[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 52 (Tuesday, April 1, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1885-S1887]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. DURBIN. I listened carefully to the statement just made by the 
Republican leader, Senator McConnell of Kentucky, in which he promised 
concrete ideas, real hope, change, job-related approaches, free 
enterprise--giving free enterprise a chance, trying to deal with 
putting America back to work. Then he gave us three examples.
  I might say to the Senator that I am familiar with all three because 
none of these are new. We have heard them over and over from the 
Republican side of the aisle. I will not go through each one of them. A 
couple of them relate to the Affordable Care Act. It is interesting to 
me that the House of Representatives has voted--I believe 45 times--to 
repeal the Affordable Care Act. The Senator from Kentucky said we have 
to get back to free enterprise ideas.
  Let me tell you about the free enterprise idea when it came to health 
care. Before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the free 
enterprise idea was this: If you and your family were unfortunate 
enough to have a sick baby, if your wife was a cancer survivor, if your 
child had diabetes, the free enterprise answer was: We will raise the 
cost of health insurance to the point that you cannot afford it or we 
won't even offer it. That was the free enterprise idea on health 
insurance for millions of American families.
  There was another free enterprise idea out there in health care as 
well. It said: We are going to sell you health insurance policies that 
just protect you up to a certain amount of money. If tomorrow you are 
in a terrible auto accident, if the day after tomorrow you are 
diagnosed with cancer and face millions of dollars of radiation, 
surgery, and care before you can get your life back together again, be 
my guest to pay for it yourselves. That is why medical bills are the 
number one driver of bankruptcy in America today. That is free 
enterprise at work. But we said, let's put some sensible rules for the 
road in here, so that families who buy health insurance have the 
promise that they will have peace of mind when they face these life 
threatening struggles which families face every day.
  So we passed the Affordable Care Act and not a single Republican--not 
one--not a single Republican would join us in that effort. We rejected 
the free enterprise approach to health care and said let's have 
something that basically respects families, basically respects the 
needs we all have to have protection when somebody in the house is 
sick. Not a single Republican would support us, and they never have 
since.
  The bill we passed isn't perfect. Changes will have to be made. I 
have said that from the start, although I supported it. But not a 
single Republican has been willing to sit down and work on bipartisan 
compromises and changes--not one. It is take it or leave it, and they 
want to walk away from it.
  We are not going back to those old days. I can guarantee them that 
the American people will never return to their idea of health insurance 
because it was fundamentally unfair, it was too expensive, and a lot of 
Americans didn't have a fighting chance to ever have health insurance 
once in their lives. Things have changed. The reports are in, and the 
reports are telling us that dramatic things are occurring. As the 
Affordable Care Act's initial enrollment period closes, at least 9.5 
million previously uninsured people have gained coverage. Some have 
done so through the marketplaces created by law, some through private 
insurance, others through an expanded Medicaid. Incidentally, Medicaid 
has been expanded in about half of the States.
  Listen to this: The increased coverage from the Affordable Care Act 
so far amounts to substantial progress toward one of the law's 
principal goals. It is the most significant expansion of health care 
coverage since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid 49 years ago.
  The Republicans want to return to the ``good old days,'' and they 
want to tell these people being uninsured is really better for you. It 
is the free enterprise system.
  That is not good enough, I say to my friends on the other side of the 
aisle. What we have here is an opportunity for families for the first 
time in their lives to have health insurance coverage.
  Has there ever been a moment in your life where you had a sick baby 
and you were in the hospital waiting room and you had no health 
insurance? I have. It happened when I was in law school. I remember it 
to this day, sitting there with my wife and baby with a number in my 
hand waiting to see who would walk through that door and be the doctor 
for my baby. You will never forget that as long as you live. That 
shouldn't happen to anybody. Everyone should have the peace of mind of 
health insurance coverage, and that is what this bill does. If the 
Senators on the other side want to return to the

[[Page S1886]]

``good old days'' of no coverage, I can just tell you, America is not 
going back.

