[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 3, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11-S12]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      AFFORDABLE CARE ACT AND DACA

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas, and I 
think the closing remarks were spot-on. We will disagree, we will 
debate, and we will have our differences, but we need to strive for 
common ground. That is what the American people sent us here to do. I 
hope we can find the common ground in this Chamber and in the House and 
with the new President after January 20. It is a challenge.
  It is interesting to listen to the remarks from the Republican side 
of the aisle. There has been this appetite for so long to repeal 
ObamaCare. I have lost track of how many times the Republican House of 
Representatives voted to repeal ObamaCare over the last 6 years. I 
believe it is over 60 times that they have voted to repeal it. Wouldn't 
you think that over a span of 6 years, with 60 different votes, they 
would have in their back pocket an alternative, a replacement? They 
don't. They still don't today.
  For all of the speeches on the floor that have been given by my 
illustrious colleagues asking for a second opinion, most second 
opinions are something tangible that you can read, understand. But when 
it comes to a second opinion on ObamaCare, they have nothing to offer. 
Why is that? Why is it that they are so focused on this one issue--
ObamaCare--and the Republicans have not come up with an alternative? It 
is hard. It is hard work. There are tough, difficult choices.
  If we stick to the basic principles of the Affordable Care Act, or 
ObamaCare, we run into some problems in a hurry. The first basic 
principle accepted by President-Elect Trump is that we want to make 
sure that no health insurance company can ever discriminate against you 
or your family because of a preexisting condition--a baby born with 
cancer, a child with diabetes, a spouse who survives a cancer scare. In 
the old days before ObamaCare, that meant that you either were 
disqualified from insurance for your family or you couldn't afford it. 
So we said as part of the Affordable Care Act: No more--they cannot 
discriminate against those who are less than perfect when it comes to 
health because so many of us are less than perfect. OK, my friends in 
the Grand Old Party, how are you going to deal with that? How are we 
going to make sure that every family is protected with their health 
insurance plan? We haven't heard a word.
  President-Elect Trump said he is going to stick by that basic 
principle. But there comes with that principle a requirement as well--
that you have a large pool of insured people that includes those who 
are healthy and those who may be less than healthy. If we are going to 
have a large pool of people, we must make insurance mandatory for many 
Americans. The Republicans have said they want to eliminate that 
requirement automatically. So the first issue is the preexisting 
condition. This is a Republican problem--an issue they can't answer and 
one that they have refused to respond to.
  What about lifetime limits on health insurance policies? What if 
there is a policy that you buy for $100,000 and then you get a cancer 
diagnosis and the treatment is going to cost $1 million? What then? We 
say that there cannot be a lifetime limit on a health insurance policy. 
The Republicans want to repeal that. What would they replace that with? 
There is no suggestion.
  The list goes on and on. What if you have a child who just graduated 
from college who is looking for a job or maybe has a part-time job that 
doesn't have benefits and doesn't have health insurance? We keep them 
under the family health insurance plan until they are 26, which gives 
peace of mind to thousands of families across Illinois and America. The 
Republicans want to repeal that. What will they replace that with?
  I say to those who are receiving Medicare today--40-plus million in 
America: We closed the prescription drug loophole that stated they had 
to start paying out of pocket for prescriptions during the course of 
the year--the so-called doughnut hole. Republicans want to repeal that. 
Will that make Illinois's seniors and millions of seniors across the 
country vulnerable to higher prices? When you get beyond the 144 
characters of a tweet, get beyond a sign on the Senate floor, and when 
you get beyond the facile political speech and get into real policy, it 
gets exceedingly difficult.
  The bottom line is that 29 million Americans now have health 
insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. We have the lowest rate 
of uninsured Americans in modern history, and now the Republicans want 
to repeal this. They say they are going to replace it. I think it is 
not repeal and replace they are looking for. It is repeal and retreat. 
They don't know where to turn. They are running away from the mess they 
will create by repealing ObamaCare. We have a right to demand that if 
they have a better way, they present it and bring it up for a vote. 
Let's have some certainty about our future.
  Already I have been warned by hospitals all across Illinois that 
repealing ObamaCare--repealing the Affordable Care Act--will be 
devastating to hospitals, particularly in rural areas in my State and 
to inner city hospitals. What are we going to do about that? Will there 
be special funds to help those hospitals stay in business? They will 
need it.
  It isn't the only issue we will take up. There is another issue 
equally compelling, and that is the issue of immigration. I remember 
the speeches, and you do too--the excerpts at night on the news--that 
the President-elect talked about building a wall to the high heavens 
and making the Mexicans pay for it, and he talked about all those who 
are coming across the border and the dangers they presented to America. 
When it comes to immigration, there are 11 million people living in 
this country. The overwhelming majority of them are law-abiding. They 
are working. They want to be part of America's future.
  The group I have tried to focus on is a group we call the DREAMers. 
Fifteen years ago, I introduced the first

[[Page S12]]

