[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21026-21029]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     KATRINA HEALTH RELIEF PACKAGE

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I wish to read a quote from the Chicago 
Tribune, dated September 14, by Judith Graham, Tribune staff reporter 
commenting on the conditions of people needing medical care and needing 
it desperately on the heels of Katrina:

       A New Orleans man with a brain tumor needed surgery fast--
     but when he found himself stranded without health insurance 
     in Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina, it took the 
     intervention of Ruth Kennedy, Louisiana's deputy Medicaid 
     director, to get him help.
       Yet this energetic state official can't possibly pull 
     strings for all of the people who need medical assistance 
     after the storm, such as an 89-year-old Louisiana man, now in 
     Los Angeles with family, who couldn't fill his prescriptions 
     because his Louisiana Medicaid card isn't good in California. 
     Or a displaced New Orleans woman with colon cancer who needed 
     chemotherapy but couldn't get an appointment in the city she 
     had fled to after the storm.
       Meeting the medical needs of up to 1 million hurricane 
     evacuees scattered across the country looms as an enormous 
     challenge. Most of them are without their medical records or 
     any way to contact their physicians; many are suddenly 
     without jobs and at risk of losing their medical coverage; 
     and as a group, they're disproportionately likely to be needy 
     and sicker-than-average.

  Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and I have 
written a bill. We would like the swift passage of that bill. It is the 
Emergency Health Care Relief Act. This bill would provide victims of 
Hurricane Katrina with the health care they urgently need. We should 
pass this bill, and we should pass it immediately.
  We have all seen the terrible destruction, the dead, the displaced, 
the hundreds of billions of dollars in damages.
  Traveling down to the Gulf Coast last week, I saw the havoc Katrina 
had

[[Page 21027]]

