[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 4, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S31-S45]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET, FISCAL YEAR 2017--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time be 
equally divided between the two sides during quorum calls.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENZI. 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the quorum call be rescinded.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. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that for the 
duration of the Senate's consideration of S. Con.

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Res. 3, the majority and Democratic managers of the concurrent 
resolution, while seated or standing at the managers' desks, be 
permitted to deliver floor remarks, retrieve, review, and edit 
documents, and send email and other data communications from text 
displayed on wireless personal digital assistant devices and tablet 
devices.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. I further ask unanimous consent that the use of calculators 
be permitted on the floor during consideration of the budget 
resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, today we have a new Congress. Soon we will 
have a new President. For the first time in years, hardworking 
Americans will have their voices heard as we take the first steps to 
repair the Nation's broken health care system--steps to remove 
Washington from the equation and to put control back where it belongs--
with the patients, their families, and their doctors.
  The President's health law has pushed insurance markets to the brink 
of collapse. Premiums for hardworking families are soaring, while 
patients' choices are dwindling. I urge my friends on the other side of 
the aisle to face the facts that ObamaCare has failed to deliver on its 
core promises and is hurting far more than it is helping.
  I know our colleagues on the other side of the aisle share our goal 
of a robust health care system for hardworking families, and I truly 
hope they will work with us to find common ground that delivers more 
choices and lowers costs. I welcome the input from all the Nation's 
lawmakers as we endeavor to listen to the American people in this 
pursuit. But first, it is important to remember how we got here so that 
the actions that we will be taking this year are considered in proper 
context.
  After the 2008 election, Democrats controlled the Presidency and had 
a majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate. This allowed 
Senate Democrats in 2009 to pass a health care plan without any 
Republican support, which is exactly what they did. House Democrats had 
initially approved a health care reform bill with several important 
differences. So congressional Democrats needed to address these 
concerns in a conference committee. But plans to iron out the 
differences between the House and Senate versions were derailed in 
early 2010, when Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority with 
the Massachusetts special election that resulted in placing Senator 
Scott Brown in the seat formerly held by the late Senator Ted Kennedy. 
He had held that seat since 1962.
  With the filibuster-proof majority lost, Democrats in the House 
approved the Senate-passed health care bill without any Republican 
votes and sent it to the President, while vowing to use the budget 
reconciliation process to address their colleagues' concerns with the 
Senate legislation.
  Subsequent budget reconciliation legislation was passed by Democrats 
and signed into law by President Obama. Combined with the initial 
health care bill, ObamaCare was created.
  Now, I share this brief history of ObamaCare only as a reminder that, 
while my colleagues will surely complain about using the reconciliation 
process to untangle the country from this unworkable, unpopular, and 
unaffordable law, they should remember they actually employed the exact 
same procedure to secure the passage of ObamaCare.
  Recent headlines show the ObamaCare problem is only getting worse and 
discourages people from seeking so-called coverage. Last October, at 
Bloomberg's The Year Ahead Summit in New York, the CEO of Aetna 
discussed the issues surrounding their decision not to participate in 
ObamaCare exchanges, saying:

       As the rates rise, the healthier people pull out because 
     the out-of-pocket costs aren't worth it. . . . Young people 
     can do the math. Gas for the car, beer on Fridays and 
     Saturdays, health insurance.

  Now, if you are young and healthy, ObamaCare has made it an easy 
choice to opt out of health coverage. But if you are not so fortunate--
for those who must have coverage--it quickly becomes a frightening 
reality. I have constituents in Wyoming who have written to me, with 
worry and concern about their surging health insurance premiums. I 
recently heard from a young woman who is experiencing the worst of this 
law. She said:

       Dear Senator Enzi,
       I am writing with concerns specifically in the way that our 
     country is heading in respect to healthcare services.
       I am a 25 year old with no medical conditions, I rarely 
     need a doctor visit, however as I looked into the health 
     insurance for me and my 8 month old son, also without health 
     problems, I have found insurance to be incredibly expensive. 
     Based on the cost of our health care last year, which 
     included a C-section and the birth of our son, our family 
     would spend less on health care if we paid for medical 
     expenses out of pocket and did not have health insurance. 
     However, in order to obey the law this is not an option.
       I have researched and calculated the most cost effective 
     health care option for our family. We are looking at paying 
     almost $800 a month for our insurance, even with my husband 
     receiving insurance through work. This is almost 1/3 of our 
     family's monthly income. . . . Insurance is becoming a huge 
     burden for our family.

  Now, that is the reality for many of our constituents across the 
country. She is trying to do the right thing for her family's health, 
but the law is crippling them financially. Our answer must be to not 
ignore these problems. For many Americans caught up in ObamaCare's 
tangled and expensive web of regulations, the situation is grim and 
only getting worse by the day. It is time to act.

  One of the most disturbing parts of this law is that Americans are 
now paying more in taxes to pay for the very health law that is driving 
up their insurance premiums. The law will saddle American households 
with $1 trillion--$1 trillion--in new taxes and penalties over the next 
10 years, unless Congress acts. ObamaCare's crushing regulations mean 
smaller paychecks for families, while holding back small businesses 
from expanding and hiring new workers. For every American, ObamaCare 
has meant more government, more bureaucracy, and more rules and 
regulations, along with soaring health care costs--along with soaring 
health care costs.
  It is time to lift the burdens and higher costs this law has placed 
on all Americans. The Senate is poised to pass a repeal resolution that 
will set the stage for true legislative relief from ObamaCare that 
Americans have long demanded, while ensuring a stable transition in 
which those with insurance will not lose access to health care 
coverage.
  Let me repeat that. The Senate is poised to pass a repeal resolution 
that will set the stage for true legislative relief from ObamaCare that 
Americans have long demanded, while ensuring a stable transition in 
which those with insurance will not lose access to health care 
coverage. This will allow us to move step-by-step on a new set of 
reforms, listening carefully to the advice of the millions of Americans 
affected and to do our best to make sure that we proceed wisely and do 
no harm.
  Fortunately, America now has a President committed to repealing 
ObamaCare and moving toward a system that offers more choices, lower 
costs, and more individual control for millions of hardworking 
Americans.
  The American people have endured a lot under ObamaCare and its broken 
promises. As a Presidential candidate not so long ago, then-Senator 
Barack Obama, a Democrat from Illinois serving here, promised Americans 
they could keep their health plan if they liked it. Millions soon 
learned they couldn't, and others soon wouldn't. This is because 
ObamaCare has drastically reduced Americans' choice of health care 
plans through a Federal takeover of the insurance marketplace. In fact, 
the President's promise that ``if you like your plan, you can keep it'' 
has proven to be one of many unfulfilled and unattainable promises of 
ObamaCare.
  In Wyoming, we have seen the real impact of ObamaCare on our health 
insurance market. Wyoming now only has one health insurer in the 
individual market, both on and off the ObamaCare exchange. Many States 
are experiencing a similar issue of having insurers leaving the 
exchanges entirely. So for Wyomingites, the Obama administration's 
talking points about ``choice'' were in the end just more empty 
promises.

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  Americans were also promised lower health care costs, but even the 
administration admits that ObamaCare is failing to address costs, with 
average premiums rising by 25 percent for silver-level plans on the 
Federal exchange. That is in 1 year. This means that families have to 
decide whether to purchase unaffordable insurance or to pay a fine. In 
most cases, they are literally paying more money for less control over 
their health care.
  Health care costs in Wyoming continue to be among the highest in the 
Nation, with other States not far behind. ObamaCare's mandates and 
taxes on employer-sponsored health plans are not only leading to higher 
out-of-pocket expenses but also to fewer choices and fewer services for 
the 150 million Americans with employer-sponsored health benefits. Let 
me repeat that: The mandates and taxes on employer-sponsored health 
plans are not only leading to higher out-of-pocket expenses but to 
fewer choices and services for the 150 million Americans with employer-
sponsored health benefits.
  According to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, individual 
employees who have job-based insurance have seen their out-of-pocket 
expenses climb by hundreds of dollars year after year. Employees 
working for small businesses now have deductibles of over $1,800 on 
average. Since ObamaCare became law, several large employers have 
stopped offering benefits to part-time employees altogether.

  Over the past 50 years, our Nation has made great strides in 
improving the quality of life for all Americans, but these 
transformative changes are always forged in the spirit of bipartisan 
compromise and cooperation. These qualities are essential to the 
success and longevity of crucial programs such as Medicare and 
Medicaid.
  This is a crucial time for health care in America. We do not have the 
luxury of ignoring the growing problems in the health insurance markets 
and the crushing premiums faced by families across our country. That is 
why we are doing this first. The failures of ObamaCare have 
metastasized since its passage.
  We must act now to repeal ObamaCare and provide relief to the 
millions of Americans who have been harmed by this law. Relief will 
require a stable transition period, which ensures those with coverage 
today continue to have access to health care tomorrow. Unwinding this 
tangle of partisan gridlock to make meaningful changes will not be 
easy. Our goal is to create a health care system where Washington makes 
fewer decisions and families are empowered to control their own health 
care with more choices and lower costs.
  This is where we find ourselves today. Congress and soon the new 
President will be in a position to begin the process of repealing 
ObamaCare. Passing this resolution is just the first step on a path to 
repair health care for millions of hard-working Americans whose 
experiences with ObamaCare have meant broken promises, higher costs, 
and fewer choices.
  This is the budget resolution we are debating now. As far as the 
budget part of it, all this is, is a statement of where we are at the 
moment. This budget went into effect last October. It has been changed 
a few times in the meantime, and this is a reflection of the changes 
that have been made up to this point.
  The difference is in title II, which is where the reconciliation can 
take place. You will notice that it is a very simple title. There is 
not much to it. It requires that the Committee on Finance of the Senate 
shall report changes in laws within its jurisdiction to reduce the 
deficit by not less than $1 billion for the period of fiscal years 2017 
through 2026. The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
will report changes in laws within its jurisdiction to reduce the 
deficit by not less than $1 billion for the period of fiscal years 2017 
through 2026. There is no specificity in this as to how the 
reconciliation will take place. That is up to the Finance Committee and 
the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on the Senate side 
and the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Committee on Ways and 
Means on the House side to come up with the reconciliation bill, which 
has to pass a lot of Senate rules in order to be done, but you will 
notice that there isn't any specificity in here on how to do that.
  That comes later. That will be another budget debate we will have, 
but it sets the stage so that can be done. Hopefully, it will be done 
quickly and we will be able to find solutions for the hard-working 
Americans whose experiences with ObamaCare are broken promises, higher 
costs, fewer choices. I hope our Democratic colleagues will join us in 
this effort so that we can come up with solutions so that Americans can 
afford the insurance they want and need.
  I remember when we started this debate, I think there were 30 million 
people uninsured. Today, I think there are 30 million people uninsured. 
It is a different 30 million, though: The 30 million who couldn't get 
insurance now have insurance, and 30 million people who had insurance 
now can't afford their insurance. It is time for us to take care of 
both 30 millions and not just one. We will have that opportunity if we 
pass this concurrent resolution to fix ObamaCare.
  I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mike Enzi, the Senator from Wyoming, is a friend of 
mine. He comes from a beautiful rural State--Wyoming. I come from a 
beautiful rural State--Vermont. That is probably the end of our 
commonality. We look at the world very differently, and I hope that in 
the course of this debate, the American people will see the very 
profound differences we have not only on health care, not only on tax 
policy, not only on the deficit, but on many other important issues.
  What we are looking at right now is a budget process whose ultimate 
goal is to remove health insurance from tens of millions of Americans. 
Let's be clear. Today, the United States of America is the only major 
country on Earth that--I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border. 
Many of us have visited Europe. We are the only major country on Earth 
that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. It is 
something I passionately believe in. I believe that health care for all 
is a human right. I had hoped we would work together to figure out what 
is a complicated issue as to how we can move forward to guarantee 
health care to all people in a cost-effective way, but that is not what 
we are debating today.
  Let's be very clear. The Republican plan--their budget plan--lays the 
groundwork for ending the Affordable Care Act, which will remove tens 
of millions of Americans from the health insurance they get. There is 
nothing wrong with change. We can always improve.
  I hope that during the course of this debate, my Republican friends 
who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act will come down and tell us 
what their plan is, how, in fact, they are going to provide quality, 
cost-effective health care to all Americans. Well, you know what. They 
all voted against the Affordable Care Act. Senator Enzi is right--we 
did not get one Republican to vote for it. They have had 8 years to 
think about how they are going to come up with a new plan, and I would 
hope but I do not expect one Republican to come to the floor and say: 
Oh yeah, we are going to throw 20, 30 million people out of their 
health insurance. This is our new plan. This is how we are going to 
provide health care to those people.
  They have no ideas. Their theme is to repeal and then delay. Someday 
they are going to come up with a new plan. You don't destroy a house 
without having another house in which people can live. You don't throw 
30 million people off of health care without having a plan to provide 
health care to those people.
  Under the Republican proposal--something many Republicans have been 
talking about for years--they want to end Medicare as it presently 
exists, a program that is life-and-death for millions of seniors. They 
want to voucherize Medicare, give people a check, and then let them go 
to the private insurance market and get the best deal they can.
  Imagine that you are an 85-year-old senior citizen who has been 
diagnosed with cancer and you get your check for whatever it may be. We 
don't know what it will be--$7,000, $8,000, $9,000.

