[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 21449-21450]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, 2 nights ago the President of the United 
States spoke in the Chamber down the hall on the other side of the 
Capitol. He did what he needed to do. As I have been in the House and 
Senate--the House for 14 years and the Senate now for 2\1/2\--it was 
the best speech I had ever seen in my time, sitting and listening to 
the last three Presidents. Most importantly, it explained why this 
health care bill is so important and why it works for those who already 
have insurance as it builds consumer protections around those insurance 
policies--no more preexisting conditions, no more cutting people's care 
off because they have been too expensive, no more discrimination based 
on gender or disability or age or geography. It explained why this 
legislation makes sense for people who do not have insurance, who have 
been without insurance or who have inadequate insurance. It really 
explained well why this legislation is so important to small business.
  I have come to this floor almost daily when we were in session the 
last few months, to share stories of Ohioans. I know the Presiding 
Officer, as he traveled in his State, in Northern Virginia and Richmond 
and Roanoke, has heard these stories and gets these letters, too, 
showing the depth of the problem. So many people don't have health 
care, and so many who do have insurance have seen significant problems. 
They have paid their premiums month after month. Then they get very 
sick, they may have to take biologic drugs, they may have long hospital 
visits, their health care may have cost $100,000 or $200,000, and their 
insurance company simply cuts them off. How is that fair?
  Let me share some of these letters today for 7 or 8 minutes and then 
make some comments about them.
  Yvon from Wakeman in Huron County in northern Ohio writes:

       My husband, a union carpenter, was out of work for 7 months 
     straight. He just went back to work in June on a week-by-week 
     basis.
       My husband must get 130 hours of work per month to get 
     insurance. Otherwise, we have to keep paying for COBRA, which 
     expires at the end of the year.

  It is also expensive.

       In June he earned 129\1/2\ hours and we were told that 
     because it was not the required 130 hours, we had to pay out 
     of pocket. We offered to pay for the \1/2\ hour and were told 
     no, we could not.
       There is no way in the world we can afford to pay for 
     private insurance. If my husband does not have enough hours, 
     we will have no insurance. It goes month to month like that. 
     I am a wife, mother, sister, cousin and aunt. I want to live.

  She loses her insurance and can't get her insurance out of a 
technicality. These things will simply not happen under this health 
insurance legislation we are considering over the weeks ahead, where 
insurance companies can deny care for a whole host of reasons, where 
somebody might not qualify for health insurance. Yvon and her husband 
will be able to go in the health care exchange. They will be able to 
get into private care. They can get insurance, if they choose, from 
Aetna or BlueCross. They can work with their union plan that her 
husband apparently has as a carpenter or they can go into public 
option. She would have those choices.
  Bob from Cleveland has been an owner of a steel processing firm since 
1990 and has had to grapple with deteriorating health benefits over the 
last 5 years. His firm employs 30 employees, 20 of whom depend on the 
company's depreciating health care coverage while the remaining 10 have 
had to use alternative forms of insurance--perhaps a spouse who works 
has a good insurance plan. He is hoping that the reform will address 
the burden shouldered by small businesspeople and that Congress will 
craft legislation that protects small businesses from high insurance 
deductibles and premiums.
  The Presiding Officer was in business before he was Governor of 
Virginia and understands this as a business person. When you have a 
small number of employees, you pay a lot more per employee for 
insurance than if you are a larger company. Even worse, if you have 20 
or 30 employees and 2 or 3 of them get very sick and get very expensive 
care, that small businessperson--the owner, the company--sees their 
premiums, their costs go way up or they sometimes get cut off entirely.
  This legislation will allow Bob and his business to take his entire 
business, if he so chooses, into the exchange and go to Signa or go to 
Medical Mutual in Cleveland--it is a not-for-profit Ohio company--or go 
to Aetna or go to BlueCross or go into the public option.

