[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 21, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3197-S3198]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, yesterday I was visited by several 
hospitals from Chicago. Mount Sinai is an amazing hospital. It 
originally--you can tell by its name--was founded by Jewish families 
living in a section of Chicago. The families have moved on. The 
remaining population is largely African American and Hispanic. It is a 
very poor neighborhood. It is a violence-ridden neighborhood. But in an 
amazing show of magnanimity and charity, many of the Jewish families 
whose ancestors and predecessors predated them and founded this 
hospital continue to support Mount Sinai. It is a beacon of quality 
medical care in one of the toughest, meanest neighborhoods in that 
great city.
  They came to speak yesterday, to meet with me. They just merged with 
another extraordinary hospital, Holy Cross Hospital in Marquette Park. 
I have a special affection for this hospital because for decades it was 
run by the Sisters of St. Casimir, a Lithuanian Catholic order of nuns 
who devoted their lives first to the Lithuanian population that lived 
in that neighborhood and then, after that population left, to those who 
came after them, many of them very poor people.
  Mount Sinai and Holy Cross merged, and between the two of them, I 
can't think of better examples of hospitals with a mission to help the 
poorest people and to make certain they have care that all of us would 
like to have for our families. They came yesterday to talk to me about 
the Affordable Care Act.
  There are so many speeches on the floor about the Affordable Care 
Act. Most of them from the other side of the aisle are entirely 
negative. But there are some things about the Affordable Care Act which 
were brought to my attention from these two intercity hospitals which I 
think we should all look at carefully.
  First, they are telling me that at these hospitals more people are 
showing up and paying. In days gone by, many of those who came in for 
services were charity cases. The cost of their service was passed on to 
everyone else. Now, under the Affordable Care Act, many of these lower-
income families have health insurance for the first time in their 
lives.
  I have met some of these families, and I know what it means to them. 
It was several years ago when I was approached by the chairman of the 
Cook County board, Toni Preckwinkle, the president, and we asked for a 
waiver from the Obama administration to enroll families in Cook County 
in the Medicaid portion of the Affordable Care Act before it actually 
went into effect.
  We were given that waiver. We now have 100,000 individuals in Cook 
County--low-income individuals--who have Medicaid protection.
  This Medicaid protection has allowed them to have quality health 
insurance for the first time in their lives, in many cases, and also it 
means when they present themselves for care in hospitals, they are 
paying. They are paying through the Medicaid program rather than coming 
in as charity cases.
  What we are finding as well is that as more and more Americans have 
the option of health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, the 
percentage of Americans who are uninsured has gone down. The share of 
adults without health insurance declined to 13.4 percent last month 
from 15.6 percent just a few months before. It is an indication of more 
and more people in America having the peace of mind that comes with 
health insurance coverage.
  I see the Senator from Kentucky is here, and I know he reserved the 
floor this morning, and I don't want to take his time.
  I also want to make the point as well that as we are bringing in more 
cost savings in health care through the Affordable Care Act, we are 
seeing the overall increase in health care costs starting to decline 
and slow down. That is what we were shooting for--more and more 
accessibility in coverage, more affordability for those who have that 
coverage and the overall cost in health care systems starting to come 
down. It is an experiment which is starting to show good results.
  Let me add that as proud as I am to have supported this law, it is 
not perfect. There are things we need to do to improve it and to refine 
it. We should do those on a bipartisan basis. That is what we are 
waiting for.
  The House of Representatives has now voted--I believe the number is 
50 times--to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I hope they have gotten it 
out of their system and now will sit down with us and work on a 
bipartisan basis to make it a better law. We can do that and we should 
do it together.
  So I commend this effort to both sides of the aisle--in the Senate as 
well as in the House--and I hope that we can achieve something that 
will make a difference.

[[Page S3198]]

  I would like to close by mentioning two of my constituents in 
Illinois before I turn the floor over to the Senator from Kentucky.
  Philosophy Walker is a 28-year-old graduate student in biblical 
studies at the University of Chicago. Her husband Adam is 31 years old 
and a part-time youth minister. Philosophy's school provides health 
insurance, but it is $900 per month for her and her husband. That would 
require them to take out additional student loans to pay their health 
insurance while they are in school.
  Before moving to Chicago, they were paying $700 per month for health 
insurance through COBRA, which is an option for those who have lost 
health insurance--but an expensive one. The $700 payment depleted their 
savings because her husband struggled to find a full-time job. Going 
without health insurance wasn't an option because Philosophy Walker has 
some severe allergy problems.
  Last November they signed up through the Affordable Care Act exchange 
and purchased a plan comparable to the COBRA coverage that had cost 
them $700 a month, but the plan also included dental insurance, which 
they never had before.
  Philosophy and her husband Adam, under this Affordable Care Act plan, 
pay $200 a month. It went from $700 to $200. Philosophy also receives 
her monthly allergy medication for free, rather than the previous $10 
monthly copay.
  If we listen to some of the stories on the floor of the Senate, you 
would never believe this story, but it is true.
  I wish also to talk about Laurel Tyler, who runs a small business 
with her husband in Illinois. Because they have two employees and one 
of the children of one of their employees has asthma, the policies they 
were sold in the past were extremely expensive.
  Because of the Affordable Care Act and the Illinois marketplace, 
Laurel's business is going to save 20 percent on health care costs, and 
the 22-year-old son with asthma can stay on the employee's plan. That, 
to me, is a success story.
  Let's build on that success. Let's work together to make this law 
even stronger.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Kentucky.

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