[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18087-18088]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, like all of us in the Senate, I have just 
come back from a great week in Oregon. We own the summer. It is just 
wonderful to be home during these warm days and cool nights. Other 
parts of the country may have beautiful months other times in the year, 
but nobody can beat an Oregon summer.
  I want to talk a little bit about what I heard as I moved around the 
State. What I heard again and again is that folks at home want the 
Senate to change course in Iraq, and they want us to fix health care. 
We are going to start on the first item today in a few minutes when we 
go to the Defense authorization bill. I believe very strongly that we 
don't support our courageous troops in Iraq by forcing them to referee 
a civil war there. I think it will become clear this week that there is 
growing and bipartisan interest in the Senate to set a specific 
deadline to force the Iraqis to make the decisions for themselves about 
how they will govern their Nation.
  So what I want to do is talk for a few minutes about health care--
something I know the President pro tempore of the Senate has a great 
passion about as well, and certainly folks are talking about today--
because the need to fix health care is so great. Of course, many have 
flocked to the Michael Moore movie as well, generating additional 
debate about this issue.
  The first matter on the health care agenda to come up is going to be 
the Children's Health Insurance Program. In my view, passing a strong 
program for kids is about erasing a moral blot on our Nation. It is 
unconscionable that millions of kids, youngsters in Rhode Island and 
Oregon and across the country, go to bed at night without good, 
quality, affordable health care. In a country as rich and strong as 
ours, as the majority leader, Senator Reid, noted earlier this 
afternoon, clearly we can do this, and we can do it in a bipartisan 
way.
  The Senate Finance Committee is not going to pass a children's health 
program that becomes a Trojan horse for government-run health care. 
That is not going to happen in the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate 
Finance Committee is going to work in a bipartisan way under the 
leadership of Senator Baucus, working with Senator Grassley and Senator 
Rockefeller and Senator Hatch, and I am very hopeful that there will be 
bipartisan agreement over the next few days that targets the 
desperately needy youngsters in our country and is responsibly funded. 
I am hopeful that will come together this week, and members of the 
Senate Finance Committee will be working throughout the week on a 
bipartisan basis to bring that about.
  But it is also very clear, in my view, that the State Children's 
Health Insurance Program was not created to solve our Nation's health 
care crisis. In fact, I think when we get on the floor debating the 
children's health program, the Senate will see and the country will see 
that this debate illustrates how broken our health care system is. We 
are clearly spending enough money; we are just not spending it in the 
right places.
  For example, for the amount of money we are spending this year, our 
country could go out and hire a doctor for every seven families in the 
United States and pay that doctor $200,000 a year to care for seven 
families. Whenever I bring this up with the physicians, they always 
say: Ron, where do I go to get my seven families? So, clearly, we are 
spending enough money, and we are going to use the dollars even more 
efficiently, as the Senator from Rhode Island brings us his very 
constructive proposals as they relate to better use of health 
information technology.
  Second, I believe we have the possibility of a real ideological truce 
now in health care. As the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island 
knows from our hearing in the Senate Budget Committee, we saw a real 
consensus emerging just in the course of that hearing. I think it is 
very clear that Senators of both political parties understand that to 
fix health care, we must cover everybody. If we don't cover everybody, 
people who are uninsured shift their bills to folks who are insured. So 
colleagues on my side of the aisle who made the point about getting 
everybody coverage, in my view, have been accurate, and clearly the 
country and citizens of all political persuasions have come around to 
that point of view.
  But as we saw in our hearing in the Senate Budget Committee just 
recently, there is also strong support for something the Republicans 
have felt strongly about, and that is not having the Government run 
everything in health care. There ought to be a role for a healthy 
private sector, one where there is a fairer and more efficient market, 
and there ought to be more choices; in fact, a system much like Members 
of Congress enjoy today.

[[Page 18088]]