[[Page 21450]]

Bob would have that choice in his business. He also would be elegible 
for significant tax credits as a small businessperson.
  Ricky from Garfield Heights, OH, writes:

       My doctor tried to order a MRI for my back pain. The 
     insurance company declined the request, saying I had to try 
     therapy which only worsened [my condition]. Finally, 
     insurance approved an MRI.
       But shortly after that, my employer could no longer afford 
     that insurance and had to switch to a new provider, which 
     also meant I had to find a new doctor.
       Still suffering from back pain, the new doctor told me I 
     needed another MRI. I asked about using the first MRI, but 
     the new insurance company told me I had to get another one. 
     So I am back to square one, with a bulging disk in my back.

  One of the important things in this legislation is you can keep what 
you have. If you have a physician, you will not be forced into another 
plan and have to choose another physician or another hospital or 
another physical therapist, as happened in Ricky's case, or another 
occupational therapist.
  Sharon from Springboro, OH, between Dayton and Cincinnati, in Warren 
County.

       My husband had a stroke in June 2009 and was released from 
     the hospital a few weeks ago. That's when the real problems 
     started. Our private insurer increased co-pays to $560 a week 
     for the therapy my husband needs. I also learned insurance 
     will stop by the end of the year.
       There's been a lot of worry. We need help now.

  That is the point. This legislation, some people have said--I had 
townhall meetings, meetings all over my State, as many did here. 
Typically, more people were supportive, who showed up--more were for 
the bill than against, but there was certainly a significant number of 
people against it. But a lot of people said: You have to slow down; we 
don't want to take this too fast.
  As President Obama said the other night, Teddy Roosevelt wanted this 
100 years ago. Harry Truman, President Kennedy, President Johnson, 
President Nixon, President Clinton--so many people tried to do this. We 
have been working on this legislation intensively all year. The Health, 
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that Senator Kennedy chaired, 
on which I sit, had 11 days of what is called markup, intensive debate, 
vetting--I have never seen a committee have that long a period of 
examination of a bill like that. We accepted 160 Republican amendments, 
and I voted for most of those amendments. This bill has a lot of 
bipartisan aspects in it. On the big questions, there are philosophical 
disagreements to be sure. The point is, every day we wait, 30 people in 
my State lose their insurance--30 people every single day.
  Sharon from Springboro doesn't want us to wait any longer. We waited. 
We worked on this. We need to do this by the end of the year.
  I will conclude with this one because I know Senator Bond wants to 
take the floor in a moment.
  Vondolee from Franklin County:

       We need health insurance reform. My stepfather has 
     Medicaid, without which he would have died some time ago. As 
     a young man, he had routine shoulder surgery but was 
     transfused with blood that was contaminated with Hepatitis C. 
     He subsequently suffers from other health problems, including 
     deep bone ulcers. Thank goodness he had Medicaid because he 
     would not have been able to pay for his care and recovery.
       Please help the people, not the insurance or pharmaceutical 
     companies.

  Mr. President, your comment on the insurance and pharmaceutical 
companies--I was here in the House of Representatives when the Medicare 
partial privatization legislation was written 5 or 6 years ago. By and 
large, it was written by the drug and insurance companies. It provided 
a lot of private dollars that went to both of those industries.
  Frankly, there is a very strong insurance lobby here in this Congress 
today. The insurance industry is spending up to $1 million a day 
lobbying against it. Insurance companies don't like this legislation.
  A lot of the myths we hear in our town meetings, the myths about 
illegal immigrants getting coverage under this plan, getting 
subsidies--not true; the myths about death panels--not true; the myths 
about euthanasia--not true. A lot of that comes from the insurance 
companies in this town. They have a lot to lose. If this legislation 
passes, the insurance companies will not do quite as well as they have 
been doing, but this bill is in the public interest, not in the special 
interests.
  Those are some of the letters I have received. I know many in this 
body receive letters just like this from people all over their States.
  This legislation is necessary. We need to work hard and move forward 
on this in the weeks ahead.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Missouri.

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