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You go to the insurance company and you say: I have $9,000. I am 85. I 
have been diagnosed with cancer. I want you to take care of me. Give me 
an insurance program that will take care of my medical needs, my 
hospital needs.
  The insurance agent will laugh in your face because $9,000 or $8,000 
will last you, at most, for 1 week.
  That is their plan.
  I have been all over the country, and right now the American people 
are outraged at the high cost of prescription drugs in this country--
let's be clear--because of the power of the pharmaceutical industry and 
their lobbying and their campaign contributions--a power that exists, 
by the way, not only influencing Republicans but too many Democrats as 
well. We pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. In 
fact, one out of six Americans who goes to a doctor to get a 
prescription for an illness cannot even afford to fill the 
prescription. Yet, under the Republican proposal, if you eliminate the 
Affordable Care Act, the doughnut hole fix, which now helps seniors pay 
for their prescription drugs, will be eliminated and prescription drugs 
for seniors could rise by as much as 50 percent.
  By the way, at a time when we have more income and wealth inequality 
than any other major country on Earth, when the very rich are getting 
richer while the middle class shrinks, the Republican proposal not only 
throws 20 to 30 million people off of health insurance, not only raises 
the price of prescription drugs for seniors, not only moves forward to 
privatize Medicare, but, shock of all shocks, our Republican colleagues 
want to give massive tax breaks to the top 2 percent.
  Among many other negative impacts that the repeal of the Affordable 
Care Act will have will be one that will impact heavily rural States, 
such as Wyoming, Vermont, and other rural States around this country; 
that is, as a result of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, rural 
hospitals could be forced to close their doors--not getting the funding 
they need--leaving millions of Americans with nowhere to turn for 
critical medical care.
  I look forward to this debate. Nobody here thinks the Affordable Care 
Act is perfect. Nobody believes that at all. The goal is how we repair 
it, how we improve it, how we expand health care to more Americans, how 
we end what has been the case for decades in this country--that we pay, 
by far, the highest prices in the world per capita for health care. 
Maybe we should understand that we are the only major country in the 
world that allows private insurance companies to profit off of people's 
illness.
  The proposal being brought forth by the Republicans is not only 
poorly thought out, it really is not popular. It is not what the 
American people want. Go to your hometowns and ask people--at a time 
when the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the 
bottom 90 percent, when the top 1 percent is earning 52 percent of all 
new income, go out and ask your constituents whether we should give 
huge tax breaks to the top 2 percent, and they don't think that is a 
good idea.
  According to a poll released this month by POLITICO and Morning 
Consult, 80 percent of the American people think the Federal Government 
should be spending more money on Medicare. Only 10 percent think we 
should be spending less. Seventy-one percent of the American people 
think we should be spending more on Medicaid.
  So 84 percent of the American people think the Federal Government 
should be spending more on Social Security. In other words, the 
proposal we are seeing from the Republicans today is way, way out of 
touch from where the American people are.
  There is another issue out there that I find extremely interesting. 
Senator Enzi mentioned--and, of course, he is right--that within a 
couple of weeks we are going to have a new President. Donald Trump will 
be inaugurated as President, and it is interesting that we listened to 
what Donald Trump said during the campaign. The Democrats heard what he 
had to say during the campaign, what he campaigned on, and more 
importantly, Republicans, listened and heard what their leader had to 
say about these issues. This is what Donald Trump said, and he didn't 
say it once in the middle of the night. He didn't say it in an 
interview. This was a central part of his campaign. This is what he 
asked millions of elderly people and working-class people to vote for 
him on. These are the principles that Donald Trump ran and won the 
Presidency on. On May 7, 2015, Donald Trump tweeted: ``I was the first 
and only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to 
social security, Medicare and Medicaid.'' On April 8, 2015, Mr. Trump 
said: ``Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social Security.'' 
That is not Bernie Sanders talking; that is Donald Trump talking.

       They want to do it on Medicare, they want to do it on 
     Medicaid and we can't do it. It is not fair to the people 
     that have been paying in for years.

  That is not Bernie Sanders--Donald Trump, our soon-to-be President.
  On March 29, 2016, Mr. Trump said:

       You know, Paul [Ryan]--

  Paul Ryan is the Republican Speaker of the House--

     wants to knock out Social Security, knock it down, way down. 
     He wants to knock Medicare way down and frankly . . . you're 
     going to lose the election if you're going to do that. I am 
     not going to cut it, and I am not going to raise ages and I 
     am not going to do all of the things they want to do, but 
     they want to really cut it and they want to cut it very 
     substantially, the Republicans, and I am going to do that.''
  What Mr. Trump said was exactly right. Here are the ``they.'' This is 
the day. They want to cut Social Security. They want to cut Medicare. 
They want to cut Medicaid. Mr. Trump was right, and millions of people 
voted for him on the belief that he would keep his word.
  Well, it seems to me that Mr. Trump right now has to do one of two 
things. No. 1, if all that he was talking about was campaign rhetoric, 
then what he is obliged to do now is to tell the American people: I was 
lying. Yes, I said that I would not support cuts to Social Security, 
Medicare, and Medicaid, but I was lying. It was a campaign ruse. I just 
said what came to my mind to get votes. I have no intention of keeping 
my word. If that is what he believes, if that is what the case was, let 
him come forward and say that. But if that is not what the case is, if 
he was sincere, then I would hope that tomorrow or maybe today he could 
send out a tweet and tell his Republican colleagues to stop wasting 
their time and all of our time and for Mr. Trump to tell the American 
people that he will veto any proposal that cuts Medicare, that cuts 
Medicaid, and that cuts Social Security. What we are talking about 
right now--let us be clear: no debate. That is exactly what this goal 
is. That is what this budget proposal is. It is to move toward the 
voucherization and privatization of Medicare, to make massive cuts in 
Medicaid and throw millions of people off health insurance.
  So there is a lot of responsibility on Mr. Trump's shoulders, but I 
would hope that he could save us a whole lot of time by telling the 
American people that he was sincere in what he said during the 
campaign, that he was not lying. If that is the case, we can end this 
discussion, get into the serious business of how we create a quality 
health care system guaranteeing health care to all people in a cost-
effective way.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, there has been a flurry of activity this 
week with the beginning of the new year and the beginning of a new 
Congress--the 115th Congress--and we have a lot of work to do.
  This election that we just went through on November 8 was surprising 
in many ways, gratifying in many ways. Personally, I think the best 
thing about it is that it gives us an opportunity to start anew, to 
deal with the problems that the American people were, frankly, not all 
that happy with either of the political parties about in terms of the 
solutions that we were to offer. I would hope that it would also give 
us an opportunity to hit the reset button when it comes to working 
together to try to find political consensus to solve some of these big 
problems.
  I mentioned yesterday our friend, the chairman of the Budget 
Committee, and his 80-20 rule, which I told him I have used time and 
again to make the point that just because you disagree on some things 
doesn't mean you can't get

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anything done. To the contrary, people of widely divergent ideological, 
philosophical, and political beliefs can work together by simply trying 
to find common ground. That is possible. That, in fact, is the way our 
Constitution created our government to force us to do that, because 
what we decide here impacts a lot of people--well over 300 million 
people in the United States alone. But if there was one consistent 
complaint that I heard from my constituents back in Texas and that we 
heard in the national media and beyond, it is about the failure of the 
promise of ObamaCare. We made a solemn commitment to the American 
people that if they provided us with the majority we needed to do it 
and if they provided us a President who would sign it, we would repeal 
ObamaCare and we would replace it with affordable health care that 
would be of their choosing, as opposed to a top-down mandate, a one-
size-fits-all, which is the failure of ObamaCare.
  In a previous life, I was attorney general of my State, the State of 
Texas. We had a huge division of trial lawyers called the consumer 
protection division. What we did is we sued people who committed 
consumer fraud--people who promised one thing but delivered another. I 
can't think of a bigger case of consumer fraud than ObamaCare, which 
was sold under false pretenses: If you like what you have, you can keep 
it. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you are a 
family of four, your premiums will go down by an average of $2,500.
  None of that has proven to be true.
  The reason why ObamaCare is so unpopular is that people have seen 
their premiums skyrocket. People have seen their deductibles grow to 
the point where they are effectively self-insured, which is not having 
insurance at all. Many people have simply seen insurance companies pull 
out of the insurance market, leaving them with little or no choices in 
terms of where to buy their health care.
  So many remember the PR campaign of the President and Democrats, with 
which they sold ObamaCare to the American people, and, as I said, 
promised better coverage, more choices, and lower prices.
  That means now that ObamaCare has failed to deliver that. It is 
incumbent on us to try to repeal it, which we will do, and to replace 
it with more affordable coverage that people will choose and that fits 
their needs better. The bad news of ObamaCare picked up throughout last 
summer into the fall. As I mentioned, insurance companies were losing 
money and were unable to operate and deliver health care under the 
tight grip of ObamaCare. But the real losers weren't the insurance 
companies. It is the tens of thousands of Texans who were forced to 
find new insurance at higher prices--not insurance they would have 
chosen on their own, but which they were forced to accept because there 
was no alternative.
  So instead of helping rural Texans--the Senator from Vermont talked 
about rural residents in his State--I would submit that for people 
living in rural areas across the country, the implementation of 
ObamaCare hurt most of our rural country by dwindling the number of 
choices to one health care option for the year. That sounds like the 
opposite of more choices and better coverage to me. But we can't forget 
that behind these numbers and headlines are real personal consequences 
for families across the country.
  So today I want to provide just a snapshot of some of the thousands 
of letters that I received in my office about ObamaCare and the burdens 
that it is placing on the backs of the people I represent in Texas. One 
Texan wrote telling the story that I have heard time and again. She 
said her insurance plan was discontinued--so much for ``if you like 
what you have, you can keep it.'' But she did what she had to do, and 
she switched to a more expensive plan--one with a higher monthly 
payment and one with an $11,000 deductible. What good is health 
insurance if you have to spend $11,000 out of your own pocket before 
the insurance begins to kick in? It is nearly worthless.
  Well, nothing about that says affordable health care. Unfortunately, 
this individual is like many folks across the country, full of 
questions and with nowhere to turn to find any relief for their 
families or their small business.
  Another one of my constituents had a similar complaint. He wrote to 
me that he was searching for yet another health insurance plan for the 
third time in as many years after his was canceled. He went on to 
highlight this in this letter, which I received from a constituent on 
November 23, 2015. He said:

