[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24420-24421]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will 
proceed to a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators 
permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. The Republicans will 
control the first 30 minutes. The majority will control the second 30 
minutes.
  Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of 
the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Act. We hope to reach 
short time agreements on available conference reports. Senators will be 
notified when any votes are scheduled during today's session of the 
Senate. Senators Shelby and Mikulski feel we can finish the bill that 
we are working on today.


                      Finance Committee CBO Report

  The Finance Committee report came out yesterday from CBO. It was 
outstanding, $81 billion, bending the curve. That bill will be voted on 
by the Finance Committee on Tuesday morning. It will be reported to the 
Senate.
  Since Harry Truman was President, Democrats have fought to make it 
more affordable to live a healthy life in America. Every day we come 
closer to achieving that goal. Yesterday was a landmark occasion. 
Yesterday the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirmed that 
the Finance Committee plan, which is one of the five plans in Congress 
to reform the way health insurance companies treat people in this 
country, will reduce the deficit.
  It did not say it will keep the deficit the same. It did not say it 
will increase it, not even by one penny. It said, in black and white, 
that the Finance Committee's bill will reduce our deficit, not just in 
the short term but over the long term as well.
  That is something progressives, conservatives, and Independents, 
everyone in between, can be thankful for and can applaud. Today we 
stand closer than ever to fulfilling that fundamental promise, the one 
for which we have fought more than 60 years. We stand closer than ever 
to fulfilling the cause of Senator Ted Kennedy.
  But as anyone who has even superficially followed the debate knows, 
the route to realizing Senator Kennedy's dream is far from smooth 
sailing. There are still those who will not rest until the American 
people are denied the change they demanded, those who will not be happy 
unless the status quo is sustained. There are those who still want to 
pick fights against us, even though we are interested only in fighting 
for hardworking American families. There are those who consider this a 
zero sum game and will only declare victory if President Obama concedes 
defeat. So let me be very clear. Just as Democrats believe in ensuring 
quality, affordable health care for every American citizen, we believe 
equally as strongly that this country has no place for those who wish 
for its leaders to fail.
  Just as yesterday brought us another step closer to real reform, it 
also brought us another round of Republican excuses, from the 
Republican leadership on down. The other side remains trapped in its 
strategy of distortion, distraction, and deception. Yesterday on the 
Senate floor, the Republican leader asked rhetorically: What happens to 
Medicare under our plan? Well, let me answer that question. Under our 
plan, seniors pay less for their medicine. Under our plan, seniors pay 
nothing for their annual checkup. Under our plan, seniors pay nothing 
for preventive care. And, under our plan, doctors who treat seniors get 
a raise.
  But the other side is not letting those facts get in the way of a 
good sound bite. Instead, yesterday on the Senate floor, the Republican 
leader said: Our plan will cut Medicare. What he did not bother to say 
is that the only thing we are cutting is the waste rampant in that 
system, waste that you as a taxpayer pay in every paycheck.
  Yesterday on the Senate floor, the Republican leader said: 
``Republicans have tried to protect Medicare throughout the debate.''
  Listen to that one: ``Republicans have tried to protect Medicare 
throughout the debate.''
  What he did not bother to say is that this debate is also the first 
time in history Republicans ever found such an interest. The fact is 
that ever since Senate Republicans opposed the creation of Medicare, 
they have spent the past 40 years on the wrong side of history when it 
comes to helping seniors.
  In the past 10 years, Republicans have voted against protecting and 
strengthening Medicare 59 times. When President Bush vetoed the 
Medicare Improvement Act last year, the only Senators who supported 
that disastrous veto were his fellow Republicans here in the Senate. So 
the American people can be excused for not buying the Republicans' 
eleventh-hour claim that

[[Page 24421]]

they are the true guardians of seniors' health care.
  It is telling that after weeks of negotiations, months of debate, and 
decades of national movements for health insurance reform, this is the 
best they can came up with. It is telling that one of their most oft-
repeated arguments protests not the contents of the bill but now the 
number of the pages of the bill. How is that for criticism: The bill 
has too many pages.
  Let's not forget the Republicans only offer arguments in response to 
our plan to make health care more stable and more secure. We have yet 
to hear any Republican arguments in support of their own health care 
ideas. Why? Because there are not any. They do not exist.
  The Republican plan is nothing more than the status quo. Under the 
Republican plan, insurance companies can continue to deny a person 
coverage when they need it the most. Under the Republican plan, 
insurance companies can deny you coverage because you have high 
cholesterol or hay fever or even heart disease.
  They can raise your rates because you are getting older, because your 
dad had prostate cancer, or simply because you are a woman. Under the 
Republican plan, if you have health insurance, your family has to pay 
at least $1,000 a year more to cover all of the other families who have 
none.
  Republicans in Congress are the only ones who support that plan. The 
rest of the country knows we need to act and we need to act now. Here 
is a list of those who support our plan to improve our health insurance 
in the short term and the long term alike: doctors; hospitals; the 
pharmaceutical industry; a bipartisan group of Governors; President 
Obama, who has made fixing health care his top priority; Democrats in 
Congress who are committed to getting it done this year; and, at the 
top of that list, the American people, 9 of 10 of whom say high health 
care costs are hurting their families, crushing their families.
  In recent days, prominent, courageous, independent-minded Republicans 
throughout this country have added their names to that list of people 
who are crying for health care reform. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the 
Governor of a State with 38 million people, the most populous State in 
the Union; Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of the most populous city in 
the country; Bobby Jindal, the Governor of Louisiana--Republicans asked 
him to provide their party's response to President Obama's first ever 
address to Congress--Tommy Thompson, former Governor of Wisconsin, 
former Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bush; 
Mark McClellan, former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid 
Services under President Bush; Bill Frist, former Senate majority 
leader and a physician who said last week, if he were still in the 
Senate, he would vote for health insurance reform; and, Bob Dole, 
today, announced that he supports something being done. This former 
majority leader and Republican nominee for President this week 
encouraged his party to drop their ``just say no'' strategy. He was 
even stronger in his statements today.
  Here is a list of those who think things are just fine the way they 
are: Republican leaders in Congress. That is it. That is the list. And 
that is the real match-up in this health care debate. It is clear to 
see who is listening to the American people, who has tuned them out.
  Democrats are willing to listen not only to the American people, we 
are also more than willing to listen to congressional Republican ideas, 
if they offer any, to move this debate forward. We would be happy to 
end up with a bill that does not rely on 60 Senators but one that can 
earn a lot more.
  But until that happens, until Republicans in Congress show they want 
to be productive partners rather than partisan protesters, we will 
continue to do what the vast majority of the American people demand 
that we do; that is, continue moving forward to improve a badly broken 
system.
  I agree with President Obama who told Congress last month: We have no 
patience for those who seek more of the same failed ideas. We have no 
patience for those who contribute only criticism and not constructive 
input. We have no patience for those who mischaracterize our plan or 
mislead the people, and will call them out when they do.
  That is what the speech was all about. We believe this because we 
believe the American people deserve to be told the truth. We believe 
hard-working families already have enough real problems to worry about 
without having their time wasted with fake problems. We believe this 
country is no place for those who hope for failure, failure of their 
leaders.

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