[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 159 (Wednesday, October 4, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6305-S6307]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Tax Reform

  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, as the ranking Democrat on the Senate 
Finance Committee, I followed the Senator's comments with respect to 
taxes and the debate over tax reform

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with considerable interest. I will just tell you, my goodness, how I 
wish we could have what the Senator called an uninhibited process with 
respect to the debate over tax reform. I have written an actual 
bipartisan tax reform bill with our colleague who is now part of the 
Trump administration, Senator Coats.
  Unfortunately, what our colleague laudably called for is not on 
offer. The Senate majority leader has said that he intends to use 
reconciliation--the most partisan process for considering tax reform. 
When we were talking about healthcare, which is one-sixth of the 
economy, we had the same process--reconciliation, all partisan. Now we 
are talking about taxes that involve the whole economy, and we are 
seeing the Senate majority leader say once again that it is his intent, 
his preference, and his plan to use that same process. I sure wish the 
world was like my colleague has called for because I have written a 
bipartisan plan.
  What is so striking is that the Senate majority leader has called for 
20 hours of discussion, which is essentially what you get with 
reconciliation, as opposed to what happened when Ronald Reagan and a 
big group of Democrats got together in 1986 and spent a whole month on 
tax reform.
  So before the Senator leaves--and it is a pleasure to serve with him 
on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as well--I sure wish the 
world was along the lines of what my colleague has called for. Perhaps 
he can use his intellect and energy to persuade the Senate majority 
leader to use that process on taxes because that is what some Democrats 
have called for.
  I can just tell my friend, given my interest in the subject, which 
goes back well over a decade--we have a bipartisan proposal written, 
coauthored by a member of the President's Cabinet, so we would very 
much like to have what the Senator is talking about.
  Madam President, I rise now to oppose the nomination of Eric Hargan 
to be Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. 
This is the No. 2 position at HHS, the chief operating officer. Of 
course, with Secretary Price's departure, Mr. Hargan would fill the top 
spot if he is confirmed.
  My concern is that I don't have any confidence that Mr. Hargan is 
going to lead the Department in a different direction than it took 
under Dr. Price. Last week, the country watched as more and more 
details emerged about Secretary Price's travel. In my view, the flights 
were an abuse of office.
  In my view, from the very outset, there was reason to be concerned 
about Secretary Price and how he would handle the public trust. Ever 
since our committee received the Price nomination, it was clear that he 
had a little trouble following the rules when it served his own 
personal interests rather than taxpayers. He used insider information 
from a fellow Congressman to get a sweetheart stock deal that made him 
hundreds of thousands of dollars. He frequently bought stocks in 
industries that he was overseeing as a Member of Congress. He pushed 
healthcare legislation that benefited industry insiders rather than 
patients.
  He was confirmed on a party-line vote, and it wasn't very shortly 
after that that he proceeded to go forward with what I and others 
consider a sabotage campaign that, in effect, has been executed since 
day one. He was a top salesman for TrumpCare. He came before our 
committee and made countless other public appearances in which he 
willfully misrepresented the massive scale of the harm TrumpCare would 
have done to American healthcare. He also appeared on national 
television and argued, in effect, that healthcare funding cuts aren't 
actually cuts. He denied that individuals would lose health coverage or 
see increases as a result of TrumpCare, even after there were 
independent analysis showing that was wrong. Then, of course, he flew 
about the country scaring folks who just wanted affordable healthcare.
  As far as the President's promise to bring down the high prices of 
prescription medicine--that was a promise the American people heard 
stop after stop on the campaign trail in 2016. That promise is nowhere 
to be seen or heard from at this point. It is my hope that the 
President's next pick to lead Health and Human Services will follow 
through on what the American people were told in the campaign they were 
going to get--lower the cost of healthcare and get our citizens 
covered--but that nominee hasn't been put forward.
  In the meantime, Mr. Hargan's nomination has him in line to serve as 
Acting Secretary. I will tell you, having examined the record as 
closely as I could, I don't think there is any reason to believe Mr. 