       I seem to remember the President saying something about 
     liking your insurance and being able to keep it. For myself 
     and my family, it has been just the opposite. We loved our 
     insurance prior to the passage of the Act and since have been 
     forced to purchase much more expensive insurance with much 
     higher deductibles.

  Well, this Texan is right, but unfortunately, his experience was not 
isolated. It was shared by millions of people across the country for 
whom ObamaCare was a false promise. It is not as if he had the freedom 
to choose. The choice was made for him, and this was the fundamental 
flaw of ObamaCare. In a country as big and diverse as ours, this notion 
of ``one-size-fits-all'' and that somehow the people who live and work 
inside the beltway are smarter than the rest of us and we can figure 
out what is good for them and a choice they would not themselves make 
is just simply implausible. It is not true. This constituent ended his 
letter by asking the Congress:

       Do anything. Do anything within your power to reverse this 
     terrible health care trend. I need relief.

  After this historic election, after the promises we made that have 
given us the opportunity to govern in the majority, with a President in 
the White House who will work with us, I believe we have a clear 
mandate to repeal this terrible law and make it a relic of the past. We 
will do that by adopting the budget resolution submitted by Chairman 
Enzi of the Budget Committee.
  It is not just Republicans who have pointed out the defects of 
ObamaCare. Many of our Democratic colleagues have pointed out the law's 
failed promises as well--from an op-ed entitled ``How to fix the 
Affordable Health Care Act,'' which was written by a Democrat, to 
statements on the Senate floor, to legislation introduced to ``fix the 
glitch.'' Even in campaign ads, many of our Democratic colleagues have 
themselves been outspoken advocates for changing ObamaCare. The senior 
Senator from Missouri, pointing out the ``huge problem ObamaCare has 
been in her State'' came up with an entire list of necessary changes. 
I, for one, would be happy to start with her list and say let's try to 
use this as a core of issues that we can then try to build consensus 
around to begin to make that replacement and make it on a bipartisan 
basis.

  We have seen that attempted fixes, unsupported by the Obama 
administration and vastly insufficient, continually have been met with 
frustration by Democrats and Republicans. I pointed out yesterday that 
when the Democrats voted through ObamaCare, they had 60 votes. They had 
60 Senators. Today they have 48.
  At one point, certainly back in 2009 and 2010 when ObamaCare passed, 
they had a majority in the House of Representatives. Well, they lost 
that. Now they have lost the White House itself. I just don't know how 
much longer, how much more needs to be said or done for them to get the 
message that this is not working because I believe they are paying a 
political price for it as people are searching for accountability for 
what they have to deal with day in and day out.
  The senior Senator from Indiana said that he supported the Affordable 
Care Act to help working and middle-class families have access to 
health care, but he said that doesn't mean the law is perfect, and it 
doesn't mean we don't still have work to do.
  I was delighted to hear the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Sanders, say he 
agrees ObamaCare is not perfect. My request of him and others is to 
work with us to try to replace it with something better.
  I recognize that neither side is going to be able to get everything 
they want. That is just not the way this place works. Indeed, the 
single failure of the Obama administration is to try to do things on a 
go-it-alone basis because we are going to see those Executive orders 
that he issued unilaterally rescinded on the first day President-Elect 
Trump takes office. All the massive regulations that have been issued, 
we are going to use the Congressional

[[Page S36]]

Review Act to rein those in or to defund those through the 
appropriations process. In order for legislation and policy to be 
sustainable, it is going to have to be bipartisan. I realize our 
Democratic colleagues are disappointed with the outcome of the election 
on November 8. That is an understatement. At first they started out in 
denial: It just can't be true. The next stage was met with anger. Well, 
they are angry about it, and they are going to obstruct everything the 
new majority, working with the White House, tries to do, but I would 
hope they would move past that denial and past that anger and do what 
the Senate was always designed to do; that is, to work on a bipartisan 
basis, as our friend and colleague from Wyoming demonstrated to us 
working on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee with 
the liberal lion of the Senate, Teddy Kennedy. Let's try the 80-20 rule 
and see how it works. It will work.
  The senior Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Manchin--this is another 
Democrat--has said he would vote to repeal ObamaCare. He said that we 
should be working together to identify which parts of the law are 
broken and need to be fixed. We may learn that some parts of the law 
can't be repaired and we should eliminate those parts entirely. This is 
our Democratic friend and colleague from West Virginia, Senator 
Manchin.
  I think that is a great place to start because no matter which side 
of the aisle you sit on, you can see the Affordable Care Act is not 
working, certainly not as sold to the American people. The choice of 
the Democrats now is whether to obstruct or whether they will actually 
work with us, as we should have done in the first place, to come up 
with something more sustainable that would address costs and preserve 
individual choice.
  It is interesting. It is not just our Democratic colleagues, many of 
whom voted for ObamaCare. I remember during the Presidential campaign 
that former President Bill Clinton made some pretty interesting 
comments. This would have been on October 5, 2016. I am reading from a 
CNN story here. It said:

       Speaking at a Democratic rally in Flint, Michigan, the 
     former president ripped the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for 
     flooding the health care insurance market and causing 
     premiums to rise for middle-class Americans who do not 
     qualify for subsidies.

  Here is what he said:

       So you've got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 
     million more people have health care and then the people who 
     are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up 
     with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. 
     It's the craziest thing in the world.

  Former President Bill Clinton said that in Flint, MI, on October 5, 
2016.
  He is right, but that is what you get when you try to do things in a 
partisan, unilateral fashion. We should learn from our collective 
mistakes and try to do better, and shame on us if we can't do better 
than ObamaCare with all of its failed promises.
  By repealing ObamaCare, Congress is doing more than just delivering 
on a promise we made to the people who put us here. We are providing a 
way forward for millions of people across the country who have been 
hurt by ObamaCare and are looking for relief.
  I look forward to making ObamaCare and the many burdens it has placed 
on American families a thing of the past in this new year. That is what 
we will do when next week we pass this budget resolution, and then 
reconciliation instructions will be sent to the relevant Senate and 
House committees. They will then report back with the replacement, and, 
yes, it may take some time to transition into that replacement because 
it has taken us 6 years to get into the mess, into the ditch we find 
ourselves in now. When your truck or car is in the ditch, the first 
thing you need to do is get out of the ditch. Sometimes that takes a 
lot of hard work.
  We are going to have to work as hard as we can. I would hope our 
colleagues will work with us, not just to resist for resistance's sake, 
not just to take a partisan position because they feel they are 
required to do so because of their allegiance to the policies of the 
Democratic Party. Let's do what this institution has always been best 
known for; that is, to try to find some way to work together on a step-
by-step basis to produce reform which will make health care more 
affordable and still preserve those choices for individuals and their 
families, not a one-size-fits-all government mandate which simply has 
failed in this tragic experiment known as ObamaCare. We can and we will 
do better.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first let me comment on what my friend, 
the distinguished Senator from Texas, said. If my car goes into a 
ditch, the first thing I don't do is dismantle the car. That doesn't 
help me get anywhere in terms of transportation.
  First of all, let me speak on process before talking about the 
substance of what we are really talking about and how it affects 
people. We have a bill in front of us that creates a process for the 
majority to be able to unravel and repeal essentially our whole health 
care system. You pull a thread and it goes through not only employer-
based care, patient protections, people who have insurance, Medicare, 
Medicaid. All of it begins to unravel. Interestingly, also in this 
bill, in the text it adds $1 trillion to the deficit--$1 trillion to 
the deficit in the bill that our colleagues just voted to proceed to 
pass.
  We need to be very clear on this: If colleagues want to work with us 
to fix problems and improve health care, we can start this afternoon. 
It is almost 3:30. By 4 o'clock we could put together a group of 
people. I am sure our distinguished Democratic leader on the Budget 
Committee would be happy to sit down and work together on ways to make 
health care reform better and make health care more affordable and make 
it more available to people. If that is what we want to do, count us 
in, but that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking 
about this crazy idea that no one in their real life would do.
  It is like deciding you want a new house, so you tear down the old 
house. That is the easy part. Then your family is homeless. Then you 
say: Well, gosh, you know, maybe I better have a plan to get a new 
house for my family and figure out a way to pay for it, to be able to 
afford it.
  Nobody would do that. Nobody would start by saying: We are going to 
rip apart the entire health care system and create chaos. We are going 
to undermine Medicare. We are going to undermine Medicaid. We are going 
to take away patient protections for everybody who has insurance 
through their employer, and then we will figure out later what we are 
going to do to replace it, if anything.
  I know there is a division on the Republican side. Certainly Members 
in the House don't think it should even be replaced at all.
  It is interesting. We are talking about one-sixth of the economy that 
would be destabilized. There is no question that if you do a repeal and 
insurance companies don't know what is coming--I have talked to 
hospitals, and they don't know what is coming--behavior will begin to 
change. Rates will begin to go up. Different decisions will be made 
because, as businesses, they will not know how to plan. Their investors 
will not know how to plan.
  There is no question about it. When you repeal without creating 
certainty in the marketplace, you begin a process that results in 
chaos.
  We have an interesting example, one that I have been involved with 
for a lot of years, where we wanted to change just one piece of the 
health care system, the reimbursement system for doctors.
  I was in the House when they passed Medicare changes. We put in place 
a new policy. We were going to write a new policy to reimburse 
physicians for quality instead of quantity. It makes sense. It took 18 
years to get agreement. We got agreement last year. It doesn't even 
take effect for 4 years.
  Everybody here knows about this thing called the doc fix. It is an 
inside term--or SGR, which is even more insider. The truth is, we were 
trying to change just one thing and could not get agreement to do it 
for 18 years.
  Anyone who thinks that there is going to be a repeal without an ACA 
extender going on has not looked at past processes.
  What is most important, though, is what this means to real people. 
This

[[Page S37]]

really is about a plan of ripping apart the health care system. There 
is nothing in its place immediately so we don't even know what will be 
coming. This is going to make America sick again.
  We are talking about a process and a plan that for real people is not 
a political game. It is not smoke and mirrors. It shouldn't be about 
politics. It is about the moms and dads who go to bed at night and say: 
Please, God, don't let the kids get sick. Now, many of them--close to 
30 million counting everybody with new coverage--don't have to say 
that. They can say a different kind of prayer because they can go see 
the doctor.
  We know that when you unravel that system with nothing responsible in 
its place, we are talking about making America sick again. We want 
affordable care, not chaos. This plan goes from affordable care to 
chaos. We talk about some parts of what we passed in health reform, but 
there are a lot of things we don't emphasize that I think are important 
to recognize in this debate.
  First of all, what we pass in terms of changes in quality care 
affects every single American with health insurance. A lot of people in 
my State are fortunate to have employer-based insurance. We have a lot 
of folks at the collective bargaining table fighting every year to make 
sure they keep their insurance--150 million people across the country. 
All of them have benefited from the patient protections we put into 
health reform. When we take those away, then immediately the insurance 
companies will be back in charge. If you get sick, you can get dropped. 
Right now they can't do that. If you are sick or if your child is sick, 
right now you can't be blocked from buying insurance. We call it a 
preexisting condition. But before health reform, insurance companies 
were doing that every single day--a child with juvenile diabetes, 
someone with cancer or Alzheimer's disease.