DREAM Act. It was a bill that addressed the following situation: A 
child or an infant, brought to the United States by an undocumented 
family, who grew up here, literally has no home, no country. They are 
undocumented in America and brought here as babies, infants, toddlers, 
children, teenagers. Now they are graduating high school, and they 
don't know where to turn. The law in America is graphic, and it is 
grim. It says that if someone is found in that position, they are 
required to leave America for 10 years and must petition to return. We 
have 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds who know no other country, who get up 
in the classroom every morning and pledge allegiance to the flag, just 
as the Members of the Senate do, and who believe in their heart of 
hearts that this is home. Yet they are undocumented.
  So we introduced the DREAM Act, and we couldn't pass it. We passed it 
once in the Senate, and they passed it in the House. But we never could 
quite reach that super majority that we needed to pass it at the right 
moment. So President Obama stepped up and created DACA, or the Deferred 
Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, which, under Executive order, 
allowed those who would be eligible for the DREAM Act to apply, pay a 
fee of almost $500, go through a criminal background check, and, if 
they were approved, receive temporary authority to stay in the United 
States without fear of deportation and to work in this country. As of 
today, over 750,000 have done that.
  During the campaign, President-Elect Trump said that he would abolish 
this program. Fortunately, after the election, he had a more moderate 
position, which I would like to quote from Time magazine. He said:

       We're going to work something out that's going to make 
     people happy and proud. They got brought here at a very young 
     age, they've worked here, they've gone to school here. Some 
     were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they're in 
     never-never land because they don't know what is going to 
     happen.

  That is a very thoughtful, sensitive, and promising statement. I 
appreciate it. I hope the President-elect will keep DACA in place until 
we have something that can work to succeed it.
  I want to salute my colleague on the other side of the aisle, 
Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He and I have joined in 
introducing the BRIDGE Act, which would give President-Elect Trump an 
opportunity to allow these young people to stay subject to the same 
approval, the same criminal background check, the same filing fee, and 
the same tax liability to stay on a temporary basis until we do our 
work in the Senate and the House on the issue of immigration. The 
BRIDGE Act is also cosponsored by Senators Lisa Murkowski and Jeff 
Flake, Republicans from Alaska and Arizona, as well as by my colleague 
Senator Schumer, the leader on the Democratic side, and Senator Dianne 
Feinstein. Other Democrats want to join as well. We hope to have a very 
strong bipartisan bill.
  In my view, DACA is a lawful exercise of the President. In the view 
of many Republicans, it is not. The BRIDGE Act is the answer to both 
points of view. This is a fair, reasonable way to protect these young 
people until Congress comes up with better, more comprehensive answers 
when it comes to immigration reform.

  Over the years, I have come to the floor, telling the story of the 
DREAMers. It is one thing for a Senator to give a speech and put it in 
the Congressional Record, but it really doesn't come home until you see 
and meet the young people I am talking about.
  Let me introduce one today. This is Fernando Espino. He was brought 
to the United States from Mexico at the age of 18 months. He grew up in 
the city of Milwaukee, WI, and became an excellent student. At his 
Catholic high school, he received many academic awards. He was a member 
of the National Honor Society and the Jesuit Honor Society, and he 
received first honors all 4 years of high school.
  Fernando was involved in many volunteer activities--the Latin club, 
math club, track and field team, and he was an instructor for a class 
preparing his classmates to take college entrance exams. He volunteered 
with the Youth Leadership Ministry. He also volunteered with his 
school's Key Club and Big Brother mentoring program and as a middle 
school soccer and basketball coach.
  At his high school graduation, Fernando Espino of Milwaukee, WI--a 
DREAMer brought here from Mexico at the age of 18 months--received the 
Jesuit Secondary Education Association Award, the highest award given 
by a Jesuit high school, which is presented to one graduate who, in 
their words, is ``intellectually competent, open to growth, religious, 
loving, and committed to justice.''
  This amazing student was then accepted at Harvard University. He 
continued to give back to the community there. He volunteered as a 
tutor for kids in elementary schools and as a peer adviser to freshmen 
students at Harvard. He became a competitive ballroom dancer and worked 
on the Harvard Business School newspaper.
  Thanks to DACA, the program I mentioned earlier, Fernando was able to 
support himself. You see, these DREAMers don't qualify for a penny of 
Federal assistance for education. They have to pay for it. They have to 
come up with the money.
  With DACA, he could work. He worked as a bartender. In May 2015 he 
graduated from Harvard magna cum laude, the highest honors, with a 
degree in economics and sociology. He worked for an investment 
management firm in Los Angeles and then as a market research consultant 
in Chicago. He is now preparing to pursue an MBA in business school. He 
wants to be a leader in a major corporation and start his own company. 
In a letter he sent to me, he wrote:

       Optimistic hope, is ultimately, what I believe makes this 
     country so great. Living as an undocumented immigrant, it is 
     easy to lose that motivating influence. DACA was a refreshing 
     and reinvigorating influx of that very same hope. DACA now 
     allows me to look forward not with doubt but with confidence 
     that the future is bright!

  If DACA is eliminated, Fernando Espino may lose his hope. The day 
after DACA, Fernando Espino will no longer have official legal status. 
He will not be able to get his master's in business administration, and 
at any moment he could be deported back to Mexico, where he hasn't 
lived since he was 18 months old.
  Fernando and so many other DREAMers can help America be a greater 
nation. That talent and determination he brought to his young life is a 
talent and determination America needs in its future. I hope President-
Elect Trump will understand this and continue the DACA Program, but if 
he decides to end it, then his administration can work with Congress 
and make sure the BRIDGE Act is there as a protection.

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