcame the barriers that had been set up by 
the Founding Fathers to major social change. Both Congresses passed 
that health care law. Two years later, it was upheld by the Supreme 
Court as constitutional. Later that year, in 2012, President Obama ran 
on his support of the law and his promise to implement it and was 
elected by a wide margin. I would note, every single Senator here who 
voted for it and stood for election got returned to the Senate.
  But despite all of this--despite the fact that after 100 years of 
debate, the democratic process produced a health care reform bill that 
expands coverage to millions of Americans and lowers the cost of 
insurance for them, despite the fact that it withstood all of the 
challenges that can come to a major reform like that--including a 
constitutional challenge, including the question being put to the 
electorate again after the law was passed in 2010 and 2012--despite all 
that, Republicans have been coming to the floor of the Senate and the 
floor of the House saying we have got to shut down the government 
because the people don't want this health care law to be implemented.
  And that is why they are doing this right now--because they know this 
is their last chance to try to get this law repealed. This law, which 
has already saved millions of seniors money, which right now as we 
speak is saving families thousands of dollars as they sign up for these 
exchanges, they know this is their last chance to get this bill 
repealed because it is about to go into effect, and all of their 
ridiculous arguments about how the sky is going to fall once this 
reform is implemented will be proven untrue. So Republicans come down 
here and say the American public wants this delayed.
  First, let me make the point that my colleagues have been making all 
day: This is not the place to have that conversation. The people of 
this country do not support the government being shut down over 
Republicans' objection to the healthcare bill. There is no way this 
place can work if every single person adopts a ``my way or the 
highway'' approach, if it is a condition of running the government for 
just 6 weeks--which is essentially what we are arguing over here--that 
we have to get everybody's particular political points solved.
  I get it the Republicans don't like the health care bill. But I come 
from Newtown, CT. I don't understand why we can't agree that before you 
buy a weapon, everybody should get a simple criminal background check. 
That is as important as anything in the world to me, coming from where 
I do. But I am not conditioning my support for the operation of the 
Federal Government upon Republicans agreeing to support me on 
background checks. And I bet I feel just as strongly about background 
checks, coming from a State which witnessed that kind of slaughter, as 
any Republican believes in the repeal of the health care law. But that 
is not how I am going to operate, nor is it how any other Democrat is 
operating.
  When I listen to people say, well, neither side is willing to 
negotiate, we don't have anything to negotiate over,

[[Page S7160]]

because all we want is for the government to be operational. We are not 
attaching any conditions--no conditions, zero conditions--to the 
government coming back and operating. The only party attaching 
conditions to the operation of the Federal Government is Republicans. 
This isn't a negotiation. We just want the government to be back open 
for business, with no extras.
  But I am OK to have a debate on what the people think about the 
health care law. I don't think it should be: Well, we have the 
government shut down. I don't think there should be a gun to our head 
involving the paychecks of thousands of both government and civilian 
employees as well as the safety of our Nation and of our food and of 
our water and of our air. But let's have that debate. Polls are going 
to tell you people are still kind of divided as to whether they like 
the particulars of the law that we passed to reform our health care 
system, but they do not want it repealed. In fact, one of the most 
recent polls I looked at, which has been consistent with most 
everything I have seen, said that only 33 percent of Americans, just 1 
out of 3, want the law repealed or delayed or defunded. By a 2-to-1 
margin, people want the health care law implemented because they get 
that the current system is totally broken and they want a chance to try 
to fix it.

  Second, by absolutely astounding, overwhelming margins the American 
people oppose the tea party's attempt to shut down the government 
unless the health care bill is repealed. Those numbers are even bigger. 
It is not 2-to-1, it is more like 3-to-1 or 4-to-1. The most recent 
Quinnipiac University poll said the American public opposes Republican 
efforts to shut down the Government over the defunding of the health 
care law by a 72-to-22 margin. And of course the next hostage that 
Republicans are going to take is the full faith and credit of the 
American government because they are not going to raise the debt 
ceiling unless they get a whole other set of conditions agreed to, and 
guess what. The American public does not want that either. By a 
slightly smaller margin of 64-to-27 percent the American public says 
pay your bills. Don't put a bunch of conditions, a bunch of political 
riders on just paying your bills.
  When Americans fill the gas tank, they put their credit card in and 
pay the bill. They don't fill the tank and drive away, which is 
essentially what we would be doing if we agreed to a budget and then 
refused to pay the bills we incurred.
  Third, beyond the polling on the specific repeal or delay, beyond the 
polling on the shutdown tactics that Republicans are using, do you want 
to know what people think of this health care law? Then just look at 
what happened over the last 48 hours after these exchanges opened. The 
volume at healthcare.gov continues to be astronomical. Even today on I 
think the third day of implementation, 6.1 million unique visits in the 
first 24 hours; 190,000 calls into the HHS call center; 104,000 Web 
chats were requested.
  I think the estimate is that about 15 million people are going to 
sign up for either the expanded Medicaid portion of the law or private 
insurance through the exchanges in the first year or so; 15 million are 
going to sign up over the entirety of the first year. On the first day, 
6.1 million people went to check out whether they are going to get a 
better product. It is going to take a little while for all those people 
to sign up, but if 6 million people are just showing up on the Web site 
on day 1, admittedly shutting the thing down for a little while and 
making the Web site slow down significantly, that tells you people out 
there are desperate for cheaper insurance. And they are going to get 
it.
  I saw someone who was quoted in the paper who looked at the rate they 
were going to get in the exchange versus what they were paying and they 
called it a ``pocketbook changer.'' This changes people's lives. Not 
only will they get insurance for the first time but to the extent that 
today people are paying 20, 30, 40 percent more than they may have to 
pay on the exchange, that helps them and helps our economy because that 
money goes right back out into Main Street.
  Mr. President, 6.1 million people went on the site in the first 24 
hours because all of these sick people or parents with sick kids who 
have been waiting their entire lives to be able to get health care 
finally get it, because on the exchanges insurance companies cannot 
tell you ``no'' just because you are sick. I hate to tell my friends on 
the other side of the aisle but there is an enormous amount of really 
sick people out there who have been getting sicker because they cannot 
afford to go to a doctor. Why are there 6 million people showing up on 
the Web site on day 1? It is because there are a lot of people in 
trouble, in dire straits, who want insurance.
  The reason there is a flood of interest in these exchanges is because 
people want cheaper and better health care and they are sick and tired 
of waiting around for it. But what they are even more sick and more 
tired of is this place playing games with life and death, because that 
is what this is to people out there. If they get access to health care, 
then they have a chance at a quality life. If they do not, they are 
going to get sick and a lot of people are not going to make it.
  We should fund the Government, get it back up and operating. Speaker 
Boehner has the votes to pass a clean continuing resolution in the 
House tonight, today. He should call it up for a vote. He can pass it. 
We can pass it. The government can get back up and operating and then 
we can have a debate about whether people in this country want the 
health care law implemented. It may be that people from a certain 
Senator's State or a certain congressional district may have different 
feelings. But the people of this country, both in the polling and in 
their response to the first 3 days of its implementation, have made it 
perfectly clear: They don't want this place to play games with the 
operation of the Federal Government. They do not support the tea party 
shutting down the Federal Government over their political beliefs and 
they want access--for the first time in many of their lives--to 
affordable health care.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Are we under a 10-
minute time limit? Is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

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