[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 86 (Wednesday, May 22, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3036-S3038]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 986
Mr. President, my motion is as such: As if in legislative session, I
ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate
consideration of Calendar No. 90, H.R. 986, Protecting Americans with
Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019; that the bill be considered read a
third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered
made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, reserving my right to object, section
1332 is the innovation waiver that is part of the Affordable Care Act,
passed by the Democratic majority. That act includes protection for
preexisting conditions. Using the flexibility granted under section
1332 does not change anything about preexisting conditions. So it is
misleading to the American people to suggest that it does.
This is another Democratic attempt to make it more expensive, to cost
more for what you pay for healthcare out of your own pocket by taking
away flexibility from the States to find a less expensive way for you
to afford healthcare and, at the same time, not changing the
preexisting condition protection that is provided by the Affordable
Care Act. This is the latest attempt to do it, but the boldest attempt
to raise the cost of your healthcare is Medicare for All, which if you
have insurance on the job, as 181 million Americans do, would take that
insurance away from you.
I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. President. Again, I share in Senator
Baldwin's disappointment that we can't move immediately to this
legislation. This isn't a political game. These are individuals all
across the country who are relying on us to make sure that they are not
subject to the abuses of the market. They are relying on us to make
sure we don't return to the days in which insurance companies could
prevent you from getting healthcare simply because you were sick or
return to the days when you bought an insurance product and then it
didn't turn out to ultimately be insurance.
Let's be clear. The waiver that the President has allowed States to
take advantage of would absolutely--it would by definition of the
rule--allow for States to waive the preexisting condition requirement.
The rule itself says that the innovation that happens at the State
level does not have to comply with the essential healthcare benefits
requirement. It says in the rule that you do not have to comply with
preexisting conditions requirements. That is the reason that they are
so cheap. So I am at a loss as to why we have Republicans on the floor
saying that preexisting conditions will be protected under this rule.
That is not true. The rule says that States do not have to comply with
the preexisting requirement. It says that States do not have to cover
essential healthcare benefits. That is why these junk plans are
attractive, because they aren't actually insurance, and they are only
insurance for people who are at the time very healthy.
We have to get on the same page here. We have to be reading from the
same script. The fact of the matter is, the definition of the rule
allows for protections for people with preexisting conditions to be
discriminated against.
I am sorry that we weren't able to bring up this piece of legislation
because healthcare insurance should be healthcare insurance. And what
we worry about are two things. First is that by allowing for the
marketing of these junk plans, you are going to have all sorts of
people who today aren't sick jumping into those plans, coming off of
the plans that protect people with preexisting conditions. The people
who are going to be left behind on those regulated plans are people who
are sick, people who have preexisting conditions. So you are, all of a
sudden, bifurcating the insurance market. You are going to have a
market for people who are currently healthy, and then you are going to
have a market for people who are sick or have ever had a preexisting
condition.
You do not have to be an actuary and you don't have to have taken
classes in healthcare insurance economics to know that when that
happens, rates skyrocket for people who have a preexisting condition--
for the millions of people around this country who have had a serious
diagnosis at some point during their life.
So as you sell these junk plans, there is no way but for costs to go
up. That is on top of the increases we saw last year. Last year,
insurance companies priced in the costs of Trump administration
sabotage. They priced into their premiums the attacks on our healthcare
system from the Republican Congress.
In many States, we saw insurance plans pushing 60 percent, 40
percent, and, in some cases, 80 percent increases in premiums. Now on
top of that, for sick people, for people with preexisting conditions,
the rates are going to be even bigger because of the flight of those
without preexisting conditions into marketplaces set up specifically
for them.
The second thing we worry about is that these junk plans market
themselves as insurance, but they aren't. Here is a list of things that
I would generally consider to be covered under my insurance plan.
If I bought an insurance plan, if I handed over a check to the
insurance company, I kind of think that if I go to the emergency room,
I am not going to have to pay for it out of my pocket. I am thinking to
myself: Well, you know what, if I need prescription drugs, they are
going to cover some of that. Well, if I have a mental health diagnosis,
doesn't insurance cover my head as well as the rest of my body?
These are the things that I would assume that insurance covers, but
these junk plans don't cover these things.
Junk plans do not cover trips to the emergency room. Junk plans often
don't cover hospitalizations. They don't cover prescription drugs.
Almost none of them cover maternity care. Your checkups might not be
covered
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under a junk plan. Preexisting conditions will cost you more.
Contraception isn't going to be in lots of these plans. They are not
required to cover lab services or pediatrics. Mental health isn't going
to be in many of these junk plans. As for rehab services, if you get
injured, you are not going to find those in some of these plans. And if
you have a chronic disease, there is nothing in the law that requires
treatment for those to be covered.
So all of a sudden, as for the things you thought insurance covered,
they don't cover it, and you have been paying a premium for years.
Then, when you finally need access to the system, it is not there. That
is what these plans can do. That is what the law and the Trump
administration rule allows States to license as insurance. And that is
why we are on the floor today, to ask--to plead--to our colleagues to
bring legislation before this body, either Senator Baldwin's
legislation or Representative Kuster's legislation that has already
passed the House, that would stop these junk insurance plans from being
sold all around this country, which will trick many Americans into
believing they have insurance when they don't and will dramatically
raise the cost of care potentially in many States for people who have
serious preexisting conditions.
