[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 118 (Thursday, July 13, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3969-S3971]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Healthcare Legislation
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I am speaking today because proponents of
TrumpCare have their heads stuck in the sand. Many of the Republicans
in this Chamber are clearly in denial that we live in a country where
91 Americans die each and every day from an opioid overdose; where 1.3
million Americans went to the hospital for an opioid-related issue in
2014; where 2,000 Massachusetts residents died from an opioid overdose
just last year, and 69 percent of those cases had the illicit opioid
fentanyl in their bodies. If people across the country were dying from
overdoses at the same rate as in Massachusetts, that would be 100,000
people per year--two Vietnam wars' worth of deaths every single year.
Over 10 years, that would be 1 million people who die if they were
dying at the same rate as they are in Massachusetts--1 million people
over 10 years dying from opioid overdoses in our country.
If these Republicans took their heads out of the sand, they would
hear the near-unanimous calls from the experts and the pleas of mothers
and fathers to stop this machete to Medicaid which they have brought
with their new healthcare reform bill. They would hear the alarm bells
Americans across the country are ringing against this cruel and
heartless and immoral legislation.
These desperate voices should be enough to get Republicans to abandon
their efforts to rip away insurance coverage for treatment and recovery
services for Americans struggling with substance use disorders, but
instead of accepting the truth and listening to their constituents,
they have decided to take a cynical path and replace these lifesaving
services with a paltry opioid fund of $45 billion over 10 years.
There has been a lot of talk from the Republicans about so-called
fixes that they can work on with Democrats, but this opioid fund isn't
a fix, it is a falsehood. It is a false promise to the people suffering
from opioid addiction. It is a
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false future that won't include critical Medicaid funding for treatment
and recovery services. It is a false bargain that Republicans will make
at the expense of families desperate for opioid addiction treatment.
This opioid fund is a politically craven effort to buy votes from
Republicans whose States are being ravaged by the prescription drug,
heroin, and fentanyl crisis, but the American people will not be
fooled. This opioid funding is nothing more than a public health
pittance, a wholly inadequate response to our Nation's preeminent
healthcare crisis. In fact, the amount included in this latest version
of TrumpCare is not even half of the amount that the Affordable Care
Act would have spent on covering opioid use disorder treatment if we
just left that law alone to work as intended.
Here are the numbers. The Center for American Progress has estimated
that the Affordable Care Act would spend $91 billion for opioid
coverage alone over the next decade, compared to the $45 billion the
Republicans are putting into their bill which they announced today.
We already know that access to treatment is a challenge. Only 1 in 10
Americans with substance addiction receives treatment. There are
estimated to be 2 million people with an opioid use disorder who are
not receiving any treatment for this disorder.
It should not be a surprise to anyone that the epidemic of opioid
abuse will only get worse as long as we have a system that makes it
easier to abuse drugs than to get help for addiction disorders. And the
paltry GOP fund that provides less than half of the funding of the
Affordable Care Act is only going to accelerate the death sentence for
the millions of people with substance use disorders.
Sadly, we know that my Republican colleagues who are attempting to
jam this immoral and callous TrumpCare bill through this body actually
are aware of the crisis facing their States. They speak to the same
constituents. They read the same newspapers. They see the same
obituaries of Americans who lost their lives to the opioid overdose
epidemic. And that is why we have been able to make some bipartisan
progress. Last year, we passed the CARA bill. We passed legislation to
fund $1 billion for treatment. But support for the TrumpCare bill and
this opioid fund is a betrayal of all of that hard-fought progress we
were making.
Republicans are turning their backs on their vow to combat the opioid
epidemic, and President Trump is breaking his promise from the campaign
trail to ``expand treatment for those who have become so badly
addicted.'' Instead, they are moving forward with a proposal that would
rip insurance away from 22 million people and threaten insurance
coverage for 2.8 million Americans with a substance use disorder.
This bill would eviscerate Medicaid--the leading payer of behavioral
health services, including substance use treatment--by nearly $800
billion, and all of this to give billions in tax breaks to billionaires
and big corporations.
