[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 63 (Wednesday, April 18, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2265-S2266]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. MERKLEY (for himself, Mr. Murphy, Ms. Harris, Mr. Booker, 
        Ms. Baldwin, Mrs. Gillibrand, Mr. Schatz, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr. 
        Heinrich, Mr. Blumenthal, and Mr. Udall):
  S. 2708. A bill to provide for the establishment of Medicare part E 
public health plans, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Finance.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the most important words of our 
Constitution are the first three words: ``We the people.'' That is the 
mission statement of our Constitution.
  Our Founders did not seek to design a government that would enable 
the powerful and the privileged to make rules to benefit themselves. 
They didn't say: We want to have a Constitution that enables the 
wealthy and the well-connected to take away the riches of this country 
at the expense of the people. No, they laid out the vision ``We the 
people.'' They put that mission statement in supersized font, so even 
if you were reading the Constitution from across the room, you would 
understand its core mission--a core mission that unfortunately has been 
sabotaged in the Citizens United decision, which, instead of pursuing 
government of, by, and for the people, instead of providing what 
Jefferson called the equal voice, mother principle of America--that 
each citizen should have an equal voice--proceeds to give the powerful 
the reins of power through unlimited third-party campaign spending.
  The corruption of our democracy is in full gear, and we see it 
through the bills that are coming to this floor--bills to wipe out 
healthcare for 22 to 30 million Americans, a bill that passed that 
borrows $1.5 trillion from our children and proceeds to give that money 
virtually entirely--more than 80 percent--to the very richest 
Americans. I encourage my colleagues to think about how we have a 
responsibility under our oath of office to fight for this vision of 
America, not a corrupted ``we the powerful'' vision of America.

  As we address the issues that people care about at the kitchen table, 
it comes down to four basic things. It comes down to education, 
housing, living-wage jobs, and healthcare. Eisenhower said: ``Because 
the strength of our nation is in its people, their good health is a 
proper national concern.''
  We have worked to design improved healthcare systems, lower costs, 
higher quality, and improved accessibility. We have come a long way 
through the ACA, the expansion of Medicaid, and the establishment of 
competitive marketplaces for insurance. Indeed, in Oregon, we reduced 
the uninsured rate from 15 percent to 5 percent. That is a huge stride 
forward. We increased our resources in our rural healthcare clinics, 
our rural hospitals, and our urban healthcare clinics and our urban 
hospitals. We strengthened the healthcare system, but it is not enough. 
We still have 41 million adults in this country who are underinsured. 
We have 30 million who remain completely uninsured.
  That is why, today, I am delighted to join with my colleague Senator 
Chris Murphy to introduce the Choose Medicare Act. Every American 
deserves the promise of access to a popular, affordable, high-quality 
healthcare option. Fortunately, we have such an option. It is called 
Medicare. It is time-tested. It is well-vetted. It is admired and 
desired by our seniors.
  Today, Chris Murphy and I are introducing the Choose Medicare Act, 
which creates a Medicare option for all, putting consumers and 
businesses in the driver's seat on the pathway to universal healthcare. 
With the Choose Medicare Act, we affirm that here in America, 
healthcare is not a privilege for the wealthy and well-connected. It is 
a right and a fundamental value to have healthcare for all.
  I am pleased that we have been joined in introducing this today with 
nine of our colleagues as original cosponsors: Senator Baldwin, Senator 
Blumenthal, Senator Booker, Senator Harris, Senator Heinrich, Senator 
Shaheen, Senator Schatz, Senator Gillibrand, and Senator Udall. Thank 
you to each and every one of these original cosponsors, who believe in 
the vision of improving our healthcare system.
  We appreciate the groups that worked to help forge this vision to put 
meat on the bones of this idea: PCCC, which was involved from the very 
beginning with insights, CREDO, Daily Kos, Democracy for America, 
MoveOn, and Families USA. We appreciate their endorsement of this plan.
  When we were talking about Medicare for All, many folks said: How do 
you create the transition? And back during the ACA discussions, we did 
debate reducing the age of Medicare to 55. We had 60 votes for it in a 
week but lost our 60th vote.
  We wrestled with this vision. How do you create the transition? Well, 
folks come to my townhalls--and I hold a lot of them. I have held well 
over 300 during the 10 years I have been serving in the Senate. They 
come and say: We have this great healthcare plan, Medicare. Why can't 
we buy into it? Why not give us the advantage of its efficiency and 
cost control, its low-administrative costs and high-quality healthcare?
  That is exactly what Chris Murphy and I are putting forward along 
with our cosponsors--that vision of a Medicare option for all. That is 
a ``we the people'' bill. That is not a bill for the powerful and 
privileged. That is not government by the wealthy and well-connected. 
This is about the fundamental issue people wrestle with around the 
kitchen table--the complexity and the cost of our healthcare system. I 
am on Medicaid today, but I have earned a little too much, so am I off? 
How do I get on the exchange in the middle of the year? How do I sign 
up for those tax credits? What if I don't get that right? What if the 
correspondence gets lost in the mail or misfiled, which seems to 
happen? Why can't we have a simple, seamless system?
  Well, we have one--Medicare. Folks say: Why can't we participate? You 
can, if we pass this bill. It makes sense to create this public option 
competitor. What we have seen for States that have a public option in 
their provision for workplace insurance is that the costs come down 
dramatically. That certainly happened in my home State of