  I think about a very good friend of mine who just found out her 
grandson has leukemia. He is 2 years old. He is going through 
treatment. We pray he is going to be able to get through it 
successfully. He is going to have a preexisting condition for the rest 
of his life. With this repeal, there is no guarantee he will ever be 
able to get insurance. On top of that, if he has to have treatments 
that go on for some period of time, caps will be reinstituted on the 
amount of care you can get, the amount of treatment per year, dollar 
amount, or amount of visits you can get, and there is no guarantee that 
this little boy will be able to get the treatment he needs so that he 
can live a healthy, successful life going forward.
  In talking with pediatric cancer doctors a couple of weeks ago, it 
was so amazing and gratifying to me to hear them talk about children 
whose lives have been extended, whose quality of life has been extended 
because of the fact that they are able to fully treat these children 
and insurance companies can't put caps on how much they will pay or how 
many treatments. Now there is a whole other range of protections for 
everybody.
  One of the fights I was proud to lead in the Finance Committee when 
we passed the ACA was to make sure that the basic insurance package 
every company has to provide has to include maternity care. That seems 
like a no-brainer. People were shocked that it didn't. Before we passed 
health reform, 70 percent of the insurance companies--the policies you 
buy in the private market didn't include maternity care. In fact, women 
were viewed as having a preexisting condition because they might get 
pregnant, might have a baby. That is not true anymore. Women are not 
rated differently than men, and maternity care is now available 
regardless of the kind of insurance you have. That is a pretty good 
deal. Right now I have a son and a daughter with growing families, and 
I can tell you that is a very big deal in my family.
  There is a whole range of things. We all know about young people who 
are able to stay on their parents' insurance. They get out of college 
and they are wrestling with a huge debt, and one thing they don't have 
to worry about is whether they can stay on their parents' insurance 
until they can find a job. That goes away with repeal.
  Something I care deeply about is mental health. We have all worked 
together on opioids and substance abuse treatment. Because of what we 
did in health care reform, insurance companies cannot discriminate if 
it is mental health or substance abuse treatment rather than physical 
health treatment. Prior to what we passed, they could charge much 
higher copays, higher premiums, but not anymore. So the whole body--
above the neck as well as below the neck--is now being treated equally 
with our insurance reforms.
  So there are a multitude of things--preventive health services with 
no copays, such as cancer screenings for mammograms and contraception. 
I was talking to someone who said she thought it was so wonderful that 
her drugstore wasn't charging her for copays anymore on her 
contraception. I said: Well, you know, that is actually the law. That 
was changed when we passed the Affordable Care Act.
  So there is a whole range of things that relate to reviewing premium 
increases, if you get removed from your insurance, you have the right 
to appeal. There is a whole range of things. So that is under the first 
step. Everybody will feel it when insurance companies are back in 
charge and, through this vote and the subsequent actions, patient 
protections are repealed for everybody.
  Secondly, this includes cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. Through what 
we did in health reform, we closed the gap on the high costs of 
prescription drugs. We called it the doughnut hole. That was in the 
process of being closed. If you have a lot of medicines and a lot of 
costs, you suddenly get to a point where there is a gap in coverage and 
you have to pay the full cost. That goes away and the doughnut hole 
comes back.
  What we did added 12 years of solvency to the Medicare trust fund to 
keep it strong longer. That goes away. Wellness visits for seniors--
every year they are able to go in and get a physical without a copay--
that goes away. So Medicare is undermined. Then, unfortunately, when 
you add the incoming nominee as Secretary of Health and Human Services 
and couple that with the proposals that the Speaker has had and others 
that I am sure we are going to see to turn Medicare into a voucher--you 
go into the private market. Here is your voucher. Good luck. That is 
part of what the new regime is promoting, which only adds to this.
  Eighty percent of Medicaid spending is seniors in nursing homes. And 
we know that the majority of those who--many who have gotten care, in 
addition to the exchanges, have been folks who have been working hard 
every single day in minimum wage jobs and who couldn't afford or find 
insurance before. Now they are covered if their State or their Governor 
is willing to do that. We have a whole bunch of folks who are working 
hard every day at minimum wage who at least know they have access to 
health care and a doctor.
  Interestingly, this helps our hospitals, whether they are rural 
hospitals upstate or up north in Michigan or whether they are our great 
urban hospitals, safety net hospitals in Detroit and other areas, 
instead of people walking into the emergency room and not having 
insurance and having the cost put on everybody who does. Because of the 
Medicaid expansion, when a working person comes in with Medicaid, they 
are able to pay for their own care rather than having everybody else 
with insurance carry the brunt of that, which is the way it was prior 
to that.
  So there are Medicare and Medicaid cuts.
  Next, we do know that altogether, counting Medicaid and people using 
the new exchanges, we have about 30 million people who will be kicked 
off of their insurance, folks who, like anybody else, want to have 
health insurance for their families. Can we design that in a better 
way? I would love to work with you on that. I am not going to kick them 
off first. I don't want to say: We are going to rip your insurance 
away. We are going to rip the small businesses I have talked to--rip 
their insurance away. And then, by the way, don't worry, further down 
the road we will figure out something else. We don't know what it is, 
we don't know what it will cost, but trust me.
  I wouldn't be trusting that would happen if I were counting on that 
for my insurance.

[[Page S38]]

  The fourth item is that there is no question that costs will go up by 
destabilizing the marketplace. We know the cost of prescription drugs 
will go up as a result of taking away the extra help for prescription 
drugs. There is no question that costs are going to go up for everybody 
else who has insurance.
  When we look at this, I don't know how anybody looking at this 
outside of a political lens or a rigid ideological lens could say this 
makes any sense. It doesn't make any sense.
  We have a President-elect who is coming in who said that he would not 
do anything to hurt Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security. Yet the 
first thing on the floor definitely undermines Medicare and Medicaid. 
We have a President-elect who said he wants to bring down the cost of 
prescription drugs. Yet, by undermining Medicare prescription drug 
coverage, those prices are going to go up. People who have the most 
medical needs and need the most medicine are going to see their costs 
go up.
  What would be better would be if the new incoming HHS Secretary would 
be given the ability to negotiate through Medicare for prescription 
drugs--something we have all fought for, for a long time. Let's allow 
drug reimportation. Our leader on the budget--and I have as well--put 
seniors on buses in the past to demonstrate the differences in cost 
across the bridge between Windsor and Detroit, the cost of the same 
drug, with the very same safety provisions. That would bring down 
costs. Taking away Medicare coverage and increasing the gap in coverage 
is exactly the wrong thing to be doing if, in fact, the incoming 
President really means it when he says he wants to bring down drug 
prices.
  So there are a number of things we care deeply about on health care. 
As someone who has worked on this for years--in fact, it was health 
care and health policy that first got me into politics, leading an 
effort to save a nursing home in my community. I care deeply about 
this. I am one of the folks way down deep in the weeds on this. But we 
don't improve a health system by ripping it out by its roots, by 
undermining the whole system without figuring out what comes next. That 
only happens if you really don't care what comes next because if you 
care, that is not a responsible position.
  So, Mr. President, and my colleagues, I feel very strongly that with 
everything we know that has been made available to strengthen quality, 
to give people back their own decisionmaking instead of the insurance 
companies on basics like providing care for themselves and their 
families, the strengthening of Medicare and Medicaid, the coverage that 
has been made available, we know there is a way to work together to 
make things better, and this is not it.
  Mr. SANDERS. Will my colleague from Michigan yield for a moment?
  Ms. STABENOW. I will be happy to.
  Mr. SANDERS. I want to thank my colleague for her very thoughtful 
presentation talking about the implications of simply repealing 
ObamaCare.
  The assumption that many of my colleagues seem to start from is that 
before ObamaCare, the health care system was great in America, that 
everybody had health care in a cost-effective way and then ObamaCare 
came along and all of these problems arose.
  What the Senator from Michigan just told us--and I want people to 
remember it--8 years ago, if you were diagnosed with cancer and you 
walked into an insurance company, they would say: Why would we give you 
insurance? We will lose money on you. Your cancer may recur.
  You are a woman and you want maternity coverage? What do you think is 
going on? Why should we do that?
  You are a family with a kid who is 21 years of age and you want his 
insurance on your policy? Well, you couldn't have it.
  I think what the Senator from Michigan pointed out is not that anyone 
thinks the Affordable Care Act is perfect--nobody thinks it doesn't 
need improvement. But to simply throw out all of the benefits, for 30 
million people to be thrown off of health insurance--during the budget 
hearings a couple of years ago that Senator Enzi chaired, I asked a 
question of my colleagues when this idea came up, and I would ask it 
again to my good friend from Wyoming. What are the studies you have 
seen in terms of the number of people who will die when they lose their 
health insurance? How many thousands of people will die because they no 
longer have health insurance and they cannot go to the doctor and the 
hospital? The studies I have seen suggest that many thousands of people 
will die. That is common sense. If you throw 30 million people off of 
health insurance, they are going to die. How do you go forward 
providing a death penalty to thousands of people without having any 
solution to it?
  Further, I would add to the excellent points made by the Senator from 
Michigan. Senator Enzi and the Senator from Texas before him talked 
about the impact of health care problems in rural areas. I come from a 
rural area. Michigan has large parts of the State that are rural. The 
Senators from rural areas on the Republican side have said they want to 
make sure their constituents in rural areas can see a doctor. That is 
certainly a modest proposal. Of course they should be able to see a 
doctor.
  If that is the case, my Republican friends should understand what the 
Federation of American Hospitals and the American Hospital Association 
said about repealing the Affordable Care Act. These are major hospital 
organizations. According to a very recent report, what they said is 
that a repeal of the Affordable Care Act will mean a reduction in 
payments to rural hospitals of over $165 billion over a 10-year period. 
According to the hospital associations, rural hospitals will suffer an 
additional loss of $289 billion from their inflation updates.
  This is a report from the Federation of American Hospitals and the 
American Hospital Association, major health care institutions in 
America. They said in their report: ``This reversal of health coverage 
would represent an unprecedented public health crisis.'' Furthermore, 
they said: ``The magnitude of reductions would threaten hospitals' 
ability to serve patients.''
  So when we talk about the needs of rural Americans, I would hope my 
colleagues listen to what the Federation of American Hospitals and the 
American Hospital Association have to say.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, the more things change, the more they seem 
to stay the same. Republicans won the White House. Republicans control 
the Senate. Republicans control the House. What will the first order of 
business be for the new Republican majority? To pass a budget that 
never balances, to pass a budget that will add $9.7 trillion of new 
debt over 10 years.
  Is that really what we campaigned on? Is that really what the 
Republican Party represents?
  Our first order of business will be a budget that never balances, a 
budget that adds $9.7 trillion to the debt, and they tell us: Oh, but 
it is not a budget. If you listen, they will say: No, no, it is a 
vehicle to repeal ObamaCare.
  Yet I have the title in front of me, which says a concurrent 
resolution for the budget of 2017. We have special rules when you pass 
the budget so that we may be able to repeal ObamaCare, and I am all for 
that. But why should we vote on a budget that doesn't represent our 
conservative view? Why would we vote on a budget that adds $9.7 
trillion to the debt? Because we are in a hurry, we can't be bothered.
  It is just numbers. I was told again and again: Swallow it. Take it. 
They are just numbers. Don't worry. It is not really a budget.
  Yet the legislation says it is a budget. The numbers say we will add 
$9.7 trillion of new debt.
  So I say: If they are only numbers, and if the numbers that are in 
the budget don't matter, why don't we put numbers in that balance? Why 
don't we put a vision into the budget that represents what Republicans 
say they are for?
  Republicans say they are the conservative party. Are we? When George 
W. Bush was President for 8 years, the national debt went from $5 
trillion to $10 trillion. The debt doubled under a Republican President 
and a partially Republican Congress. Yet the words were these: Well, he 
had Democrats to deal with, and if we could ever take all three 
branches of government, things would be different.
  The Republicans took over the House in 2010. They still didn't 
control the