One analysis has found that under the Senate's previous version of
TrumpCare, Republicans provided a nearly $33 billion tax break to the
top 400 earners, the top 400 billionaires in America, which is the
equivalent of ending Medicaid expansion for too many people in our
country.
Let's look at what they are planning. They are planning to cut from
$91 billion down to $45 billion the amount of money we spend on opioid
treatment in the United States. At the same time, they have $33 billion
that they are going to give in a tax break to the wealthiest 400
billionaires in America. Where is that money going to be better spent
in our country over the next 10 years--$33 billion for the 400
wealthiest people or adding that money back in so that we can have
treatment for people who have opioid addiction problems in their
families? What is going to be better for America?
Well, the Republicans say: We need all that money that would go for
treatment to give it to the wealthiest people in our country.
They can afford their treatment. Their families will have all the
healthcare coverage they need if they have problems in their families.
But the Republicans don't care. If you kicked this bill in the heart,
you would break your toe. That is how bad it is.
So, for me, this is without question, at the heart, a simple
explanation of what is fundamentally wrong with this Republican bill.
There are many other things wrong with it--preexisting conditions, go
all the way down the line--but how can you, when we have this plague
hitting our country, take all that money away and give it away to
billionaires? It is just wrong. There are too many families, too many
letters, too many conversations that we have all had with these
families. There are too many tears that we have seen. So, for me, there
can be nothing that is worse than doing that to families--taking away
their hope.
This is going to be a battle of monumental proportions. All I can
tell you is that for the 2,000 families who had someone who died in
Massachusetts last year, we are going to make sure this is a battle
that everyone knows because if the American people understood that they
are doing this to all of those families who have an opioid problem
right now, there would be a revolt that would rise up across this
country. Over this next week, the American people are going to learn
about what is in the soul of this bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here with Senator Corker today to
address the Senate and encourage this body to vote in support of Bill
Hagerty as our Ambassador to Japan.
In 2013, when Bill Hagerty was the commissioner of economic and
community development for Tennessee, he gave a speech entirely in
Japanese at the American Embassy in Tokyo.
I have looked it up. There have been 16 U.S. Ambassadors to Tokyo, a
very distinguished group since World War II: a five-star general, two
former Senate majority leaders, a former Vice President of the United
States, a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the
daughter of a former President of the United States. So far as I know,
none of them were able to do what Bill Hagerty did in 2013 when he made
a speech entirely in Japanese at the American Embassy in Tokyo.
That is just one reason I think Bill Hagerty is one of President
Trump's best appointees.
He was born in Tennessee, graduated from Vanderbilt University, was
associate editor of the law review, worked as a consultant for the
Boston Consulting Group. During his final 3 years, he lived in Tokyo,
and he served as senior managing executive for their clients around
Asia.
He was selected by President George H.W. Bush to be on his staff, and
there he worked on trade, commerce, defense and telecommunications
issues. He was a White House fellow. He was founder and chairman of a
company in private life that became the third largest medical research
company in the United States. He founded his own private equity and
investment firm.
From 2011 to 2015, he was the commissioner of economic and community
development for Tennessee. In that role, working with Governor Haslam,
he was enormously successful. They secured $15 billion in investments
and 90,000 jobs for our State. For 2 of those years, Tennessee was the
No. 1 State for economic development and the No. 1 State in job
creation through foreign direct investment.
Bill Hagerty is a distinguished Eagle Scout. He was head of a capital
campaign for the Scouts. He served on the board for the Far East
Council of the Scouts, encouraging the growth of Boy Scouts throughout
Asia. One way he intends to continue that mission is that his two sons
will join their respective troops in Japan following his confirmation.
His wife, Chrissy, would want me to quickly add that there are two
aspiring Girl Scouts in their family who will have time to do the same.
This is not only one of the best appointments but one of the most
important of this President. There is a reason we have had such a
distinguished list of Ambassadors since World War II, including our
former majority leader, Senator Howard Baker from Tennessee.
Mike Mansfield, another former majority leader of this body, was also
Ambassador. He used to say in every speech he made that the Japanese-
American alliance is the most important two-country relationship in the
world, bar none. Ambassador Mansfield said that so often that Americans
in
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Tokyo used to call our Embassy there the ``Bar None Ranch.''