[[Page S2266]]

Oregon. It happened on the other coast in Rhode Island. It has happened 
around this country.
  Lyndon Johnson, when he signed the bill for Medicare, said:

       It calls upon us never to be indifferent toward despair. It 
     commands us never to turn away from helplessness. It directs 
     us never to ignore or to spurn those who suffer untended in a 
     land that is bursting with abundance.

  Medicare is high-quality coverage for 58 million Americans. It has 
bargaining power, low administrative costs, and high respect by 
participants.
  What does the Choose Medicare Act do? Well, it covers all that 
Medicare covers today, and then, because it would be open to people of 
all ages, it throws in pediatric and reproductive healthcare and builds 
those networks. It strengthens the exchanges by strengthening the tax 
credits so that the middle class is not stranded when it comes to the 
affordability of healthcare. It extends those tax credits from 400 
percent of poverty to 600 percent of poverty, reaching further into the 
middle class to make that transition--to make healthcare affordable on 
the exchange. It strengthens, certainly, Medicare itself, by putting a 
cap on the out-of-pocket costs.
  For all those who are in traditional Medicare, their Medicare 
improves as well. It provides the ability to drive down the cost of 
drugs by giving Medicare the ability to negotiate those prices. That is 
certainly a very important feature.
  Here we have something that is very popular with the public. When the 
public is asked ``Would you like to see the opportunity for every 
single American to be able to buy into Medicare, have that as an 
option; it is a voluntary option, but an option,'' overwhelmingly, they 
say yes. Democrats say yes. Republicans say yes. Independents say yes. 
They would like to have that option. The more they learn about how a 
public option has driven down costs, the more they say that this is 
needed.
  We not only make it possible to buy it on the exchange, we make it 
possible for self-insured companies to take advantage of Medicare. We 
make it possible for employers in regular companies, who are buying 
other healthcare plans for their employees, to consider buying a 
Medicare plan. So this reach is broad and deep.
  That is the type of ``we the people'' legislation we should be 
considering on the floor of this Senate--not a healthcare bill designed 
to destroy healthcare for 22 to 30 million people, as we saw last year 
courtesy of our majority, not a plan to borrow $1.5 trillion from our 
children and to give it away to the very richest Americans, the 
biggest, boldest bank heist seen in American history--perhaps in world 
history. That is the type of bank heist you would expect out of 
corrupt, Third World governments, not here in the United States of 
America, which tells you just how corrupt our election process has 
become, with Citizens United allowing unlimited billionaire dollars 
into our campaign system.
  We have to fight to take back the vision of our Nation, the ``we the 
people'' vision of our Nation. It has been stolen. It has been 
corrupted, and we have to take it back. When we take it back, we are 
going to put bills on the floor of this Senate that are about the 
fundamentals for families, living-wage jobs, public education and 
public college education, affordable quality classrooms, and the cost 
of housing, which is completely out of reach, and, certainly, profound 
substantial improvements to our healthcare system.
  Again, I thank Chris Murphy for partnering in this project. I 
supported Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All, and I love that vision. 
Chris Murphy supported Brian Schatz's bill to be able to buy into 
Medicaid. We don't have an identical healthcare profile, but what we 
sought together is the option of buying into Medicare, which is a 
complete win for the American people and a complete win for our 
healthcare system.

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