[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17367-17368]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, many Americans are fortunate to have health 
insurance to help them pay for their prescriptions, treatments, or even 
doctor visits. Like any kind of insurance, we hope we never have to use 
it, but it is comforting to know it is there. But what happens if the 
system designed to give us that sense of security and stability is not 
itself secure or stable? Where does one turn when that certainty is 
taken away? That is the fear too many middle-class families in America 
have. They see the jobs around them disappear. For some, one of those 
jobs may be their own job. They see their paychecks get smaller, or 
they struggle each week because that paycheck simply does not go far 
enough. They may have insurance today, but they don't know if they will 
be able to say the same tomorrow.
  Too many families in the greatest country and the largest economy in 
the world, by far, live just one illness or one accident or one pink 
slip away from losing that sense of security--their health insurance.
  Far too many families have to make a decision when their children get 
sick: Do they buy them new school supplies or do they buy them clothes? 
Do they buy some extra groceries for the family or are they going to be 
able to take them to the doctor? As I say, do they get them new clothes 
when they grow out of their old ones or do they get the treatment they 
need to stay healthy or even to get healthy? Far too many hard-working 
Americans have to make a choice when their doctor gives them a 
prescription for chronic illness, or what insurance companies like to 
call a preexisting condition. Do they get that medicine or do they add 
that little piece of paper to a top of a mounting pile of bills they 
cannot afford to pay?
  What about small businesses, those entrepreneurs in big cities and 
small towns that innovate, invent, and fuel our economy? They do have a 
choice to make. Do they hire new employees? Do they lay off more hard-
working Americans or do they just simply cancel their health insurance 
for their employees because it is too expensive? Businessmen and 
businesswomen do not have a lack of insurance because they are cheap or 
they do not care about their employees, they do not have health 
insurance because they cannot afford it. It is too expensive.
  Taking your child to the doctor, filling a prescription, and giving 
your workers health insurance should not have to be choices. They 
should not end in question marks. That is exactly why we are working to 
bring stability and security back to health care. Health care reform 
means making sure every American can afford access and care. Reform 
means making sure that if you lose your job, your health care will not 
go with the job you have lost. It means if you change jobs, your health 
care stays with you. Reforming health care means that if your mother 
had breast cancer or you had minor surgery last year or your kid gets 
allergies every spring, your insurance company cannot say: I am sorry, 
you are just too much of a risk for us to cover anymore. Health care 
reform means lowering the cost of care and keeping it low. It means 
improving the quality of care you get and keeping the quality high. It 
means that premiums you pay every month will not go up just because 
your insurance company feels as if they should.
  Senator Patty Murray of Washington told a story. I was at an event 
with her yesterday. She got up yesterday morning to find in the 
Washington press an insurance company that insures 135,000 
Washingtonians will have a 17.5-percent increase immediately in their 
health insurance premiums. That is an average. Some are higher, some 
are lower. Reform means the premiums you pay every month will not go up 
just because your insurance company feels like it. It means keeping 
costs stable so the price of staying healthy does not fluctuate like a 
gallon of gas. It not only means making sure you can keep going to your 
family doctor or keep your health care plan if you like it but also 
that you can afford to do so.
  No one can predict when the next accident might come, when one might 
get laid off. We don't know when we will get sick or when one of our 
loved ones will get sick. But we can put people in control of their own 
health care.
  A doctor's first job when someone comes into the emergency room is to 
stabilize the patient. When it comes to addressing the emergency care 
in our health system, our job is to do the same--stabilize it. We have 
to cure the uncertainty in health care. We must fix our broken health 
care system so that when you open your medicine cabinet, you can be 
certain the prescription you need to get better will be there. When you 
open your wallet, you should be certain you can afford to go to the 
doctor. And when you open that small

[[Page 17368]]

business in your hometown, you can be certain you can hire employees to 
grow your company, put your ideas into motion, realize your American 
dream, and have your employees covered with health insurance.
  The status quo is ruining our country's financial stability. Right 
now, one-sixth of every dollar spent in America goes for health care. 
If we do not change this, by the year 2020--that is a little over 10 
years away--it will be 35 cents of every dollar spent will be on health 
care. It will bankrupt our country. We must change this.
  I ask my Republican colleagues: Let's not make this a partisan issue. 
Let's work together. That is why I so appreciated a number of valiant 
Republicans on the Finance Committee working together to try to come up 
with a health care plan that can be supported by Democrats and 
Republicans in the Senate. We can do it alone. Democrats can do it 
alone. We do not want to do it alone because it would be under 
something we call reconciliation, and it changes the rules. And instead 
of being able to do a large amount of health care, we are only going to 
be able to do a little health care. We want to work with our Republican 
colleagues. This is not a partisan issue. People losing their health 
care are not Democrats, Republicans, or Independents; they are 
Americans, whether from the State of Oregon or the State of Nevada.
  The Presiding Officer represents the State of Oregon. There is 
extremely high unemployment in Oregon, higher than in Nevada, and we 
are over 11 percent. In 1 month, we went from 10.4 percent to 11.3 
percent unemployment. So the people losing their jobs, losing their 
health care in Oregon and Nevada and all the rest of the States are not 
partisans. They want something done to restore their jobs, to get them 
new jobs, and to give them health insurance, if they do not have it, 
and make sure it is not taken away from them.
  I reach out to my Republican colleagues to join with us in this 
necessity of doing something about health care. This is not something 
we are looking for work to do. We are doing it because it is absolutely 
essential. Right now, I repeat, one-sixth of every dollar spent goes to 
health care in America. If we do not change this, in just a few years 
it will be 35 cents of every dollar. We cannot sustain that.
  Mr. President, it is my understanding you are going to open morning 
business.

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