  We are not going back to the days when families with kids graduating 
from college had no health insurance while they looked for a job. We 
protect those families until the kids reach the age of 26. We are not 
going back to the days when struggling senior citizens can't afford to 
pay for their prescription drugs because of the so-called doughnut 
hole. We are not going back to that day. We are going to move forward 
as a Nation.
  Is this bill perfect? Of course not. Should it be changed for the 
better? Yes. But let's not lose sight of what we have achieved and what 
we can achieve if we work together.


                            The Minimum Wage

  When it comes to the creation of jobs, there is something else I want 
to say. I believe that people who get up and go to work every single 
day, who work hard for a living and are not lazy at all, should not be 
living in poverty. That is it--a basic statement. If you want to go to 
work, work hard 40 hours a week, you should not be living in poverty in 
America, and that is happening because the minimum wage is $7.25 an 
hour. Do the math. It is less than $16,000 a year to live on. Who could 
do it? Well, some people try and struggle paycheck to paycheck.
  Yesterday in Chicago, IL, Gloria came to the microphone in the 
Federal Plaza and told the story of working a minimum-wage job. She has 
two kids and lives in a homeless shelter--40 hours a week on minimum 
wage and living in a homeless shelter. Come on. This is a better 
Nation.
  Would I pay 10 cents more for a hamburger so Gloria would have enough 
money to have the dignity to live in her own place with her children? 
You bet I would, and I wouldn't think twice about it. We ought to have 
respect for people who work in this country. Raising the minimum wage 
to $10.10 an hour is our show of respect for the people who get up and 
go to work every darn day. They are on the buses of New Jersey in the 
morning. They are on the trains of Chicago in the morning. They just 
dropped the kids off, and they are hoping that they are going to be 
safe because it is a neighbor and it is the best they can do for 
daycare. There wasn't a lot in the refrigerator when they left their 
house. They are hoping to pick up something before they get home. They 
go to work every day, and they know that struggle is going to be 
repeated over and over.
  The free enterprise system is the best system in the world, but there 
are moments when we need to step in as the American family and set some 
standards, set some goals.


                   Unemployment Compensation Benefits

  The same thing is true for unemployment compensation. We finally have 
a bipartisan approach to this in the Senate--five Democrats and five 
Republicans. We have worked out a plan we are going to pass, I think--
let's keep our fingers crossed. We are going to pass an extension of 
unemployment benefits.
  What do these benefits mean? It means if you are out of work--some 
people who work for 20 years in the same place, lost their jobs, now 
they are trying to find another job--we are going to help you keep your 
family together while you are looking for that job. How much money are 
we talking about here? The average is $300 a week.
  How long could you get by on $300 a week? It would be tough, wouldn't 
it, to pay the rent, mortgage, utility bills, food, clothes, shoes for 
the kids, cell phone--you need that to find a job, don't you--300 bucks 
a week. Well, we have a chance to pass a bipartisan bill on 
unemployment compensation for a 5-month period to cover these folks, 
and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican John 
Boehner, says: Forget it--dead on arrival. Won't even take it up; won't 
consider it. I think he's wrong, and I think it is unfair, and I think 
these people deserve a fighting chance. They want to become part of the 
free enterprise system again, and our giving them a helping hand in 
time of need is what every family expects and what they usually offer 
when asked to help. But instead, what Speaker Boehner has said is: No 
way, you are out of it. You are out of work. You are out of luck. I 
don't buy it.
  There have been times in my life and in the lives of most people when 
neighbors, friends and relatives, and even the government came in to 
give a helping hand. For me it was government loans when I went to 
school. I couldn't have done it without it. I think it has paid off. It 
sure has in my life. Ultimately the voters have the last word about 
whether Speaker Boehner's approach against unemployment compensation is 
the right way to do it.