wreaked. It is stunning. It is like a war zone. It is worse than the 
pictures. It is worse than I had imagined.
  At one stop, we went into what was left of a library. Muck and ruin 
covered books and other library materials. One shiny object caught my 
eye. I reached down to pick it up. What was it? It was a DVD of the 
film, ``The Perfect Storm.''
  Among its many consequences, the hurricane inflicted countless blows 
to people's health. A third of Katrina evacuees in Houston had injuries 
or health problems, and more than half of those evacuees were seeking 
medical care.
  The bill Senator Grassley and I introduced will provide that care. 
Our bill will provide temporary Medicaid coverage for Katrina 
survivors. It will provide for a streamlined application. It will make 
benefits available right now. It will provide coverage for up to 5 
months, with a possible extension of 5 months. It is emergency health 
care benefits for people who need it. Pregnant women and children will 
be eligible for help at higher income levels, and an extended package 
of mental health services under Medicaid will help survivors deal with 
the trauma of Katrina. To support those who have private health 
insurance, our bill will provide Federal assistance to help individuals 
keep their coverage. I say that with reference to the article I read, 
the reporter's comments about people who do not have health insurance 
anymore because they have lost their jobs. Our bill will help alleviate 
the burden of providing health care. I have been inspired by the sights 
and stories of health care workers who have done all in their power to 
help treat victims. To ensure these providers are compensated, our bill 
establishes a disaster relief fund to cover the uncompensated costs 
they incur because of Katrina.
  There are millions of dollars of uncompensated health care costs. 
Katrina inflicted massive financial losses on the States of 
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. Our legislation calls on the 
Federal Government to pay 100 percent of Medicaid and children's health 
care costs for 2006. For Alabama, the Government will pick up 100 
percent of those costs in several particularly ravaged counties.
  Our bill postpones a scheduled decrease in Federal Medicaid payments 
for 2006 to ensure all States have the means to meet their health care 
needs in this trying time.
  Our legislation provides immediate access to funds through the TANF 
program for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama for 14 months and 
provides these States, as well as States providing services to 
evacuees, immediate access to the TANF contingency fund, which is a 
very important part of the 1996 welfare law. It has been difficult and 
hard to use until now. Our bill eases time limits on aid so people can 
get immediate help, and our legislation provides federally funded 
extension of unemployment benefits for unemployed workers in Louisiana, 
Mississippi, and Alabama. This law will go a long way toward helping 
Katrina survivors to get back on their feet.
  We must act and act now to help those who have been harmed. This is 
an emergency. This is not time for the legislative process as usual. 
This is an emergency. People need help now, not tomorrow. We must do 
our part to help this region and its people, and we can do so today by 
passing the Emergency Health Care Relief Act.
  This bill should be brought up now, today. Several of us have 
approached the leadership to try to get this bill up now and passed 
today. People need help. Many have no insurance. They have lost their 
jobs. Time is critical. Senator Grassley and I and our staffs have 
worked together for over a week. We have a good effort to help meet 
health care needs. The affected States agree. Senators from both sides 
of the aisle of the affected States have all worked with us. We have 
agreement. All Senators in the affected States, including Senator 
Grassley and myself, agree.
  I cannot speak for the House of Representatives, but I can speak for 
us in this body. We have a very good package that I think should pass 
right now. I am very concerned that there are Senators here, on the 
other side of the aisle, who object. No one on this side of the aisle 
objects to this legislation coming up. I am informed there are Senators 
on the other side of the aisle who object to having this legislation 
coming up. The objection is we have not had time to read it. I 
understand that. It was brought up fairly quickly. We can give Senators 
time to read it. We can bring this legislation up tomorrow. Certainly 
they can read it over 24 hours--that is enough time to read this bill--
or the next 72 hours, over the weekend. Certainly there has to be some 
trust around here. Senator Grassley and his staff and I have fly-
specked this bill. We worked very hard together over a period of almost 
2 weeks. We worked with the Senators affected. They all agree, this is 
an emergency. This is not legislation as usual.
  I call on my colleagues, let's bring up this bill and get it passed. 
I am very tempted to ask for unanimous consent to bring up this bill 
now, move us into legislative session, and bring this bill up now. Why? 
Very simply: It is the right thing to do. Very simply: These people 
need help. Very simply: It has been worked on for almost 2 weeks now. 
Very simply: I cannot think of any possible significant, legitimate 
exception.
  I will not push for consideration at this point in deference to those 
who believe they need more time, but I very much hope when the time 
does come, maybe tomorrow, maybe on Monday, that this bill does come 
up, that we work our way through those objections so all Senators can 
unanimously pass this legislation. It is so important, it is so needed 
for so many people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.


                            The War In Iraq

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we have considered many important issues 
on Capitol Hill this week. Here on the floor of the Senate, two major 
appropriations bills have passed, and in the Judiciary Committee, on 
which I serve, we considered the historic nomination of John Roberts to 
be our next Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Those are all 
worthy issues for this Chamber to consider. Unfortunately, not enough 
has been said this week about an ongoing challenge to this Nation, 
which costs us dearly.
  I speak directly to the issue of the war in Iraq. Yesterday I joined 
many of my colleagues for a briefing with the Secretary of Defense, 
Ambassador Jeffrey, and General Myers, about the situation in Iraq. 
Naturally I am constrained and cannot disclose details or specifics of 
that briefing. But I think in the most general terms American people 
understand what is happening in Iraq. Whether it is called terrorism or 
insurrection, it continues apace. Every single day, harrowing reports 
come out of civilian casualties and the deaths and injuries to our 
soldiers. Unfortunately, we do not speak enough on this floor about the 
reality of this war. This is the reality.

       Americans killed in Iraq as of this morning, 1,907; 
     Americans wounded, 14,641.