[[Page S39]]

Senate, but they said: If we only controlled the Senate, we could be 
the conservative party again.
  We have had an election. The conservative party--the supposedly 
conservative party--won. Republicans control the House, the Senate, and 
the Presidency, and the first item of business for the Republicans will 
be to pass a budget that never balances--a budget that will add $9.7 
trillion to the debt over 10 years.
  This sign could have been put up for Obama's first budget. Every 
Republican railed and said: $10 trillion--President Obama will add $10 
trillion. And he did. President Obama doubled the debt again.
  It went from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. The national debt went from 
$5 trillion to $10 trillion under George W. Bush, and then it doubled 
again under President Obama. It went from $10 trillion to nearly $20 
trillion.
  What are we looking at here? More debt, under a solidly unified 
Republican Congress and a Republican President.
  So you might scratch your head and say: The more things change, the 
more they stay the same. Is it all smoke and mirrors? Is there really a 
difference? Are Republicans different than Democrats? It is a pretty 
important question. We are in such a hurry to repeal ObamaCare. I am 
all for it. As a physician, nobody thinks that ObamaCare has been worse 
for the country. Nobody more than me thinks it is a terrible piece of 
legislation that has not helped the country and that has inflated our 
costs and not helped. Yet do we have to add nearly $10 trillion of debt 
in order to get at it?
  So as this moves forward, I will offer a replacement. I will offer my 
own budget. I will offer to strike and remove $10 trillion worth of 
debt, and I will offer my own budget that balances within 5 years. How 
do we do it? We give the authority to make the cuts where they should 
be, where they are most wasteful in government, and we offer this 
budget by simply freezing expenditures. You don't have to cut any 
expenditures.
  Every department of government could get what they got the last year. 
If you think some departments of government need more money, cut other 
departments of government. Frankly, there are some departments of 
government you could eliminate and you would never know they were gone. 
If the Department of Commerce were gone, a few corporate executives 
would not be able to fly around on government jets. They could fly 
around on their own jets. You would never know the whole entire 
Department of Commerce was gone.
  You can cut spending. You can actually get to the balance by not 
cutting anything. So here is what happens. If you freeze the on-budget 
spending, within a little over 5 years, your budget balances.
  I remember a time when there were the moderates who were for freezing 
spending, and the real conservatives were for cutting spending. Now 
nobody is for cutting spending. When I bring it up that you can 
absolutely not balance the budget if you are not willing to look at 
entitlements, do you know what I am told by many well-meaning 
Republicans? Don't write it down. Don't put it on paper because people 
will be upset with you if you explain that to save Social Security, to 
save Medicare, you will have to reform these entitlement programs. They 
say: Let's just talk about waste. Let's just talk about fraud and 
abuse. And I do, and we should eliminate all of those. But guess what. 
If you eliminate all of the budgetary spending that we vote on--this is 
called the discretionary spending. This would be the military and all 
the rest of the nonmilitary. It is about $1 trillion, not including the 
entitlements--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. If you did just 
the military and the nonmilitary and you reduced it 10 percent a year 
for 10 years, and you virtually wiped out all discretionary spending, 
you still don't balance the budget.
  So, really, you are not a conservative if you are not willing to look 
at all government spending. The budget cannot be balanced and the 
budget will never balance unless we look at entitlements.
  What does that mean? It means that because of demographics--we had 
big families 60 years ago, with three, four, five kids to a family. Now 
we have less than three kids to a family--probably two kids to a 
family. So you had all the baby boomers born right after World War II, 
and they are all retiring--60 million of them. So we have this huge 
population boom, and you don't have as many workers. So the 
demographics aren't working. Then you add to that the fact that we are 
living longer.
  When Social Security was started, the average life expectancy was 65. 
It worked pretty well as a pension plan because you died. But now it is 
great. We are living on average to 80, and if you make 80, you may well 
make 90. What a great thing--longevity. But it is not working. Social 
Security is not working. We spend more on recipients than we bring in 
with the tax.
  Medicare is even worse. The average taxpayer pays about $100,000 over 
their lifetime in Medicare taxes. The average recipient takes out 
$350,000. How big a problem is this? Medicare is $35 trillion to $40 
trillion in the whole.
  It is inexcusable that we are not talking about how we fix Medicare. 
It is inexcusable that we are not talking about how to fix Social 
Security. If we don't fix them, there is going to be a cliff. Within 
about a decade, the cliff is so severe that everyone on Social Security 
will suffer a 20-percent decline in their monthly check. It will happen 
all at once if we don't fix it. Can we fix it? Yes, we have to talk 
about it.
  What we are doing today is kicking the can down the road. We have our 
focus on ObamaCare, but we are taking our focus off the debt. As bad a 
problem as ObamaCare is, as much as it has disturbed, destroyed, and 
distorted the health care market, it may be that the debt is a bigger 
problem.
  So it is not a popular stand that I take today. I will be the only 
Republican to vote against the Republican budget. That won't be 
popular. But I ran for office. I left my medical practice. I am away 
from my family. I spend long hours traveling here because I am 
concerned about the debt.
  We borrow $1 million a minute. The debt threatens the very foundation 
of our country. Yet here we are. The Republican Party controls the 
House, the Senate, and the White House, and in their haste, they put 
forward a budget that is going to add this much debt.
  This is what the debt has been doing. Here is 1980. We see the 
growth. It has become exponential--the growth of the debt. This should 
worry every American. But here is the Republican 10-year budget that we 
are getting ready to pass. It is virtually a vertical line of 
accumulation of debt.
  People will say: But how could we ever cut any spending? I will give 
you a couple of examples of where your government spends money and you 
tell me whether or not we ought to look long and hard at cutting 
spending.
  There was a grant given for autism. I have a great deal of sympathy. 
I know children with autism. The grant was for $700,000. But do you 
know what they spent it on? They spent it on studying Neil Armstrong's 
statement. Remember Neil Armstrong? He landed on the moon and said: 
``That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.''
  Well, your government, in its infinite wisdom, wanted to know: Did he 
say ``one small step for man'' or ``one small step for a man''? Your 
government spent $700,000 studying the preposition ``a.'' Did he say 
``a man'' or just ``man''--$700,000. Money that should have been spent 
on autism was spent on something frivolous.
  Is anybody going to fix it? No. Every year, all of the spending bills 
are globbed together in a 2,000-page bill--and not one iota of reform.
  My colleagues may remember that Senator Proxmire from the 1970s used 
to have something called the ``Golden Fleece Award.'' Every one of 
those things he complained about in the 1970s happens now but tenfold 
greater. Nobody fixes it. We don't pass individual spending bills. We 
do continuing resolutions, which means we continue doing the same thing 
we have done over and over.
  Again, $700,000 was spent studying Neil Armstrong's statement. Do you 
know what their conclusion was? We are not sure. They spent $700,000, 
and they are still not sure whether he said ``a man'' or ``one small 
step for man.''
  We spent $500,000 studying whether or not, when you take a selfie, if 
you are smiling in the selfie, does it ultimately make you feel better? 
We spent $500,000.

[[Page S40]]

  So what do we do? Do we give these people less money? Teach them a 
lesson. Give them less money, and maybe they will conserve the money. 
Maybe they will eliminate waste if they have less money next year than 
they had this year--or what I am proposing: Freeze the spending. Is 
anybody proposing that? No. We say: They spend a half a million dollars 
on selfies; give them more next year.
  So the Republican budget will increase spending every year. It 
increases spending at about 5 percent a year. So spending goes up. They 
say it is the baseline, and they say we are cutting off the baseline. 
No, no. The baseline goes up 5 percent a year. Spending will increase 
over the 10-year period. The red line is spending.