If you will permit a little parochialism, Mr. Hagerty comes from a
state, Tennessee, which has the most important relationship with Japan
of any State, bar none.
That began about 40 years ago. I remember President Carter saying to
me as a new Governor and to other Governors: ``Go to Japan. Persuade
them to make in the United States what they sell in the United
States.''
Off we all went. During my first 24 months as Governor, I spent 3
weeks in Japan and 8 weeks on Japanese-American relations. I explained
to Tennesseans that I thought I could do more good for our State in
Japan than I could in Washington, DC. It turned out to be true. Nissan,
Bridgestone, Komatsu, and other companies came, and so did the jobs.
By the mid-eighties, Tennessee had 10 percent of all the Japanese
capital investment in the United States, and this has continued. Nissan
and Bridgestone have North America's largest auto plants and tire
plants in Tennessee. With Mr. Hagerty's help, Bridgestone, as well as
Nissan, have decided to locate their North American headquarters in our
State.
Bill Hagerty, if approved by the Senate, would go to Japan not only
able to speak the language but, having lived and worked there,
understanding how close ties between Japan and the United States can
create bigger paychecks for Americans, as well as for the Japanese.
I join my colleague, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee,
Senator Corker, in enthusiastically saying it is my hope that the
Senate will approve today his nomination and that he will soon be on
the job, and his children will be in their respective Scout troops in
Japan.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I thank my friend, the senior Senator from
Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, for his eloquent comments about this great
nomination. I also thank him again, as I have many times, for the
outstanding relationship he developed with Japan that has borne so much
fruit for the citizens in our State and so many States across the
Southeast. I thank him very much for that.
I rise today also to offer my strong support for the nomination of
Bill Hagerty to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan. Bill is one of
the most outstanding appointments that President Trump has made, and
his confirmation is long overdue.
The relationship between the United States and Japan speaks for
itself, and hosting Prime Minister Abe as one of the first visitors
speaks to how the Trump administration and our country feel about
Japan.
As a fellow Tennessean, I have had the privilege of knowing Bill
Hagerty and his family on a personal level. I have seen him in business
and the outstanding things he has done there. I have seen him represent
our State as commissioner of economic development, and he caused it to
be one of the most heralded States in the country relative to job
creation. Much of that had to do with his ability to deal with other
governments around the world and cause them to be attracted to our
State.
I also know that he and his wife Chrissy actually met in Japan, so
this is an exciting time and sort of a homecoming for their family.
There is no one more well-suited to fill this important role, and I
know our Nation will benefit from Bill's leadership and experience as
he carries on the tremendous legacy of U.S. Ambassadors to Japan,
including the late Howard Baker, another fellow Tennessean.
I am really, really proud of this nomination and know that Bill will
represent the very best of our country during his service in Japan.
I strongly urge my colleagues to support this confirmation. This is
long overdue, and I know he will be going to Japan at a time when we
truly need an ambassador with his capacity.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Hagerty
nomination?
Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Kansas (Mr. Moran).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran)
would have voted ``yea.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs.
McCaskill) is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 86, nays 12, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 160 Ex.]
YEAS--86
Alexander
Baldwin
Barrasso
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Cantwell
Capito
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cassidy
Cochran
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cornyn
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Donnelly
Duckworth
Durbin
Enzi
Ernst
Feinstein
Fischer
Flake
Franken
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hassan
Hatch
Heitkamp
Heller
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Kaine
Kennedy
King
Klobuchar
Lankford
Leahy
Lee
Manchin
Markey
McCain
McConnell
Menendez
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Paul
Perdue
Portman
Reed
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Schatz
Schumer
Scott
Shaheen
Shelby
Strange
Sullivan
Tester
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Van Hollen
Warner
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
Young
NAYS--12
Booker
Brown
Gillibrand
Harris
Heinrich
Hirono
Merkley
Peters
Sanders
Stabenow
Udall
Warren
NOT VOTING--2
McCaskill
Moran
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that with
respect to the Hagerty nomination, the motion to reconsider be
considered made and laid upon the table and the President be
immediately notified of the Senate's action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________