I am not surprised at the objection to both of our unanimous consent
requests. Nevertheless, I am disappointed in it. We will continue to be
down here on the floor for as much time as it takes to try to rally the
whole of this body to protect people with preexisting conditions, to
fight back against the sabotage of the Affordable Care Act and the
healthcare system by this President. Hopefully, one day we will be
successful.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I am proud to be here on the floor today
to join with Senator Baldwin and Senator Jones on their resolution with
Senator Murphy. I have to say to Senator Murphy, before he puts that
down, I have to look at that list and tell you that, before the
Affordable Care Act, I would get calls like this, and I am sure you
did, too.
Someone calls me and would say: I paid into healthcare all my life
and never gotten sick, and then I finally needed surgery. What do you
mean it only pays for 1 day in the hospital? Well, it never paid for
more than 1 day in the hospital, but they didn't know it because they
didn't get sick.
So folks buy the junk plans--and thank you for the list--but they buy
the junk plan being healthy and then will never know that it doesn't
cover those things unless they get sick. When they find out, it will be
too late.
So that is why we are here because we know that healthcare isn't
political. It shouldn't be political. It is personal for every one of
us. It is personal for ourselves and our families. It affects all of
us, whether we are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, vote, don't
vote, urban, rural from any State in the Union.
In fact, when people tell me their healthcare stories, they don't
start by telling me their political affiliation. They talk to me about
what has happened to them, what has happened to their mom and dad, what
has happened to their children. Political affiliation doesn't matter.
People in Michigan simply want to know that the healthcare they
depend on will be there for them and be affordable for them and their
family today and into the future, and that is the fight that we have as
Democrats. We will continue that fight.
Unfortunately, they have reason to be worried about the rise of
short-term, limited duration insurance plans. They should be worried
about what these plans don't cover--junk plans, as we are calling them.
As Senator Baldwin said so well, they are junk. They don't really cover
anything. They make you feel good, as long as you are healthy, that you
have got insurance, but then you find out, when you get sick, that your
child is not covered or you are not covered.
The fact many of these plans are medically underwritten, which means
that the insurance company--by the way, junk plans are about putting
decisions back in the hands of the insurance company, instead of you
knowing that you and your doctor can decide what you need and that it
will be covered. The insurance companies can charge whatever they want
based on somebody's health, gender, age, or other status.
Remember when being a woman was considered a preexisting condition? I
do. These plans are bringing that back. One recent study found that
none of these plans that have been approved by the Trump administration
so far cover maternity care--none of them. We fought hard--I fought
hard--as a member of the Finance Committee to make sure that women's
healthcare and maternity care were covered. Our healthcare is as basic
a healthcare as any man's healthcare and ought to be covered the same.
I want to repeat this. We have a maternal health crisis in this
country, and the administration is pushing plans that don't cover basic
coverage for women. On top of that, these junk plans can exclude people
with preexisting conditions--yes, they can--and impose yearly or
lifetime caps on care.
Remember when you had to worry about how many cancer treatments the
insurance company would pay for? Now, there aren't caps so that you can
decide and your doctor can decide with you on what it takes to put you
in remission and put you on a healthy path. It is estimated about half
of Michigan families include somebody with a preexisting condition--
about half--with everything from heart disease to asthma to arthritis.
I met with some of them earlier this month during the National Brain
Tumor Society's Head to the Hill event.
Tiffany, who is from Livonia, was just 17 years old when she was
diagnosed with a brain tumor. Since then, her tumor has reoccurred six
times. She has been through seven surgeries, chemotherapy, and
radiation treatments. The location of her tumor means that Tiffany has
also lost some of the use of her left arm and hand. Tiffany doesn't
have a choice. Her life depends on having comprehensive health
insurance. Unfortunately, that kind of insurance is getting less and
less affordable.
So when our Republican colleagues come to the floor and say that we
just want to raise prices, let me tell you what has really happened in
the last year. The sabotage by the Trump administration, the
unravelling of the Affordable Care Act, the junk plans, now the
instability and going into court to try to totally repeal the
Affordable Care Act, all of that instability--everything that has been
done--means that comprehensive health insurance costs have gone up 16.6
percent this year, so somebody buying insurance is paying an average
16.6 percent more than they did last year because of all of this effort
to sabotage, undermine, and unravel the healthcare system.
Tiffany should be able to focus on getting the treatment she needs
and living her best life possible, not how she will pay for the
insurance she needs. We all know Tiffany isn't alone. It is estimated
that 130 million people in our country are living with preexisting
conditions--130 million people. That is 130 million people who could be
hurt either directly or indirectly by these short-term junk plans.
Two weeks ago, I had the chance to speak at the Detroit Race for the
Cure, which raises money for breast cancer research and services. As I
stood on the stage and looked out at over 10,000 people, a lot of
beautiful pink all surrounding us in downtown Detroit, I saw people
with preexisting conditions. One woman, who was standing on the stage
near me, asked me the question: Why is it that I have to worry about
whether or not I will be able to get insurance in the future? Why do I
have to worry about that?
She added: Why don't President Trump and other Republicans understand
this is my life?
It is not political for her. It is personal. It is her life. I think
that is a very good question: Why don't Republicans understand that
people like Tiffany and those women in pink deserve healthcare
protections?
Protecting people with preexisting conditions isn't about politics.
It is about saving lives. I urge my colleagues to support this
commonsense legislation and the efforts of Senator Baldwin and Jones.
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