  Part of that is what the Republicans are proposing. They are going to 
stay on the spending curve. If we stay on the spending curve, they will 
continue to spend $700,000 studying Neil Armstrong's statement; they 
will continue to spend half a million dollars on selfies. They spent 
another half a million dollars on a climate change game. They spent $45 
million to build a natural gas station in Afghanistan--$45 million. The 
first problem: Nobody in Afghanistan has a car that runs on natural 
gas. They discovered this after they built the gas station. The gas 
station was 86 times cost overrun. The original estimate was about half 
a million for the gas station, but lo and behold, somehow it cost $45 
million. If your government had 86 times cost overrun, would you give 
them more money or give them less money? I, frankly, think we should 
give them less money. If you give them more money, they will not waste 
it less; they will waste it the same or worse. They should be given 
less money.
  Mazar-e Sharif is a city in northern Afghanistan. We built an $85 
million embassy there and we signed a 10-year lease, and then somebody 
looked at the place and decided that since there were tall buildings 
surrounding the entire entity, people would shoot down into the 
courtyard and kill our diplomats, and they said the building could 
never been occupied--after they spent 85 billion, after they signed a 
10-year lease. How will they get better? Were the people who made this 
decision fired? No. They are Federal employees, and you never fire 
Federal employees. Will they make wiser decisions because we give them 
less money? No. We give them more money.
  You would be excused for being upset if you went and voted and said 
``I am going to vote for the conservative party'' and if you went and 
voted and said ``I am going to vote for the party that is going to 
balance a budget.'' Wouldn't you be upset? Wouldn't you wonder which 
party that is?
  This is the spending curve. We are going to add $9.7 trillion in 10 
years, and yet they say: Oh, no, this isn't really a budget.
  I have it in front of me, though. It is a budget.
  There is no reason why Republicans couldn't have put forward a budget 
that doesn't add all the red ink. We are at $20 trillion. We are going 
to nearly $30 trillion under the Republican plan. My goodness, what 
happened? Where is the conservative party? Where are the conservatives 
in Congress who would say enough is enough? Now they say: We just have 
to be done with this. Don't distract the little people. Don't let the 
people of the country know we are voting on a budget. We are going to 
call this the vehicle to repeal ObamaCare.
  Well, that is not what it is. It is a budget. And we have special 
rules for dealing with the budget that allow us to repeal ObamaCare, 
which I am all for, but this is a budget.
  They say: Well, how can we get the votes? No Democrats will vote for 
this budget. This is a Republican blueprint. Not one Democrat will vote 
for this.
  So this is what Republicans are for. This is the blueprint the 
Republican Party says they are for--$10 trillion worth of new debt. I 
am not for it. That is not why I ran for office. That is not why I am 
here. That is not why I spend time away from my family and my medical 
practice. It is because debt is consuming our country. There is a time 
and a place to debate ObamaCare, and I am more than willing to debate 
that. But this is a budget. This is the vote on a budget.
  They say: Oh, it is just a gimmick. It is just a game. The numbers 
don't mean anything.
  Well, if the numbers don't mean anything, put honest numbers in there 
or put conservative numbers in there.
  I, for one, will put forward a conservative opposition to the 
Republican majority's budget. I will put forward a budget that freezes 
spending and balances the budget over a 5-year period. Would there be 
some agencies that would get less money? Yes. But it would force us to 
go through the government and pick and choose what is good spending and 
what is not good spending.
  We have a waste report that we put out. If you look on our Facebook, 
you can find our waste report. I listed four or five of the most 
egregious. There are hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of things 
we shouldn't be spending money on. I will give another example.
  We have sold $100 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. They were 
wanting to spend money giving F-16s to Pakistan. You pay for them and 
give them to them.
  There is riddled throughout the Pentagon--look, the Pentagon has 
never been audited. You are surprised? The government has never been 
audited. The Federal Reserve is not audited. The Pentagon is not 
audited. So what is the Pentagon's response to being audited? The 
Pentagon says to us: We are too big to be audited. I don't know about 
you, but that makes me kind of angry, that a part of our government, 
even a necessary part such as national defense, says they are too big 
to be audited. Meanwhile, we have $85 million embassies built that will 
never be occupied and $45 million gas stations that will never be used.
  I think it is time that we say enough is enough. Don't give 
government more money; give them less. The government hasn't been a 
good steward of your money.
  The question is often asked: Are the people who spend your money, are 
the people involved in government inherently stupid? It is kind of a 
debatable question. I think they are mostly well-intentioned. I don't 
think they are inherently stupid, but I do think they don't get the 
right incentives. Because there is no profit motive in government, 
because there is no rationale or motive to conserve, money is spent, 
and because of sheer laziness and ineptitude, we continue to pass the 
spending bills--glommed together, thousands of pages--without reform. 
But I won't be party to that. I won't vote for spending bills that are 
not individualized and don't have reforms in them. I won't vote for 
budgets that never balance.
  So while I may be a lonely voice on this issue, I will continue to 
bring up to the American people that it is important not to add more 
debt, that it is important to slow down the accumulation of debt. It is 
important that we have a $20 trillion debt, and I am not willing to add 
$10 trillion more in debt. So at the appropriate time, I will introduce 
an amendment that will strike and replace this budget, and in its place 
I will put forward a conservative vision for the country--a vision of a 
balanced budget that balances within 5 years.
  Every Republican in the Congress who has been here for a while has 
voted for a balanced budget amendment. Interestingly, the balanced 
budget amendment--which would be an amendment to the Constitution--has 
within it a provision that the budget would balance within 5 years. And 
even when Republicans get around to saying ``Oh, we will have some 
gimmicks to balance in 10,'' 10 is not what the amendment says. Why 
bother voting on an amendment if you are not serious about it?
  Republicans are completely in charge. It is a Republican document; it 
is a document I disagree with; and at the appropriate time, I will be 
introducing a replacement that will balance within 5 years and provide 
a conservative view for the country.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask 
unanimous consent that the time be divided equally.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S41]]

  

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are discussing the budget resolution. 
It is an interesting time to do it in the month of January. The fiscal 
year, the spending year for the Federal Government, starts October 1. 
We have tried, with no success, to pass appropriations bills--12 of 
them--that would meet our obligation to fund the government for the 
entire fiscal year. We have had two continuing resolutions, which are 
temporary spending bills. And here we are again discussing a budget 
resolution.
  But it isn't really about the budget; it is about the Affordable Care 
Act, known as ObamaCare, a law passed 6 years ago with the goal of 
providing affordable health insurance for all Americans. I voted for 
that bill. It is one of the most important bills I have ever voted for, 
and I believe that, despite shortcomings, it has achieved its goal and 
it has done it in a way that most American families would agree they 
want to see.
  As an example, there are very few families in America who have every 
member of the family in perfect health. In the old days before the 
Affordable Care Act, if you happened to have a child who had survived a 
cancer situation, a spouse with diabetes, and you went to buy a health 
insurance plan, you ran into a problem: They might not want to insure 
your family because of that sick child, or they might want to charge 
you a premium way beyond your reach. So in the Affordable Care Act, 
ObamaCare, we said: As a health insurance company, you cannot sell 
insurance in America and discriminate against a family or person 
because of a preexisting medical condition.
  From where I am sitting, my own personal life experience and my 
family's experience, thank goodness. We had members of our family with 
serious health issues. I worried about that all the time as a husband, 
as a father. The Affordable Care Act gave me and every other American 
the peace of mind that health insurance companies could not 
discriminate against us or our families because of a preexisting 
condition.
  There was also a practice where they would put a limit on how much 
coverage you could buy in a health insurance policy. So many people 
thought: I have a great health insurance policy. It has a $100,000 
limit. I will never hit that number; I am a healthy person.
  The next accident, the next diagnosis, and that healthy person 
realized that $100,000 in today's world of health care costs--you could 
eat that up in a minute and find yourself without any health insurance 
protection. What happens to you next?
  You have been diagnosed with cancer. You start treatment. It is 
expensive, and now your health insurance policy has reached a point 
where it doesn't cover you anymore. What then are your options? Stop 
treatment? Exhaust your savings? Throw yourself on the mercy of a 
hospital and hope for the best?
  We ended that. ObamaCare ended that. They can no longer put limits on 
health insurance policies because none of us--not one of us--knows what 
kind of health crisis we might face or a member of our family might 
face tomorrow. That is important.
  A third provision in ObamaCare, which most families would understand 
in a hurry, involved what to do with that recent college graduate. What 
are you going to do with that daughter whose graduation you are so 
proud to go to, and then it dawns on you that she doesn't have a full-
time job yet and that the part-time job she has doesn't have any health 
insurance benefits.
  I remember calling my daughter and saying to her: Jennifer, I know 
you had health insurance as a student. What is your situation now?
  Oh, Dad, I am fine. I am healthy. I am not worried.
  I am worried, as a father, something is going to happen to her and 
she will have no health insurance protection.
  Do you know what ObamaCare did? ObamaCare said I could keep my 
daughter under my family health insurance plan until she reached the 
age of 26. Peace of mind for 2, 3, 4 years while that son or daughter 
is starting their professional life, their life of employment. For 
thousands in Illinois and across the United States, more peace of mind 
that health insurance would be there when your family really needed it.
  We also said we don't think you ought to discriminate against people 
when you sell them health insurance just because, for example, you 
happen to be a woman. Yes, the health insurance premiums charged women 
were higher than those for men. Obviously, women can have challenges in 
their lives but so can men. We said you cannot discriminate in health 
insurance premiums under ObamaCare between men and women.
  These are issues that affect the real world--what people pay for 
insurance, whether they qualify for insurance, and whether insurance 
will be there when you need it. That is what ObamaCare did. By 
providing helping hands to those in lower and middle-income categories, 
we extended the reach of health insurance under ObamaCare to cover 20 
to 30 million more Americans. We currently have the highest percentage 
of Americans with health insurance in modern history.
  We had another provision too. We said: If you happen to be a senior 
citizen under Medicare and you are paying for your prescription drugs, 
that can be expensive. Under the old law, before ObamaCare, there was a 
gap in coverage, and you might spend $1,000 or $2,000 out of your 
savings account each year just to keep taking your meds. We closed the 
gap so you had continuous coverage under Medicare as a senior.
  Important? You bet it is. A lot of seniors ended up retired with 
limited savings wanting their meds, their prescriptions, so they can 
remain strong and independent as long as possible. Don't we want them 
to? So that, in a brief summary, will contain four or five of the main 
features of ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act--more Americans with the 
guarantee of health insurance than any time in our modern history in 
the United States of America.
  How important is it to have health insurance? If you have ever been 
the father of a very sick child and you didn't have health insurance, 
it is a life experience you will never forget. I know. I lived through 
it. At that time, I thought, if I don't do anything else the rest of my 
life, I am always going to have health insurance, and I did. At some 
sacrifice to my wife and me, but we made sure we had it because for a 
period of time when we had no health insurance, I felt like I had let 
my family down and I let my daughter down. I didn't want it to happen 
again.
  I don't want anybody else to go through that. We want to make sure 
health insurance is there for all of us. Some people say: If you are 
rich, you ought to get it, but if you are not, tough luck.
  I don't think so. I think health care and health insurance protection 
should be a basic right in this great Nation of America. That was the 
driving force behind passing ObamaCare, passing the Affordable Care 
Act.
  The Republicans hate the Affordable Care Act like the devil hates 
holy water. They despise it. Over 60 times they voted to repeal it in 
the House of Representatives. It drives them into a rage. The first 
thing they say is, we can't wait to get a new President and abolish 
ObamaCare.
  The obvious responsible question to them is, And what happens the day 
after you abolish it? What happens when it comes to preexisting 
conditions? Can health insurance companies now discriminate against 
people again? What happens when it comes to the limits on how much a 
health insurance policy would pay? Are we going to be back in the day 
when there isn't enough coverage when you and your family desperately 
need it?
  What happens to those kids fresh out of college if they can't get on 
your family health insurance plan? Do you want to go out and buy an 
individual policy for that son or daughter who is still looking for a 
job? How about the seniors? Are they going to go back to the time where 
they have to pay out of pocket for their prescription drugs? I think 
those are all legitimate questions.
  Do you know what the answer is on the Republican side? Trust us. We 
are just going to abolish this program, and someday, not today and not 
soon, but someday we will come up with another

