[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16895-16896]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, earlier today, just a couple of hours 
ago, I spoke in this Chamber about the need to expand access to generic 
drugs. I spoke about expanding generic access for biologics--drugs that 
treat cancer, and diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's, 
multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, and a whole host of disabling and 
often fatal diseases. I talked about how much money could be saved with 
a pathway to what are called follow-on biologics--or generics--and how 
much better access that would be for people who simply can't afford the 
thousands of dollars per month that it often costs for these biologics, 
these very expensive treatments. I talked about how it could save money 
for small businesses that so often pay the freight for health care, for 
health insurance for their employees, and how it could save money for 
large companies that simply aren't able to be as competitive around the 
world because of the high cost of these biologics. All this is part of 
a larger debate about health care reform.
  Just a few short days after celebrating our Nation's birthday, we are 
fighting for what should be a right for every American; that is, access 
to affordable health coverage. This isn't about the Republicans. It 
isn't about Democrats. It is not about my part of the country, the 
Midwest, or the Presiding Officer's part of the country, New England. 
It is not about Ohio or New Hampshire or California or Nebraska. It is 
about America. It is about fighting for the next great progressive 
chapter in our Nation's 233-year history.
  Think of the progress as a nation we have made in the last hundred 
years. I wear on my lapel a pin depicting a canary in a bird cage. The 
mine workers used to take a canary down in the mines. If the canary 
died from lack of oxygen or toxic gas, the mine worker knew he had to 
get out of the mines immediately. He had no union strong enough to 
protect him or no government that cared enough to protect him. Think of 
the progress this country has made over these past 100 years since the 
canaries went down in the mines with the miners.
  A baby born in America at the turn of the last century, say, in 1900, 
had a life expectancy of only about 46 years. Today, we live three 
decades longer because of our progressive government, because of a ban 
on child labor, because of civil rights and women's rights, because of 
safe drinking water and clean air, because of seatbelts and airbags, 
because of Medicare and Social Security and minimum wage and workers' 
compensation, and so many great things this institution has done.
  Over the Fourth of July weekend, I was honored to have spent time 
with the Scalia family from Australia. Natalie and Greg Scalia lived in 
the United States, just upstairs from my wife when she was a struggling 
single parent. Greg Scalia was an intern, I believe at the Cleveland 
Clinic, making very little money. They had two children then. They now 
have four children. Will and Issy were born and were here a dozen years 
ago when they lived in the United States for a couple of years in the 
1990s. Born to the Scalia family since living here and joining the 
family on this visit were Richie and Rosie. They came to Cleveland over 
the Fourth of July weekend. They did what Americans do: They went to a 
Cleveland Indians game. Unfortunately, typically, they saw the Indians 
lose--a pattern that has been all too common this year. They went to a 
parade in the southwest part of Cleveland, they went to picnics, and 
they had family time.
  As I talked with Dr. Scalia and all of us talked about the current 
debate over health care reform, it occurred to me that this debate and 
the hours and hours spent by staff and Members who work in the Senate 
in crafting the public plan we announced last Thursday, the issue of 
generic drugs we engage in today and all the work done on prevention 
and on quality of care and on workforce training and on stopping fraud 
in the Medicare system--all the different kinds of health care systems 
overall are really part of the American experience. But years from now, 
when we look back on this, we will know that it is not about terms such 
as ``public option'' or ``follow-on biologics'' or concepts such as 
preventive care, quality control, or the discharge plan, where people 
leave hospitals; this is really all about American families.
  That is why, as we celebrated the Fourth of July over the weekend, it 
was particularly important to think about what we do this month in the 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, on which I sit, and 
in the Finance Committee--the two committees of the Senate joined with 
the House Ways and Means Committee and the Education and Labor 
Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee--as we work on this. 
Our first pledge is to protect what is right in our health care system, 
and our second pledge is to fix what is wrong.
  Protecting what is right means if you have health insurance and you 
are pleased with your health insurance, you keep it. No government is 
going to tell you to change that; you keep what you have. If you are 
unhappy with your insurance, if you are dissatisfied or simply have no 
health insurance or have very inadequate health insurance, then we can 
offer you private insurance or we can offer you public insurance--the 
public plan option, so to speak--that will give you the choices as an 
American citizen.
  This is a historic moment for our country. This is the first time 
since Franklin Roosevelt thought about trying to add health care, a 
Medicare-like

[[Page 16896]]

system, to Social Security in the 1930s. He backed off under pressure 
from the American Medical Association. In the 1940s President Truman 
offered Medicare. He was not able to pass it for all kinds of reasons. 
In 1965, President Johnson, with the huge Democratic majorities, the 
biggest majorities we have had in the last 70 years, was able to pass 
Medicare and Medicaid, and look what that brought us.
  Madam President, as you join us in your first term from New 
Hampshire, and many other freshmen who have moved on this side of the 
aisle--we have sort of squeezed these desks together, as we see--we 
will be facing a historic moment where we will have a chance to provide 
health insurance and help all these families I saw on the Fourth of 
July reach the American dream. It is an opportunity for people who have 
not had health insurance and people who have inadequate health 
insurance to be able to provide for their families. They are working 
hard and they are playing by the rules. They work as hard as any United 
States Senator. The comforts of their job are not nearly as much as we 
have in this body, and they are deserving of the same kind of health 
insurance that people in this Chamber have--Senators, staff people, all 
of us.
  This is a great moment, a historic moment, as we move forward in the 
history of our great country.

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