[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Page 28355]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment 
briefly on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was 
disclosed late yesterday by our distinguished majority leader, Senator 
Reid, to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for the extraordinary work 
in putting together this very complex legislative proposal. Also, 
compliments are due to Senator Baucus, who chairs the Finance 
Committee, and Senator Dodd, who carried on the work of Senator Kennedy 
on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions bill. The bill provides 
for gross spending of $979 billion over a 10-year period, under the $1 
trillion dollar mark. The coverage allocation is $848 billion. There 
are gross savings of $1,109 billion, and the deficit impact is to have 
a reduction of some $130 billion over the 10-year period. In the second 
10-year period, the projection for savings is substantially greater. 
There will be millions of Americans covered who do not now have health 
coverage, so over 94 percent of all legal residents of all ages will be 
covered.
  We are now digesting this very complex piece of legislation. The 
majority leader has scheduled a cloture vote for Saturday at 8 p.m. It 
is my hope and, candidly, my expectation that we will have the 60 votes 
to proceed for the consideration of this bill.
  It is my view that inaction is not an option; that there are too many 
people not covered by health insurance or who are underinsured. The 
cost of health coverage is escalating at such a tremendous rate. It is 
having a great impact especially on small businesses. A recent 
prominent publication noted that rates for small business were being 
dramatically increased. Senator Harkin scheduled a hearing in the 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. One of my 
constituents from Lancaster came in to testify that his premiums were 
rising by 128 percent. So I believe that inaction is not an option.
  We have had many declarations of positions, and in the Senate, where 
you need 60 votes to move ahead, every one of those votes is 
indispensable. Only one Republican, Senator Snowe in the Finance 
Committee, supported the Finance Committee bill, so there was no margin 
for error. It would be my hope that my colleagues will not draw any 
lines in the sand, realizing that no legislative proposal is going to 
meet the expectations and the desires of every individual Senator. 
There are 100 of us. There are 435 Members of the House of 
Representatives. If there is an art to politics, it is an art of 
listening, of being flexible, and accommodation or compromise.
  So we are undertaking a major historic event. Efforts have been made 
since the days of Theodore Roosevelt to have this kind of health 
coverage legislation. It is too important for us to fail.
  (The remarks of Senator Specter pertaining to the introduction of S. 
2805 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

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