[[Page S42]]

idea. That is irresponsible. They are replacing affordable care with 
chaos. They are saying to the American people: Just trust us. Someday 
we will dream up a plan.
  You know what, they have had 6 years to come up with a plan, 6 years 
to come up with an alternative to the Affordable Care Act. They have 
been unable to do it. It is difficult. It is painful.
  You know what is ironic, the Affordable Care Act is based on a 
Republican model of health insurance. This was what the Republicans 
suggested years ago: Use private insurance companies and make it 
available to all Americans. That is what we did. A lot of Democrats 
felt there was a better way: Why don't we make a Medicare Program for 
every American a nonprofit program that is there. We couldn't get it 
done. We didn't have the votes, and the Republicans wouldn't help us.
  In the first step of the new year and the new Congress, the new 
Republican majority in the Senate wants to abolish the Affordable Care 
Act, wants to put millions of American families at the mercy of health 
insurance companies. They must think we are suffering from amnesia and 
that we had forgotten what that was all about--sitting on the phone for 
hour after weary hour with some adjuster who may or may not be in the 
United States, trying to argue about whether your son or daughter can 
go into a hospital, whether your wife can receive the medical treatment 
the doctor asked about.
  That is what it used to be, and that is what it is going to go back 
to when we abolish the Affordable Care Act and don't replace it with 
something that is as good or better. That is the first step in the 
Republican program, make 20 to 30 million Americans more vulnerable 
when it comes to their health care. That is not the end of it.
  I live in a State that has the great city of Chicago, Cook County 
regional area, but downstate we are very rural, smalltown America. I 
know from my congressional experience and from my life as a Senator 
representing that State, there are downstate hospitals that cannot 
survive without the Affordable Care Act. In my State, some of those 
hospitals are the major employers in their communities and the only go-
to place for someone seriously ill or injured.
  The Republicans have yet to suggest any suggestion at all about how 
we are going to keep those hospitals open. They are starting to contact 
me now--the hospitals as well as the clinics and the health care 
providers, and they are asking: The Republicans really aren't going to 
do this, are they? They are not just going to abolish it and leave us 
with this chaos to follow.
  Sad to say, that is exactly what they are going to do. Senator Rand 
Paul of Kentucky wrote an article today and said he thought it was 
wrong on the Republican side to do that. He said: The responsible thing 
to do is to have an alternative before you abolish the Affordable Care 
Act. Good for him. That is common sense. You would expect it from a 
party that says it is conservative in its approach to government. What 
they are suggesting with the Affordable Care Act is not conservative. 
It is destructive. It is catastrophic. It is irresponsible.
  I hope my colleagues will join me. We need two or three Republicans 
to join us to stop this effort. Let us sit down together, Democrats and 
Republicans, take the Affordable Care Act and make it more effective, 
fix the problems that are part of it--and there are some--make sure we 
keep our promise to the American people that they will have access to 
affordable, quality health care. Keep these providers covered by the 
Affordable Care Act in business in rural areas and inner cities and all 
across our Nation. That is our responsibility.


                                  DACA

  Mr. President, 16 days from now, and just a few steps from where the 
Senate Chamber is located, we will have an inauguration for the 45th 
President of the United States, Donald Trump. On that day, the fate of 
more than 750,000 young people in America will be hanging in the 
balance. They will be waiting to learn whether they have a place in our 
Nation's future or whether they will be asked to leave.
  It was 7 years ago that I sent a letter to President Obama, joined by 
Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana. On a bipartisan basis, we 
asked the President to stop the deportation of young immigrants who 
grew up in this country. We called them DREAMers, after a bill I 
introduced 15 years ago. Who are they? Babies, infants, toddlers, 
children, young adults under the age of 16 brought to America by their 
parents from another country, and the proper papers were not filed. You 
can't hold the kids responsible. They didn't decide to come here. You 
certainly can't hold them responsible for not filing the papers. They 
were just children at the time.
  If anybody should be held responsible, it is the parents. What do we 
do about the kids who have lived their entire lives in the United 
States believing this was their country, this was their future, and now 
come to realize in their teenage years they are undocumented and their 
future is uncertain?
  We asked President Obama: Will you give these young people a 
temporary opportunity to stay, study, and work in America, and he 
agreed to do it. It was called DACA. It was the Deferred Action for 
Childhood Arrivals Program. What it said was, if you are in that 
category of a child brought to America and you are undocumented, step 
forward, pay a filing fee of almost $500 so the government can process 
your application, submit yourself to a criminal background check, 
including fingerprints, and let us look into your background and see if 
there is anything you have done that would disqualify you from staying 
in the United States. If you are approved, for 2 years--renewable--you 
will not be deported and you can work in America.
  Many young people in that circumstance were reluctant to step 
forward. Their parents had warned them their entire lives that if they 
turned themselves into the government, they might be deported--in fact, 
their family might be deported with them. They said: The President has 
offered us this opportunity for a chance. We are going to follow this, 
do the right thing, make an application. Almost 800,000 of them 
qualified. They are DACA recipients. Others will be eligible in the 
months ahead. DACA has been a success.
  What will President Donald Trump do with these DACA students? He made 
some pretty harsh statements during the course of the campaign about 
immigration. I think he is reflecting on these kids as a special 
category. This is what President-Elect Donald Trump said to TIME 
magazine just a few weeks ago about the DREAMers, the DACA recipients.

       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's going to 
     happen.

  I appreciate Mr. Trump's comments, soon-to-be President Trump. I hope 
he will keep the DACA Program in place, but I am working with my 
colleagues on a bipartisan basis to give him an option. Senator Lindsey 
Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and I have joined the lead 
sponsors on what we call the BRIDGE Act. The BRIDGE Act is an 
opportunity to protect these young people legally, on a temporary 
basis, while Congress rolls up its sleeves and takes up immigration.
  I am happy to have Senator Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Flake, Republicans 
from Alaska and Arizona as cosponsors, as well as Dianne Feinstein of 
California and Chuck Schumer of New York, and I hope others will 
follow. I believe DACA was a lawful exercise of the President's 
authority. Some disagree with that completely. Regardless of whether 
you agree or disagree, I hope you will agree that these young people 
should be allowed to have a bridge so they aren't deported, they don't 
lose their right to work or go to school.
  Incidentally, when these young DACA DREAMers go to school, they have 
to pay for it right out of their pockets. They don't qualify for any 
Federal assistance. It is a special effort and a special sacrifice. I 
have come to the floor over 100 times over the last 10 or so years to 
tell the stories of these young people. I think the stories tell a lot 
more than any speech I could give.

  This young man is Luis Gonzalez. Forgive me for being especially 
drawn to this photo because Luis is standing in front of my college, 
Georgetown

[[Page S43]]

University, wearing one of the Georgetown Hoyas shirts.
  Let me tell you about Luis. He was 8 years old when his family came 
to the United States from Mexico. He had a difficult childhood in Santa 
Ana, California. His parents separated. He lived with his mom in a car 
garage for several years. After his mom remarried, he lived with his 
stepfather, who turned out to be abusive.
  Luis overcame these circumstances and still was a good student. He 
graduated high school in the top 1 percent of his class with a 4.69 
GPA, and he passed all nine advanced placement exams that he took. He 
was involved in extracurricular and volunteer activities. He was the 
secretary of the school's National Honor Society, and he helped 
organize an anti-bullying campaign in his local elementary school. He 
was a mentor to incoming freshmen in high school. Saturdays, instead of 
taking it easy, he volunteered to tutor other kids in math, and he 
volunteered to help a teacher at a local school. He was active in his 
church every Sunday, translated the pastor's sermon into English for 
those who didn't speak Spanish, and cleaned up the church before and 
after the Sunday services.
  Because of his outstanding record in high school, Luis was admitted 
to Georgetown University. He is currently a sophomore majoring in 
American studies and minoring in government. He continues to use his 
spare time to help others. He is a member of the provost committee for 
diversity and co-chair of Hoya Saxa Weekend, a program that brings 
students from underrepresented communities to Georgetown. Luis is a 
leader of Strive for College, a program that mentors students in the 
inner city high schools. His dream is to be a high school teacher, 
which isn't surprising given the strong commitment he has already 
shown.
  He wrote me a letter and here's what he said:

       DACA gave me the confidence and security I've not had 
     before. I lived in fear and the shadows. Thanks to DACA, 
     however, I've been able to do things I otherwise wouldn't be 
     able to do like travel through an airport or working on 
     campus. I've always felt that I am an American, but having 
     DACA allowed me to stop living in constant fear and 
     uncertainty. Now these fears have come back again.

  If DACA is eliminated, Luis could be forced back into the shadows. 
The day after DACA, Luis will not be able to travel or work on a 
campus. He will lose his legal status, and he could be deported back to 
Mexico, a country that he hasn't lived in since he was 8 years old.
  Luis and other DREAMers have a lot to give America. Would we be 
stronger if we deport him, take this man's talent, drive, and energy 
and banish him from this country? I don't think so.
  I hope President-Elect Trump will understand this and will continue 
the DACA program. If he decides to end DACA, then I hope this 
administration will work with Congress to pass the BRIDGE Act into law 
for Luis and for thousands of others who will be counting on it.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  (The remarks of Mr. Flake pertaining to the introduction of S. 28 are 
printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and 
Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. FLAKE. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time in the 
quorum call be equally divided between both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I want to comment and say a few words 
about the use of the budget reconciliation process to facilitate an 
effort to repeal but not replace ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act. I 
serve on the Budget Committee. During the course of multiple hearings 
during the previous year before the election, we heard the most adamant 
stories from the Republican side about how dire our Nation's debt 
situation was, how dire our Nation's deficit was.
  Member after Member on the Republican side spoke as if the end of the 
Republic was at hand. Yet the policies from the Bush administration 
that kept driving that debt and that deficit they protect. They blamed 
President Obama for the effect of Bush policies that took place during 
President Obama's years, while defending those Bush policies the 
President had actually tried to correct. In many respects, their 
concern about the budget was a little ironic since they were defending 
the Bush policies that created this debt and deficit explosion in the 
first place.
  Nevertheless, be that as it may, you had this phalanx of Republican 
Senators in a state of very high animation about our debt and deficit. 
You would think that in this Congress, with control both over the House 
and the Senate and a Republican President-elect looming, they might use 
the budget reconciliation process to do something about the debt and 
the deficit.
  After all, there was a lot of big talk last year, and here is the 
budget reconciliation process. As we see, it is not being used to do 
anything about the debt or the deficit, it is being used to open an 
effort to repeal but not replace ObamaCare. The problem is, when you do 
that, you do some pretty bad things to the debt and to the deficit.
  Before the Affordable Care Act was passed, Medicare officials 
projected out-year costs for Medicare in 10-year increments. After the 
experience of the Affordable Care Act, they went back and they redid 
those projections, and they dropped the cost of Medicare dramatically. 
Those outyear costs, dramatically reduced, are an important, valuable 
step toward lower debt, balanced budgets, and less of a national annual 
deficit. Repealing ObamaCare will undo that.

