[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14118-14119]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          ARE AMERICANS BETTER OFF WITH REGARD TO HEALTH CARE?

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, on a recent visit to South Dakota, I met 
a couple that impressed me a great deal. Their names are Lowell and 
Pauline Larson.
  Throughout their life together, Lowell and Pauline farmed 160 acres 
just outside of Chester, SD. After a lifetime of hard work, they were 
looking forward to a well-earned retirement together.
  But 2 years ago, Pauline suffered a stroke. Before the Larsons knew 
it, they had incurred $40,000 in medical bills. Even though they had 
insurance, it only covered $75 a day of Pauline's hospital costs. So 
Lowell did the only thing he could. He sold all his farm equipment and 
his cattle to pay the bills.
  All they are left with is the deed to their farm, and if Pauline 
suffers another stroke, or if the MS she has been battling for the past 
15 years gets worse, the Larsons know they may have to sell their farm.
  I wish I could say that the Larsons' story came as a surprise to me, 
but it did not.
  For the past 4 years, stories like the Larsons' have become 
commonplace. I've heard from businesses that have been forced to cut 
back on benefits or lay off workers in order to pay for escalating 
insurance premiums.
  I have heard from retirees who have seen their life savings evaporate 
due to the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs.
  I have heard from families forced to sell the businesses or farms 
that have sustained their families for generations, because a child got 
sick and insurance just wouldn't pay for it.
  I have heard from veterans who have been forced off the rolls of the 
VA and have nowhere else to turn for care.
  I have heard from Native Americans forced to undergo a literal ``life 
or limb'' test to receive care at Indian Health Service facilities.
  I have heard from National Guard members who face losing their health 
coverage once their Iraq deployment ends. And I have heard from 
citizens from all walks of life who can't afford the high cost of 
insurance, and who live in constant fear that an illness or an injury 
could throw them and their families into bankruptcy.
  It's no mystery what is happening. Americans are being caught in the 
undertow of historic increases in the cost of health care.
  Millions have lost their insurance. Tens of millions more know that 
they are just one layoff, or one illness, away from a life of poverty 
and poor health.
  In this election year, as with every election year, Americans are 
asking themselves, ``Am I better off than I was 4 years ago?''
  With the cost of doctors' visits, prescription drugs, and monthly 
insurance premiums moving farther out of reach, the answer for most of 
us is clearly no.
  America is enduring a health care crisis that is deepening with each 
passing month. And after four years of inattention from the White 
House, it is clear that when it comes to health care, as a nation, we 
are significantly worse off than we were just four years ago.
  The scope of this crisis is staggering.
  Since 2001, the amount workers are paying for their family coverage 
has increased by 50 percent, and the average premium for family health 
care is now above $9,000 per year. Prescription drug costs rose at four 
times the rate of inflation last year alone.
  Both businesses and workers are feeling the squeeze. And, as a 
result, we have seen unprecedented increases in the number of 
uninsured.
  Each month since January 2001, an average of 100,000 Americans have 
lost their health insurance. Today, 44 million Americans have no health 
insurance whatsoever. The problem is even worse among minority 
communities. One in six Asian and Pacific Americans lacks insurance. 
For African Americans, it is one in five. For Latino Americans, it is 
one in three.
  As startling as these numbers are, they do not include the tens of 
millions more who shuttle on and off the insurance rolls depending on 
unpredictable work schedules.
  Nearly 82 million people lacked insurance at some point in the last 2 
years.
  The impact of losing health insurance can be catastrophic--for 
uninsured individuals, for families, and for our Nation as a whole. 
According to the National Institute of Medicine, children and adults 
without health insurance are less likely to receive preventive care and 
early diagnosis of illnesses. They live sicker and die younger than 
those with insurance.
  Eighteen thousand Americans die prematurely each year because they 
lack health insurance.
  Families suffer emotionally and financially when even one member is 
uninsured. Communities suffer as the cost of uncompensated care is 
shifted onto doctors, hospitals, and taxpayers.
  And our Nation pays a steep economic cost. The Institute of Medicine 
estimates that lack of health insurance

[[Page 14119]]

costs America between $65 billion and $130 billion a year in lost 
productivity and other costs.
  Making the high cost and growing inequities even more troubling is 
that on the whole, we seem to be getting less for our health care 
dollar than we should be.
  The World Health Organization recently reported that Americans pay 
twice as much per capita for health as the average industrialized 
nation. We pay a third more than the next-highest country. But despite 
the high costs, we are not getting any bang for our buck.
  Among industrialized nations, Americans' life expectancy is only 
24th, and we have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the 
world.
  We may pay twice as much, but we don't even get in the top 20 when it 
comes to mortality or life expectancy.
  The results of the past few years beg the question, ``How can we be 
paying the highest costs and getting so meager a return.'' In short, 
where is all the money going? Who is better off today?
  A recent article in the Economist offered one answer.
  Noting that profit margins for health insurers are as high as they 
have ever been, the article notes:

       Since [2000], the prices of many [health insurers' stocks] 
     have quadrupled. And if shareholders have done well, 
     executives have been more than amply rewarded. . . .

  One CEO earned $30 million in pay in 2003 and exercised $84 million 
in stock options from earlier years. This left him with options worth 
$840 million at the company's current share price. His second-in-
command earned $13.7 million in compensation and holds options worth 
$350 million. Another CEO of a leading insurer earned $16 million; yet 
another, $51 million; and still another, $27 million.
  While insurers and their executives are reaping billions, and 
Americans are fearing that their benefits will be the next to be 
sacrificed for the sake of even higher profits, the administration has 
done nothing to rein in the cost of health care. In fact, in the 
recently enacted Medicare bill, the administration included tens of 
billions of dollars in giveaways to HMOs, not to mention the windfall 
created for prescription drug companies.
  The proposals the administration has offered would extend coverage 
only to a small fraction of Americans who lack insurance today. Often, 
their solutions extend meager coverage to a small number of vulnerable 
Americans at the expense of a larger group.
  For instance, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the 
President's plan to create ``association health plans'' would decrease 
the number of uninsured Americans by only about 600,000 people. Six 
hundred thousand out of nearly 44 million. But it would increase 
premiums for 80 percent of employees of small businesses. The 
administration's band-aid approach to our health care crisis won't 
work. It is the wrong treatment, and its cost would preclude us from 
affording the right one.
  The results of the administration's so-called solutions can be seen 
each month as more Americans lose their insurance or feel themselves 
pushed closer to the point where the cost of coverage is too large a 
burden to bear.
  As a nation, we are not better off than we were four years ago. We 
are losing ground. We can do better. But to do so will demand a change 
in direction. We need to reject the notion that we are helpless to 
control health care costs.
  We need to reject the notion that with a little tinkering around the 
edges, our health care system can offer the kind of care every American 
deserves. Most of all, we need to reject the notion that the primary 
purpose of our health care system is to provide profits for health care 
companies and the drug industry.
  That is wrong. That is the thinking that brought us to the point 
where families such as the Larsons are forced to turn over the proceeds 
of their life's work, just to pay the bill for treating a single 
illness.
  There are better answers, and working together we can find them. We 
can find ways to ensure that every American is able to see a doctor 
when he or she is sick. We do not have to be the only major 
industrialized nation in the world that fails to guarantee health care 
for all its citizens.
  We can do better, and none of us should rest until we do.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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