  If you are not familiar with how these categories of wounded soldiers 
are created, you should understand many of these soldiers suffer far 
more than superficial wounds. I have visited with them at Walter Reed 
Hospital and veterans hospitals back in my part of the country. I have 
seen men and women who are facing amputations, serious head injuries, 
problems that will change their lives forever. The wounds they have 
suffered are wounds they will carry for the rest of their lives.
  There are many veterans who come home from that war with invisible 
wounds, with wounds of spirit--post-traumatic stress disorder from 
things they have seen, things they have done, stress they have been 
placed under for extended periods of time. If you have friends who 
served in the Vietnam war, you may know one who is still trying to 
overcome the fact that he is haunted by that experience. This is the 
reality of war. It is a reality you see time and again, as families 
stand by hospital beds or stand in grief at the funerals. It is a 
reminder that we cannot ignore the issue of the war in Iraq. We cannot

[[Page 21028]]

ignore the reality of what it has brought to America.
  Last week, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani came to Washington. As he 
arrived in Washington, he said he believed the United States could 
safely withdraw 50,000 troops before the end of the year. He said Iraqi 
forces are trained and ready to assume control of their own country. 
Then he went to the White House and he changed his remarks. He was not 
as specific; he was not as definite. He said he hoped the Iraqi troops 
could take over for American troops at some point in the future.
  It was enticing to hear him suggest that 50,000 of the 146,000 
currently serving in Iraq would be home by Christmas. I still think 
that is a goal we should not give up on. Unfortunately, we are still 
waiting for concrete evidence that Iraqi troops are ready to assume the 
responsibility of defending their own country. I am not certain they 
can take on this insurgency today from a political or a military point 
of view. But we need to see a clear path from the point where we are 
today to the withdrawal of American troops. We need to have this 
administration articulate that path and make it clear to the people of 
this country.
  Next month the second report on the status of the training of Iraqi 
forces is due. It is critical that this report provide real information 
on the readiness of these forces to meet President Talabani's 
suggestion. While it must not disclose vital security information, this 
report must include enough data in unclassified form so we know exactly 
where we are today in terms of the Iraqi takeover of the defense of 
their own country.
  The trajectory to date is not encouraging. There have been peaks 
recently, including the historic vote in January in the first real 
democratic election in Iraq's history. But 470 Americans have been 
killed since those elections on January 30 of this year--470. The 
administration to date has not managed to change that terrible 
equation; and 2\1/2\ years after the invasion I still do not believe 
the administration has a clear plan to secure the peace.
  Intelligence analysts, both civilian and military, use a phrase 
called ``ground truthing.'' Geographers and geophysicists use the same 
term. It means going out and physically surveying the terrain, 
recognizing the reality on the ground may not match the map you have 
been given. The solution to this disparity is not to try to bulldoze 
the landscape or to sculpt it to match the map or to sculpt it to match 
an expectation in your mind. The solution is not to blind yourself to 
reality on the ground. The solution is to recognize differences between 
what you expected and what you were actually experiencing. You may need 
to redraw your map. You will almost certainly need to readapt your 
plan.
  From the day of the invasion, plans were drawn up that refused to 
recognize the reality on the ground in Iraq. This administration has 
blinded itself to what I call these ground truths. Our troops rolled in 
and defeated Saddam Hussein and his vaunted National Republican Guard. 
You know why--we have the best fighting men and women in the world. No 
one else even comes close. But defeating an army is not the same as 
defeating an insurrection. The reports we read in the press suggest 
that insurrection is still very strong and very lethal.
  Defeating an insurgency such as that is so much harder. These 
terrorists, these insurgents, do not swim in a sea of sand. They are 
supported by people in Iraq. It demands a completely honest, clear-
eyed, honest, and unbiased understanding of what we are facing, the 
political, cultural, and physical ground truths. I am afraid this is 
lacking in this administration's administration of this war.
  In 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave the commencement address at 
the U.S. Naval Academy. There he said:

       You gentlemen, therefore, have a most important 
     responsibility, to recognize that your education is just 
     beginning, and to be prepared, in the most difficult period 
     in the life of our country, to play the role that the country 
     hopes and needs and expects from you.
       You must understand not only this country but other 
     countries. You must know something about strategy and tactics 
     and logistics, but also economics and politics and diplomacy 
     and history.
       You must know everything you can know about military power, 
     and you must also understand the limits of military power. 
     You must understand that few of the important problems of our 
     time have, in the final analysis, been finally solved by 
     military power alone.