  I am very pleased that I could join with Senator Bennett of Utah, a 
member of the Republican leadership, in offering a bill based on just 
those principles. It is S. 334, the Healthy Americans Act, and it is 
the first bipartisan universal coverage bill in more than 13 years.
  The distinguished President pro tempore of the Senate might be 
interested in some history. The last bipartisan, universal coverage 
health bill was offered by the late Senator Chafee--not his son but the 
late Senator Chafee--more than 13 years ago. So now we do have the 
opportunity for the Senate to come together on a bipartisan basis and 
deal with the premier challenge at home, and that is fixing American 
health care.
  I and Senator Bennett also believe there are some key challenges to 
bringing this country together to fix health care, and we believe 
through our legislation we have been able to address it. The first is 
how do you make sure folks who do have coverage today--and that is the 
majority of the people of our country--have a system that works for 
them. So often in the past they have said: Well, we are not exactly 
pleased with what we have, but the devil we know is better than the 
devil we don't know, and those folks in Washington, we don't know if 
they can organize a two-car parade, let alone fix American health care.
  So the first thing Senator Bennett and I said is for people who have 
insurance today, in Rhode Island, in Oregon, and elsewhere, we are 
going to take several steps to assure them that as part of fixing 
health care, we understand their needs.
  The first is with the initial paychecks that are issued. If the 
Healthy Americans Act is adopted, workers win and employers win. 
Workers win because they will have more cash in their pocket, and they 
will have more private choices in a fixed marketplace where insurance 
companies can't cherry-pick. And they will have lifetime security where 
no one can ever take their coverage away. Employers will win with the 
first paychecks as well because they will get out from under the 
staggering rates of cost growth in American health care.
  We all know that employers in Rhode Island and Oregon and elsewhere 
see their premiums go up more than 13 percent annually--far in excess 
of the rate of inflation. We cannot have our employers compete in tough 
global markets when they sustain those kinds of premium hikes and the 
competition they are up against internationally has the benefit of 
government-run health care.
  I think Senator Bennett and I have been able to make the kinds of 
changes in our bill that show we have learned from some of the mistakes 
in the past--most recently in 1993 and 1994, when Congress last tried 
to fix health care. One area we focused on is to make sure we can get 
the savings through cost containment right at the outset.
  A group called the Lewin Group--considered the gold standard of 
health policy analysis--has looked at our legislation, and they found 
we generated savings through our legislation with the cost containment 
needed to fix health care. First, we redirect the money that is spent 
in the Federal Tax Code. Today, more than $200 billion is sent out 
through the Federal Tax Code so that if you are a high-flying CEO, you 
can go out and get a designer smile plastered on your face and write 
off the cost of that operation on your taxes. But if you are a hard-
working woman who works at the corner furniture store in Rhode Island 
and your company doesn't have a health plan, you don't get anything. 
That is not right. So Senator Bennett and I redirect the money under 
the Federal Tax Code to give the bulk of the relief to people in the 
middle-income and lower middle-income brackets, and the Lewin 
organization found significant savings in our doing that.
  They also found significant savings on the administrative side 
because we have a one-stop sign-up process, and all of the essential 
transactions are done through technology transfers. Once you sign up, 
you are in the system forever. They found significant administrative 
savings through that.
  The third area they found specific savings in is what is called the 
disproportionate share program, where hospitals and the Government have 
to pick up the bills for folks who come to hospital emergency rooms and 
have no coverage. Clearly, it would be much better to have those folks 
having private coverage targeted at outpatient services so they can get 
their health care in a way that is better for them and better for their 
finances than to have them all flocking to hospital emergency rooms.
  The fourth area in which we generate savings is by redirecting 
dollars that are now spent on the poor. In Oregon, we have more than 30 
categories of coverage for poor people under Medicaid, so that poor 
people literally have to find a way to squeeze themselves into one box 
or another in order to find coverage--wildly inefficient and, frankly, 
pretty dehumanizing to those who participate.
  The better way to go is to make coverage for low-income people 
automatic. Those who are of modest income would be eligible for a 
subsidy, but it would be for private coverage.
  Finally, we secure savings through significant reform of the private 
insurance sector. Today, private insurance companies can cherry pick 
and take healthy people and send sick people to Government programs 
that are more fragile than they are. That would be barred under our 
legislation. There would be guaranteed issue. They could not 
discriminate against people with illnesses, so that in the insurance 
sector, under our bipartisan legislation, private insurance companies 
would compete on the basis of price, benefits, and quality, rather than 
who can find the healthiest people.
  I see another colleague on the floor. I ask unanimous consent for an 
additional 60 seconds to wrap up. If my colleague will indulge me, I 
would appreciate it.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I talked with our colleague about health 
care, and I know he has an interest in a bipartisan effort. If the 
Senate begins with the children's health insurance program and we make 
it clear this is not some kind of Trojan horse for a Government-run 
health plan, but something that secures the needs for children, I think 
we can do this in a bipartisan way and then, in effect, segue into 
another bipartisan effort to fix health care that would get all 
Americans under the tent for quality affordable coverage.
  Senator Bennett and I have brought before the Senate a proposal, 
particularly on the basis of the hearing in the Senate Budget Committee 
2 weeks ago, that we think can bring the Senate together, go where no 
Congress has been able to go since 1945, when Harry Truman made an 
effort to do it, and that is a rational system so that all Americans 
have quality affordable coverage.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Carolina is 
recognized.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, before I begin my statement, I commend 
Senator Wyden on his vision for health care and his passion for helping 
to equalize our Tax Code in a way that would help every American buy 
private health insurance.

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