Hargan would deviate from Secretary Price's ideological agenda that 
included a constant effort to undermine and in my view sabotage the 
implementation of the Affordable Care Act. This campaign is driving up 
premiums and confusing Americans who just want to be able to see a 
doctor and get affordable healthcare services.
  I am going to tick through some of the actions the administration has 
taken that would undermine the upcoming open enrollment period and the 
effect that is going to have on our people's healthcare costs.
  First, just a few weeks into his tenure, Secretary Price cut the 
enrollment period. This is the period during which Americans sign up 
for health insurance. We are talking about a private marketplace. I am 
really struck by this debate about the role of government. We are 
talking about a private marketplace where private healthcare plans 
offer coverage. Secretary Price cut the enrollment period for private 
healthcare in the private marketplace in half. People across the 
country used to be able to sign up for healthcare from the beginning of 
November until the end of January, and now they have literally half 
that time. That is going to cause a whole lot of disruption for people 
who are working hard and living their lives rather than trying to 
follow every little press account from Washington, DC.
  Let's imagine for a moment a 29-year-old who just got locked out of 
the healthcare system because he has had a 3-year routine of signing up 
for health insurance around the new year. That is exactly the kind of 
individual the private insurance market needs to attract in order to 
hold costs down--a young person who is probably signing up right toward 
the deadline.

  Then think of the single mom with two kids who marked January 30, 
probably with a big, bright pen on her calendar because she cut it 
close to the end of enrollment last year. Her life is busy enough. She 
doesn't read trade publications from health industry sources to see 
what is happening with open enrollment. Because of the early enrollment 
cutoff, this mom and her family, who just want affordable, private 
healthcare from the private marketplace, are going to be locked out.
  The Department of Health and Human Services is taking the 
healthcare.gov website offline for maintenance on all but one Sunday 
during the open enrollment period. The fact is, Sunday has been one of 
the most popular times for well-meaning assistance groups to help folks 
get signed up at community centers. It is like the State Department of 
Transportation blocking the highways and digging up the blacktop with 
construction crews every Monday morning during the peak commute time. 
It is just the opposite of common sense.
  The Department is kneecapping the programs that are designed to get 
highly trained people. These are folks called navigators, and what they 
do is get out into the communities and go to various places where they 
know a lot of folks aren't signed up, and they help them get signed up.
  The Department of Health and Human Services has slashed the budget 
for getting the word out, including zeroing out the budget for TV ads. 
That has been a big factor in getting enrollment up in the past.
  Let's be clear about what the Department has done under Secretary 
Price's leadership. They have been working overtime to make it harder 
for people to get healthcare, plain and simple.
  The sabotage doesn't really end with just making enrollment a 
headache. The administration continues to dangle the threat of cutting 
off cost-sharing payments as if it were a political gain without 
consequences in the real world. In State after State after State, 
insurers have made it clear that this gamesmanship is causing premiums 
to go up. If the payments are cut off, families will face premium 
increases of

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hundreds of dollars or more, and it is all because they are searching 
for a political trophy.
  I want to talk about what this means for private sector healthcare. 
When you have the President and the previous Secretary of Health and 
Human Services pouring gasoline on the fires of uncertainty in the 
private health insurance marketplace, it makes it very hard for 
insurers to make the calculations that are involved in spreading risk 
and getting people signed up and pricing products.
  The reality is, an administration that says they really care about 
the private sector--the President continually says that he is from the 
business community and he wants to be sensitive to private sector 
economic forces. The last thing you would do is pour all this 
uncertainty into the private healthcare landscape, which is what they 
have been doing with the gamesmanship in terms of whether they are 
going to pay these cost-sharing payments so that folks who face big 
deductibles and extra prices for medicine and the like would know there 
is going to be help in their health plan for those costs.
  The Secretary was out jetting all about, spreading falsehoods about 
the private healthcare landscape. Sometimes he would say that it would 
be collapsing, and I would say: We know a lot of people who are trying 
to stabilize it, but you are making it harder by pouring all this gas 
on the fires of uncertainty.
