[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 105 (Tuesday, June 20, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3633-S3634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Healthcare Legislation

  Mr. President, I wanted to speak about what is going on here in this 
Capitol at this moment. It has been the subject of a lot of discussion 
last night and again as we have been in session today; that is, trying 
to hatch a plan to overturn the Affordable Care Act and to find 
something that would replace it. In fact, it is being done in secret.
  I would just merely pose the question, Why is it being done in secret 
if it is to be something that is to help the American people more than 
what the existing law is? Why wouldn't that be something you would want 
to expose to the light of day? If it is to improve the existing law, 
why in the world would that not want to be done on a bipartisan basis?
  Yet we find ourselves confronting a situation where the majority 
leader has said he is trying to cobble together 50 votes to overturn 
the existing law, and it must be something that is not very palatable 
in what it is to overturn the existing law. Otherwise, it would be done 
in the open and in the sunshine.
  Now, the existing law is not perfect so we ought to improve it, but 
the existing law, as we have heard in some of these dramatic townhall 
meetings, is the reason some people are alive today. It is the reason 
some folks no longer have to worry about being denied coverage for a 
preexisting condition.
  By the way, that requirement of not allowing an insurance company to 
deny you coverage because you have a preexisting condition is not 
applicable just to those who are on the State and Federal exchanges. 
That is applicable to all insurance policies.
  So if you have that kind of condition, which I can tell you might be 
a condition such as asthma, we are not going to insure you for the rest 
of your life because you had asthma or, if you want to go to the 
extreme--and it has been done--an insurance company saying: I am not 
going to insure you because you have had a rash. The flip side of that 
is insurance companies put a lifetime limit on it so if they pay out up 
to a certain amount--let's say $50,000--the insurance policy stops, no 
more payouts.
  That is not according to the existing law. In the existing law, they 
can't say you are going to lose your coverage because you hit that 
lifetime limit cap that their payout is.
  Every day I hear from Floridians who tell me how the House-passed 
bill would affect them and what we speculate, since we don't know, that 
the Senate bill that is attempting to be brought out at the last minute 
next week--what we suspect is going to be in it. Every day I hear from 
people.
  So take, for example, the lady from Sebring, FL, Christine Gregory. 
She has allowed me to use her name.

       My daughter has Juvenile Diabetes (Type 1). She was 
     diagnosed at age 15 . . . when the Affordable Care Act was 
     signed into law. I absolutely rejoiced about the end of all 
     the horrible things that come along with having a pre-
     existing condition. She no longer had to worry about 
     cancellation of her insurance, waiting periods, denial of 
     coverage, annual and lifetime limits, higher premiums, and 
     the dreaded high-risk pools.

  Then she continues to write:

       Fast forward to 2017. All the fear and the worry are back. 
     Our President and Congress plan to repeal and replace the 
     Affordable Care Act. Now she has the very real prospect of 
     having to enter a very expensive high-risk

[[Page S3634]]

     pool. That could mean bankruptcy and denial of needed 
     medicines and care.

  Take, for example, an unnamed constituent from Florida's panhandle 
who wrote me. I got this today.

       I have chronic and persistent illnesses that would be 
     debilitating without affordable and comprehensive care. I 
     have chronic back pain from degenerative disc disease in 
     every part of my spine. I have had innumerable procedures to 
     help manage the pain, including epidural and targeted nerve 
     block injections at multiple levels.

  This unnamed individual, a constituent of mine, continues:

       I am now planning to get radio frequency ablation of the 
     nerves. Using pre-ACA rules--

  Before the existing law--

       I would have hit my lifetime limit at least 1 year ago and 
     been unable to continue getting pain-managing treatment. I 
     often feel like I am a burden to my wife who is one of the 
     most understanding and supportive people I know.

  He concludes:

       If the AHCA passes and our insurance and total health costs 
     go up significantly, the burden I feel I am right now will 
     become a reality. Please, I deserve more than to suffer from 
     uncontrollable pain. And my wife deserves more than to have 
     to care for me in that condition.

  The existing law is not perfect, but it has given millions of people, 
including those with preexisting conditions like juvenile diabetes, 
access to healthcare they otherwise would not receive. This healthcare 
bill that passed the House that is the model for apparently something--
for taking it out of that--if they are ever going to get an agreement 
between the two Houses, that Republican healthcare bill will take us 
back to the days when it was nearly impossible for people with a 
preexisting condition to get health insurance coverage. People with 
asthma could be forced to pay more than $4,000 more because of that 
preexisting condition. People with rheumatoid arthritis could be forced 
to pay up to $26,000, and people who are pregnant could pay more and 
more and more.