  There is another bill we are going to take up next week--pay equity. 
My wife and I have been blessed with a daughter and a son. They are 
both in the marketplace and both are talented. We are so proud of them. 
There is no reason why a daughter should be paid less than a son for 
the same work, but it happens every single day.
  We have to establish a standard in America of equal opportunity and 
mean it, equal opportunity when it comes to daughters and sons and 
women and men in the workplace. It is not too much to ask.
  The first bill President Obama signed into law as President was the 
Lilly Ledbetter Act. I remember this woman. She worked in Alabama in a 
tire factory. After she had been there more than 10 years, she finally 
realized she was doing the same job as the man standing next to her but 
paid less every single day. She had enough of it so she brought a 
lawsuit against the company. The Supreme Court turned her away so we 
had to change the law, and the President signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act 
into law to make sure women had a fighting chance.
  We now want to move it to a new level and make sure that pay equity 
for those in the workplace is an American dream come true. We can do 
that. The free enterprise system is good, but, listen--let's be honest 
about it--in some aspects it doesn't reach the goals we want in terms 
of equal opportunity in this country.
  I also want to make a point about the whole question of affordable 
care. I happened to have met a man by the name of Ray Romanowski. He 
was in a health care clinic in Chicago. He is 62 years old and has been 
a part-time worker and musician most of his life. For the first time in 
his life Ray Romanowski has health insurance. He has a Medicaid card. 
He was patting his wallet, and he said: I can't tell you how good I 
feel now that I finally got this health insurance.
  There are some people who don't understand Medicaid. Medicaid is 
health insurance for low-income people in America, and millions depend 
on it every single day. Recently some Republicans made statements 
discrediting the Medicaid Program. Let me set the record straight: 
Medicaid is successful. It has been a lifeline for millions of people, 
and especially for children. My friends on the other side of the aisle 
find it easy to discredit a government program. As Senator McConnell 
said earlier, we tend to look to the government. Well, we do when there 
is no place else to look. In this case, these individuals had no chance 
for health insurance without government's help. Over 54 million people 
benefit from Medicaid, and it is not surprising that interest in this 
program grows when our economy is struggling.
  Before the Affordable Care Act, two out of three people on Medicaid 
were pregnant women and children--36 million of our most vulnerable 
citizens. Medicaid also serves the disabled. It has been a lifeline for 
those who have a low income and are disabled. Before the Affordable 
Care Act, almost 3 million people were covered by Medicaid in Illinois 
and over 50 percent of all births were covered by Medicaid. Since the 
Affordable Care Act was signed into law, over 210,000 people in 
Illinois have signed up for Medicaid, and thousands more who are 
eligible are in the process of finishing up their paperwork, and that 
is a success.
  According to 2011 data, 65 percent of all office space physicians in 
Illinois would take Medicaid patients. Nationwide the number is 70 
percent. This argument that new Medicaid patients won't have a place to 
go for care is wrong.
  I see that Senator Harkin from Iowa, chairman of our HELP Committee, 
is on the floor. He was one of the real leaders when it came to the 
determination of the Affordable Care Act and how many people would be 
covered. I will yield the floor to him in 1 minute, but before I yield, 
let me say this: The Affordable Care Act is making a difference. For 
people in the low-income

[[Page S1887]]

category, Medicaid means when they walk into a hospital facing a 
medical emergency or need for care, they will not walk away leaving 
bills behind them. Their bills will be paid by the Medicaid system, and 
that is part of what we are trying to achieve--the personal 
responsibility that every person, every family, and every business will 
have a responsibility to have health insurance and an opportunity for 
an affordable alternative.
  The free enterprise system is a strong system. The free enterprise 
system created unfairness and injustice when it came to health care, 
which we are addressing with this Affordable Care Act.
  I yield the floor for Senator Harkin and thank him for his leadership 
on this issue.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I want to thank our majority whip again 
for telling it like it is and what is happening with health care in 
America today. We have come too far to turn back. We have made 
tremendous changes in the way people are going to access the health 
care system in America because of the Affordable Care Act.
  Look, we all admit there were mistakes made. Were there glitches? 
Yes. But we went from a system where people were excluded from getting 
health care, and Senator Durbin talked about them. There are various 
people with preexisting conditions, kids and people who had no access 
to health care whatsoever, and now they are covered. That is a huge 
leap in this country. We made some mistakes, had a few glitches, and we 
worked those out.
  Our friends on the other side say: No, ditch the whole thing. Get rid 
of everything. Turn the clock back. I agree with the Senator from 
Illinois, people don't want to turn the clock back. They want to move 
ahead. They are getting covered more than ever before with affordable 
coverage they have never had before and we are not going to turn the 
clock back. I thank the Senator.

                          ____________________