  While this was going on, they were also neglecting to work with 
States. For example, Oklahoma designed a reinsurance system intended to 
stabilize the private insurance market and control costs, and they 
sought a waiver application to the Department of Health and Human 
Services. But the Department of Health and Human Services didn't get 
around to approving it in time to help Oklahomans in 2018, so the State 
just pulled their application.
  I have been a strong supporter of these waivers. I authored a 
provision in the Affordable Care Act, the innovation waiver, 1332. For 
the Secretary to not work with Oklahoma in a timely way and in a way 
that would stabilize the private insurance market is not what those of 
us on this side are in favor of.
  There is no reason to believe Mr. Hargan would come in and clean up 
the mess. In my view, many States want to see stable or reduced 
premiums this coming year, but so far the Department is just marching 
in lockstep with the status quo. The President apparently is committed 
to continuing this kind of mismanagement and willful wrongdoing. Mr. 
Hargan has made clear what his stance is on the Affordable Care Act in 
plenty of public statements.
  Beyond this question of undermining the Affordable Care Act, we were 
also particularly troubled that Secretary Tom Price shared the Trump 
administration's abysmal record of responding to oversight letters from 
Congress, especially the Democrats. As far as I can tell, some of this 
is shared on both sides.
  I think this is profoundly undemocratic, and our obligation to 
perform oversight as Members of Congress is derived from the powers 
laid out in the Constitution, in article I. The issues we raise in 
oversight inquiries to the Department of Health and Human Services 
relate directly to the well-being of people in North Carolina, in 
Oregon, and everywhere in between. I don't think Senators on either 
side, Democrats or Republicans, do it for sport. But the 
administration's behavior is not that of a government that sees itself 
as answerable to the public--either that or it just doesn't have good 
answers as to why it constantly, constantly is out there undermining 
private health insurance markets to make it harder for people to get 
affordable healthcare. Either way, they aren't doing their jobs, and 
they aren't putting the interests of the American people first.
  Members on both sides of the aisle have expressed concern about the 
Department of Health and Human Services stonewalling important 
oversight issues presented by Members on both sides. Chairman Hatch and 
Senator Grassley are two very senior Republicans. Chairman Grassley and 
Chairman Hatch deserve a lot of credit for calling out the Trump 
administration on this lack of responsiveness to basic oversight.
  The fact is, what our committee has heard is basically a lot of sweet 
talk from nominees about how, of course, they are going to be 
responsive, and then they go out, and it is business as usual. We see 
them for that confirmation hearing, and there is not much of any kind 
of response when we ask the questions.
  I will not support Mr. Hargan's nomination today. In my view, under 
Tom Price and this administration, the Department of Health and Human 
Services has done a miserable job of working to improve the health and 
well-being of the American people. The irony is, it seems that one of 
the objectives from day one was to set out and try to accomplish that, 
to make it appear that there were problems when the Affordable Care Act 
was being implemented. Instead of rolling up their sleeves and tackling 
it, the idea was to try and get an ideological trophy: Let's tell the 
American people that everything about the Affordable Care Act is 
horrible so we can get it repealed.
  The Affordable Care Act is far from perfect. In fact, when we were 
debating it, I had an alternative plan. We had seven Senators on both 
sides of the aisle. It was a bipartisan plan, but that is history.
  The Affordable Care Act has made an enormous difference for millions 
of Americans. What we ought to be doing is working together to improve 
it. There are plenty of ways in which this Senate and an administration 
that really want to accomplish that can work together in a bipartisan 
way.
  What I have been more interested in than any other aspect of public 
service is to work in a bipartisan way on healthcare. That has been my 
No. 1 interest. So nothing would please me more than to be able to say: 
OK. We have an official who is going to break with the past and, 
instead of trying to make the implementation of the Act as bad as 
possible, is prepared to roll up his or her sleeves and make it as good 
as possible. Unfortunately, that person is not Mr. Hargan. I urge a no 
vote.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill 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.