  Iraq has shown us again the limits of military power, even the 
military capabilities of a super power. It has shown us the importance 
of allies. And it has shown us the importance of ground truthing.
  We are now constrained by the limits that are imposed by the prior 
poor decisions this Administration has made in Iraq, not just by going 
to war but in how it went to war.
  If we were prepared for the invasion and the war, we certainly were 
not prepared for what followed. When the administration went to war, it 
failed to build a real coalition. How much different that war would be 
today if the President had at his side Muslim nations helping us to 
maintain stability in Iraq. When it executed the invasion, it tore down 
social, political, and economic structures that couldn't be replaced. 
We saw the beginning of the disintegration when the looting began, and 
it continues almost every day with improvised explosive devices from 
the almost endless arsenal of equipment and ammunition still on the 
ground for the taking in Iraq.
  In Iraq, it sometimes seems that we have been building levees of sand 
that have steadily eroded. I am reminded of the images of the 
helicopters in Louisiana dumping enormous sandbags into a gaping hole 
on a broken levee and how these enormous sandbags would disappear, 
swallowed up by the force of the water. Is that what is happening in 
Iraq? That is what we have to ask, and that is what this administration 
must answer.
  Are we making enough progress in Iraq to justify what it is costing 
us in blood, treasure, and in damage to our own national security? That 
is becoming a more and more difficult question. It certainly is a 
question this administration has not faced forthrightly. The American 
people deserve an answer. Men and women in uniform risking their lives 
today in Iraq deserve an answer.
  If we are not making sufficient progress, what are we going to do to 
change direction?
  I have joined others in saying that progress in the battlefield alone 
is never going to be enough. The Iraqi Government has to function as a 
real Government. It has to be able to provide basic social services, to 
protect its borders, offer its people security, and it is a far 
distance before they ever reach that point. Now, the Iraqi Government 
cannot perform these basic functions. Today, electricity in Baghdad is 
still at prewar levels. Power is off and on for only a few hours each 
day. Barely half the Iraqis have access to clean water. Unemployment 
estimates range from 27 to 40 percent. In addition to the terrible 
atrocities of car bombings and other attacks, street crime is now 
epidemic.
  There are 146,000 U.S. forces in Iraq today, and there are those who 
say that they just aren't enough to do the job. There are others who 
would like to see them all leave tomorrow. But whatever the right 
number is, stability in Iraq, security in Iraq, and peace in Iraq 
depend ultimately upon the Iraqis and their Government--not American 
soldiers and their lives.
  Next month, the Iraqis will again go to the polls to vote up or down 
on a draft constitution that is before them. Voting in a country under 
siege is a real act of courage by the people of Iraq. We respect them, 
and we respect that decision to go and vote very much. This referendum 
is an important step forward in the political process. But however the 
referendum turns out, it is not clear that on October 16--the day after 
the vote--the people of Iraq will be all that much closer to a unified, 
stable, and secure Government. I certainly hope they will be.
  But if the constitution passes without the support of a major faction 
such as the Sunnis, it is hard to see how security and unity will 
emerge, and if the constitution is defeated we may have to start over.

[[Page 21029]]