  It was pretty clear from Budget Committee hearings that that 
reduction in anticipated Medicare costs in the outyears was related to 
the work that had been done in the Affordable Care Act as well as the 
changes in experience that we are seeing. That is one budget buster 
which shows that this reconciliation effort is going in the wrong 
direction.
  In Rhode Island, I watched this issue pretty closely because I want 
Rhode Island to be a leader in delivery system reform. I want ours to 
be one of the most efficient health care systems in the country, and I 
worked very hard over many years to put the pieces in place in Rhode 
Island to help make that come to pass. So I talked to people like Dr. 
Kurose, who runs one of our largest primary care practices, and Dr. 
Puerini, who runs another very big Rhode Island primary care practice, 
and I saw that both of them had taken advantage of the Affordable Care 
Act to make themselves accountable care organizations, ACOs, and they 
have used the powers and they have used the shared savings under those 
programs to change the way they deliver medicine.
  What they show is that their price, their annual cost of service per 
patient, is actually going down. They are delivering care more 
efficiently and they are getting to illnesses earlier. They are not 
just churning the wheel of bill and pay, bill and pay, bill and pay; 
they are actually managing their patients' health. We hit this 
wonderful sweet spot where the patients are healthier and the patients 
are way happier because they are getting better service, and the cost 
per patient in these practices is coming down. So if that is taken 
away, we reverse that effect. It is plausible to think that those costs 
will start going back up again. Why would we want to undo a method that 
has helped local practices improve the quality of care, reduce the cost 
of care, and serve their patients better? The ACO program is part of 
the Affordable Care Act.
  The last thing is that around here, we try to defend Medicare. One of 
the achievements of the Affordable Care Act was that it extended the 
solvency of Medicare out to 2028. Undo this bill and there will be a 
direct hit on Medicare's solvency. It will come roaring back.
  So when you put what the Republican Senators on the Budget Committee 
said with such vehemence and alarm about the debt and the deficit 
beside the use to which they have put the reconciliation process, which 
was designed to be used to reduce the debt and the deficit, and you 
look at how

[[Page S44]]

that actually plays out through the health care system--increasing the 
costs of what would have been accountable care organizations, if that 
gets undone; lifting back up, presumably, Medicare costs that in the 
outyears were reduced because of this; and shrinking the time that 
Medicare stands as solvent--if that is not a hit on Medicare, I don't 
know what is.
  The other piece in this process that bears on this is that during the 
period that these very dramatic concerns were being expressed about the 
debt and the deficit, the same party that was enunciating those 
concerns and those threats to our American society and solvency was 
defending all of the loopholes in the Tax Code. We tried and tried to 
find a loophole that our Republican friends would be willing to let go 
of, and we couldn't find a single one that I recall. Even President 
Trump is interested in trying to get rid of the carried interest 
loophole that lets hedge fund billionaires pay lower tax rates than 
brick masons, but could we get an agreement on that from our colleagues 
on the other side? No. They wouldn't touch it.
  I hope that as we go forward, we can find a way to bring tax 
expenditures lined up with appropriated expenditures under the purview 
of the committee, but so far we have been unable to do that despite 
repeated bipartisan testimony that a tax expenditure is just the same 
as an appropriated expenditure in so far as it affects the debt and 
deficit--no difference--bipartisan testimony, clear on the record. The 
difference is that behind a great many of these lucrative tax loopholes 
that are baked into the Tax Code and that survive year after year after 
year is a special interest, whether it is somebody trying to depreciate 
their private jet more rapidly than an airline can depreciate passenger 
aircraft, whether it is the carried interest loophole that puts, very 
likely, the billionaire getting out of his limousine in front of his 
New York apartment in a lower tax rate than the guy holding the 
umbrella over his head, the doorman. How fair is that? But that is the 
status of the tax law. We couldn't get anybody to budge on that because 
there are obviously big, powerful interests who don't want to see that 
messed with. Why should they pay taxes like ordinary people when they 
are superwealthy immortals who can buy themselves politicians?
  So the ironies of the party that declaimed about debt and deficit 
with such vehemence through so many hearings, with so much blame on 
President Obama even though it was carried-forward Bush policies they 
were defending that were driving so much of that debt--to have that 
group of people now come and use the reconciliation process designed 
and intended to address the debt and the deficit instead to try to 
repeal but not replace ObamaCare in ways that I think can be very 
fairly projected to raise Medicare costs, reduce Medicare solvency, and 
undo a good deal of the savings that doctors and taxpayers have shared 
from hard-working practices like Rhode Island Primary Care Physicians 
and Coastal Medical in Rhode Island, which have relied on the ACO 
provisions in the Affordable Care Act to get those savings--who wants 
to undo that? It makes no sense, and least of all, it makes no budget 
sense because those outyear health care costs will come home into the 
budget in those outyears. Of course, you compound that with the fact 
that no tax loophole is to be touched. No tax loophole can be 
addressed. No revenue can be generated by closing the carried interest 
loophole, closing the private jet deduction, closing the tax benefits 
for the fossil fuel industry, which is making more money than any 
industry has in history and hardly needs the support of the poor 
American taxpayer. But, no, big special interests have big tax breaks, 
and they are going to be protected at all costs. That is really where 
we are on this.
  I understand we used reconciliation to move ObamaCare. It did, in 
fact, do the job of reducing the deficit, I believe. Undoing it goes in 
the opposite direction, but there is a certain ``what is good for the 
goose is good for the gander'' equivalence about using that to undo 
what we did. I get that. But if we are really serious about addressing 
the debt and deficit, then we shouldn't be using the reconciliation 
process, which is designed to reduce them both, to attack a health care 
program whose effect has been to reduce them both. That is where we 
stand right now.
  In the months ahead, I hope we will be able to look at tax 
expenditures. More money goes out the back door through tax 
expenditures than gets spent on some of our biggest programs. It is a 
huge loophole, and within it are a lot of very unattractive special 
interest special provisions--loopholes in the worst sense of the word. 
We don't want to touch them because nobody dares to touch the special 
interests behind them.
  So that is where we are. I hope we can make real progress on the debt 
and the deficit and stop defending private jet reductions, stop 
defending fossil fuel subsidies, stop defending billionaire special tax 
breaks, and actually put the debt and the deficit that America faces 
first rather than having conversations about that being window dressing 
until you get a Republican President, and then you go completely 
haywire, using the reconciliation process to undo health care laws, 
raise Medicare costs, and undo the ACO program that has been so 
effective in my State.
  I see the junior Senator from Utah is presiding, and I know that Utah 
and Intermountain have some of the best health care work being done on 
delivery system reform, and it would surprise me very much if the 
leaders at Intermountain in Utah were excited about undoing the 
delivery system reform provisions of Obamacare. The Innovation Center 
at the Centers for Medicare Services, the ACO provisions, the 
provisions for shared savings between doctors and the taxpayer when 
savings accrue because of better practices, the changes toward better 
models of payment--I would be very surprised if they were very 
enthusiastic about undoing those.
  But, as I said, this is where we are, and I will close my remarks, 
and I hope that soon, once this exercise is over, we can actually get 
serious about closing loopholes and reducing the debt and reducing the 
deficit--the nominal cause of the Republicans on the Budget Committee.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. 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. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time 
be evenly divided between the two sides during the quorum call.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. With that understanding, I suggest the absence of a 
quorum, with the time divided equally between the two sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                  Mineworker Pensions and Health Care

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, 70 years ago United Mine Workers president 
John L. Lewis, a lifelong Republican, sat down with the Democratic 
Secretary of the Interior, Julius Krug. They struck a deal to end a 
national strike. They promised health and pension benefits for miners 
in exchange for a lifetime of hard work. It is a promise that the 
Federal Government has kept ever since.
  For 70 years, no matter the President, no matter the party in control 
of the Senate, we have kept that promise. That changed, unfortunately, 
in December. This body left for vacation. It left tens of thousands of 
mine workers to face an uncertain future, not knowing if the pensions 
and health care they had earned for themselves--and in many cases for 
their widows--over a lifetime of hard work would be there for them in 
the future. This is shameful.

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  Senator Portman, my Republican colleague from Ohio, and I and Senator 
Manchin and Senator Capito, a Democrat and a Republican from West 
Virginia, and Senator Casey--a number of us--said: We should not leave 
Washington to go home to our families until we take care of mine worker 
families.
  Congress has the power to stop these cuts and to live up to this 
pledge. We had a bipartisan solution that would have passed if it had 
been brought to the floor. But instead, Congress broke its promise to 
these miners and their families. Congress stole the health care they 
had earned by passing a continuing resolution that failed to address 
the pension problem, and it stole the funds that were still left in 
their health care plan to pay for a 4-month fix--4 months, 4 months. 
Who can make health care decisions when you don't know if you will have 
health care coverage 4 months from now?
  These working people don't deserve to live with this kind of 
uncertainty. I have heard my colleagues, particularly on the Republican 
side of the aisle, always talk about predictability. Government should 
never inject more uncertainty into the lives of individuals, never 
should inject uncertainty into the lives of business people as they 
make investment decisions.
  But that is what we have done with these mine workers. We have made 
their lives less certain, less predictable, and their health care so 
unpredictable. This is the health care these workers fought for, the 
health care they sacrificed raises for. Keep in mind that at the 
bargaining table, workers will be willing to accept less wages today in 
exchange for health care and pensions in the future. That is what 
collective bargaining is often about. That is what is so important.
  This is health care they sacrificed raises for. It was the health 
care we promised them. My colleagues know their stories of hard work 
and sacrifice. We know these stories because over the past year, these 
miners traveled here by the busload. They rode long distances. They 
gathered in the heat and in the cold for hours outside this building to 
make their voices heard.
  They worked decades in the mines--hard back-breaking work. But that 
work had dignity. It was dangerous work--work where some of them were 
killed on the job, work where many of them developed health problems 
later. Many of them died younger than people who dress like we do and 
have jobs like this. Their widows have been denied these pensions and 
health care. They clocked in every day, these workers. They knew the 
conditions they faced. Many of them now suffer from black lung or other 
illnesses. They accepted a lifetime of hard labor because they valued 
their jobs, they valued their work, and they believed that good-paying 
union jobs were their tickets to the middle class.
  These miners believed in the covenant we used to have in this country 
that promised if you work hard your whole life, if you put in the 
hours, if you save a little and do your part, you will be able to help 
your children go to college. They believed that would give their kids a 
chance at a better life perhaps than they had. They believed that if 
they upheld their end of the deal, if they put in the work to power our 
country by mining coal used for a generation of electricity, their 
government would do the same. In December, Congress told them they were 
wrong. I don't accept that. These workers sacrificed their lungs and 
their backs to keep our lights on. It is shameful that Congress, 
despite all intents and purposes, has stolen what they earned. These 
miners should have spent Christmas with their grandkids, not worrying 
about whether they could afford their medicine.

  We aren't giving up. We had a bipartisan solution in December. We 
will keep fighting until mine workers across Ohio and this country have 
the full health care and retirement security that we promised them. 
They kept faith with us and powered our country. It is time to keep 
faith with the workers in our industrial heartland and to right this 
wrong.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. 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. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time 
during the ensuing quorum call be divided equally between the two 
sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior 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 PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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