  Let me tell you about another constituent from Volusia County who 
shared how the repeal of this would affect her.
  She writes:

       My husband, a 50-year-old leukemia survivor, would lose his 
     ability to obtain comprehensive health insurance due to the 
     lack of protections for people with preexisting conditions.
       My daughter, who has asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, would 
     lose her ability to obtain comprehensive health insurance due 
     to the lack of protections for people with pre-existing 
     conditions. Our family, all hard working, tax paying 
     Americans, will once again be subjected to annual and 
     lifetime limits which could easily bankrupt us.
       My daughter, who is a young woman just starting her career, 
     would lose her ability to purchase affordable health 
     insurance and receive tax subsidies that she currently 
     receives under the Affordable Care Act.

  She goes on to say that she is afraid that TrumpCare would relegate 
them, if you change all of that, to second class citizens.
  Why am I saying this about preexisting conditions with regard to what 
was passed at the other end of this hallway, down at the House of 
Representatives? They say: No, no, preexisting conditions are not 
eliminated down there. But that does not tell you the whole story. The 
whole story is that, in the House-passed bill, it is left up to the 
States, and the States see that as a way of so-called lowering their 
premiums. If you start doing that for some and do not keep it spread 
over the millions and millions of people who are now under the 
protection of the preexisting conditions, it is going to become a 
select few more, and it is going to spike the cost of that insurance.
  I conclude by telling you another part of what happened down there in 
the House. In effect, they changed Medicaid as we know it by cutting 
out of it over $800 billion over a 10-year period.
  Donna Krajewski, from Sebastian, FL, wrote to me recently to tell me 
what Medicaid is for her family.
  She writes:

       I am writing this letter on behalf of my son . . . who has 
     Down syndrome. . . . These blocks--

  That is the technical term they are using in the House of 
Representatives. In other words, it is capping Medicaid to each of the 
States--

       or caps [on Medicaid] will cause States to strip critical 
     supports that my son needs to live, learn and work in the 
     community.
       These [Medicaid] funds have enabled him to participate in 
     an adult supervised day program and transportation to and 
     from the site. This program involves classes, such as daily 
     living skills, social skills, and daily life skills. He is 
     also able to go out once or twice a week to socialize. . . . 
     He has become more confident and happy with his life.

  We need to find ways to improve the healthcare system. We need to fix 
the existing law. We do not need to unwind all of the good things that 
we have done. We need to fix it in a bipartisan way so that, when folks 
come to me and ask, ``Senator, what are we going to do to fix it?'' 
what I will then say is that it is my responsibility to do something.
  Last week, I filed a bill, with a number of other Senators, that 
would lower healthcare premiums for people in Florida by up to 13 
percent. What it would do is help to stabilize the existing law's 
insurance marketplace by creating a permanent reinsurance fund that 
would lower the risk that insurance companies face--a risk pool, a 
reinsurance fund.
  It is kind of like what we did back when I was the elected insurance 
commissioner of Florida in the aftermath of the monster hurricane--
Hurricane Andrew. Insurance companies just simply could not take the 
risk that a category 5 would come along, hit directly on the coast, and 
just wipe out everything--wipe out all of the capital reserve the 
insurance companies had. What they did was to go to a reinsurance fund 
for hurricanes, which we actually created in Florida--the catastrophic 
reinsurance fund--so that the insurance companies could reinsure 
themselves against a catastrophic hurricane loss.
  That is exactly what this proposal is. It would lower premiums by 13 
percent and create a reinsurance fund--a permanent one--that would 
lower the risk to the insurance companies that are insuring people's 
health.
  At least one Florida insurer estimates that this bill, if passed, 
would reduce premiums for Floridians who get their coverage from 
healthcare.gov by 13 percent between 2018 and 2020.
  So you ask: What is a suggestion? I figured that it was my 
responsibility to come up with a suggestion on how to fix it. This is 
one of several fixes, and it is a tangible fix, and it is, in fact, 
filed as legislation.
  What we are facing in the suggestion that I have made is not the 
ultimate solution to solving the healthcare system, but it is one small 
step in the right direction to making health insurance available and 
affordable for the people who need it the most.
  How are we going to fix it?
  You are not going to do it by running around in the dead of night, 
secretly putting together a plan that is only going to be a partisan 
plan. If you are going to fix the healthcare system, you are going to 
have to do it together, in a bipartisan way, building consensus. That 
is what I urge the Senate to do instead of what we are seeing happen 
behind closed doors.
  Let's get together. Let's work together to make healthcare more 
affordable for people and stop all of this stuff behind the closed 
doors. The American people deserve better.
  I yield the floor.

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