  The best possible outcome I can imagine is whichever way the 
referendum turns out that it is followed by civic engagements from all 
factions in Iraq--the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites, and others. 
Without that civic engagement, I don't see how the political progress 
in Iraq can succeed. But whatever comes next, we must not let our 
desire to see progress in Iraq blind us to reality.
  We need some political ground truthing as well.
  President Kennedy was right when he said many problems do not have 
military solutions.
  We need an integrated plan for Iraq that addresses critical political 
and economic needs. We need a plan that would finally bring 
international cooperation that this administration initially thought it 
could do without. We need a plan to draw down American forces--not 
merely because the war is less popular in our country but because we 
have to tell the Iraqis, once and for all, they have to take charge of 
their own future and their own security.
  We need a plan that is based on the Iraqi political calendar, not our 
own. That is a plan we still have not received from this 
administration.
  The 146,000 U.S. service men and women in Iraq today risking their 
lives deserve that plan, so do their families at home, and so do the 
American taxpayers who have poured nearly $200 billion into this war--a 
war which continues to demand over $1 billion a week. The war has come 
at a terrible price for Americans.
  This chart shows the most graphic evidence of the cost: 1,907 of our 
best and bravest who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, a sacrifice 
borne by their families forever.
  We don't honor their sacrifice if we refuse to ask the hard 
questions, if we refuse to demand of this administration--any 
administration--to tell us the truth of what we are facing and how we 
will bring this to an honorable conclusion.
  October will give us a better understanding of what is happening in 
Iraq with both the constitutional referendum and the Department of 
Defense report. It is then up to all of us to act on that knowledge, to 
recognize our trajectory and to change the course, if we must.
  Before America loses 2,000 of our best and bravest in Iraq, this 
administration needs to come forward and speak clearly on its plan to 
bring our troops home. This administration needs to make it clear that 
Iraq must accept its own responsibility to protect its own nation.
  If the Iraqi war exposed a failure of intelligence, if Hurricane 
Katrina exposed a failure of imagination and preparation, the lives we 
lose every day in Iraq make it clear that we can wait no longer for 
leadership and vision to bring this war to an end as quickly as 
possible.
  We in the Senate need to do our part. Each year, we consider a bill 
called the Department of Defense authorization bill. It is a bill which 
considers not only what our troops need but what our veterans need.
  If there is ever a time when we should be spending more time on that 
than anything else, it is now, right now, as we are losing soldiers 
every day and seeing these soldiers come home wounded.
  I am sorry to report to you that before we left on the August recess, 
that bill was withdrawn from the calendar. It was taken off the floor 
of the Senate for reasons I still don't understand. The leadership in 
the Senate decided there were more important things to talk about. We 
moved from the Department of Defense authorization bill to a special 
interest bill from the gun lobby that just had to be passed before we 
left for our August recess. That is a mistaken priority. It is a 
mistake that, frankly, does not reflect well on the Senate.
  What could be more important for us to consider at this moment in our 
history than the Department of Defense bill? What could be more 
important than talk about the equipment needs of our troops, to protect 
sons and daughters who are standing in the path of bullets, in the path 
of bombs in Iraq today? What can be more important than to talk about 
veterans' benefits for those who are coming home, to make sure we do 
everything we can to keep our promise to them; that if they will stand 
up for America, we will stand up for our veterans? Why aren't we 
returning to this bill?
  Why is the Republican leadership refusing to go back to the 
Department of Defense authorization bill? It should be the first thing 
on the calendar. But, unfortunately, the decision has been made that we 
will not. I think it is wrong. I think we owe it to the men and women 
in uniform, their families praying for them at home, and everyone in 
this country who is so proud of their contribution to make that our 
highest priority.
  I sincerely hope that when we return to the Senate next week, we will 
return to that Department of Defense authorization bill--return to it 
to make certain that the equipment, the supplies, and all that is 
needed will be there for those troops.
  I can remember the first soldier I visited at Walter Reed so long 
ago. He was from an Ohio unit. He had lost his left leg below the knee. 
I was amazed. There he was still scarred, with IVs running, recent 
amputation. And I asked him what he thought. He said, I want to tell 
you two things. First, please get some protection in those humvees. Put 
some armor in those humvees. They are just moving targets for those 
terrorists in Iraq. Second, tell me how I can get back with my unit.
  I heard that so many times from so many soldiers who feel such an 
obligation to the men and women who stood next to them in battle. If 
they feel that obligation to fellow soldiers, shouldn't we feel an 
obligation to them? Shouldn't we make this our highest priority in the 
Senate?
  I cannot understand why we have failed to do that. I call on the 
leadership, on Senator Frist and others, to set aside whatever you 
planned after we consider Judge Roberts next week and move directly to 
the Department of Defense authorization bill. I can guarantee you that 
you will have the cooperation of the Democratic side of the aisle to 
come up with a definite set of amendments, a limited time for debate 
and a movement to final passage as quickly as possible. Those are 
things we can work out. But we can only work them out if the leadership 
of the Senate believes this is the same high priority that I feel 
today.
  That is our responsibility--our responsibility for these men and 
women who have given their lives and given important parts of 
themselves for this country.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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