[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 22]
[Senate]
[Pages 29518-29522]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             SERVICE MEMBERS HOME OWNERSHIP TAX ACT OF 2009

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 3590, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3590) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 
     1986 to modify the first-time home buyers credit in the case 
     of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal 
     employees, and for other purposes.

  Pending

       Reid amendment No. 2786, in the nature of a substitute.
       Lincoln amendment No. 2905 (to amendment No. 2786), to 
     modify the limit on excessive remuneration paid by certain 
     health insurance providers to set the limit at the same level 
     as the salary of the President of the United States.
       Johanns motion to commit the bill to the Committee on 
     Finance, with instructions.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the next 3 hours of 
debate will be equally divided between the two leaders or their 
designees, controlled in 45-minute alternating blocks of time, with the 
majority controlling the first portion of time.
  Who yields time?
  The junior Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Franken are printed in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')
  Mr. FRANKEN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first of all, let me say I am glad we are 
here this weekend. Oh, I know we like to be with our families, we have 
Christmas shopping to do and things such as that. It is always nice to 
be with our families on the weekends. But think about it this way: 
Millions of Americans today are giving up their weekends, they are 
giving up their nights, their holidays, because they are either out of 
work, they are working part time, they are trying to do odd jobs to get 
enough money together to keep their families intact. So they are 
working at nights, they are working on weekends. They are not taking 
time off. They are out there looking for work now or out there doing 
odd jobs, whatever they can possibly do. They are making sacrifices. 
They are making sacrifices for their families, but they are also making 
these sacrifices to pay their medical bills or to afford their needed 
prescriptions. It seems to me we owe them nothing less than the same 
level of commitment to the task of bringing quality, affordable health 
care within their reach.
  Our leader, Senator Reid, was right to call the Senate into session 
this weekend. We ought to keep at this bill, this health care reform 
bill, working hard, until the Senate finishes the job before us. 
Nothing less will do.
  I do not plan to spend a lot of time on the debate over Medicare 
Advantage that we had yesterday. However, after listening to the 
comments yesterday, I did want to mention briefly editorials that 
appeared in the Des Moines Register. The first was published 6 years 
ago when the Senate considered the Republican Medicare drug 
legislation. The major element of that bill was to give outrageous 
bonuses to private health plans in Medicare Advantage. In criticizing 
that proposal, the Register called on Members of Congress ``to remind 
themselves their job is to serve the interests of the people, not 
industry lobbyists.''
  Sadly, we didn't heed that call that time, 6 years ago. Instead, 
Congress, under Republican leadership at that time, enacted a bill that 
provided a massive and unjustified windfall to the insurance industry.
  The Register revisited the same subject in an editorial this year, 
May 31 of this year. Here is what they said:

       Congress encouraged private insurance plans, known as 
     Medicare Advantage plans, which have cost taxpayers more than 
     covering seniors in traditional government-administered 
     Medicare.
       Congress should not repeat the mistakes it made in 2003 
     when reforming Medicare--catering to special interests and 
     pushing people into private-sector insurance coverage.

  Our health bill, the one we have before us, heeds these words. We 
stand up

[[Page 29519]]

to the special interests that even today are demanding billions of 
dollars in taxpayer funds to prop up their inflated profits. So 
yesterday was a good day. Yesterday we said no to giving the insurance 
industry a $120 billion bonus for doing the same job that Medicare can 
do for far less.
  Today we will consider a proposal from Senator Lincoln to say no to 
the outrageous salaries that top executives in these companies receive. 
Chief executive officers at the seven leading insurance companies made 
a combined $118.6 million in 2007 alone, an average of $11.9 million 
each. Let's compare that to the wages of millions of Americans or the 
minimum wage. For someone making the minimum wage, it would take nearly 
800 years to make what these insurance company executives make in 1 
year.
  Again, here is the CEO compensation. For United Health Group, they 
made $2.9 billion in profit in 2008 and they paid their CEO $9.4 
million; WellPoint, $9.8 million; Aetna, $24.3 million; Humana, $47.3 
million; Coventry Health Care, $11 million; Cigna, $4.4 million. That 
is the CEO compensation. That probably is not the whole package when 
you consider all the other benefits they get, deferred compensation and 
on and on--golden parachutes, all that kind of stuff. That is basically 
their CEO compensation for the year.
  As you can see, they get paid pretty well and $11.9 million is the 
average. Here is Aetna, $24 million a year. They had a profit of $1.3 
billion that year. So they did well, their shareholders did well, their 
CEO did well. But how about the consumers, the working families?
  In 2003, by the way, Aetna, this company right here, making all this 
money, paying their CEO $24 million a year--in 2003 Aetna settled a 
lawsuit. You know, usually when you settle lawsuits it is because you 
think you are going to get hit worse down the line. They settled a 
lawsuit brought by who? Brought by physicians, a whole group of 
physicians brought a class action against Aetna because they had a 
history of shortchanging patient care. Aetna settled for $470 million, 
just to get away from it, in 2003.
  There was not any money to help them afford the coverage patients 
need, but they had billions for profits and they had millions for 
salaries--nothing for working families.
  The reality for working families across America is simply this: 
Insurance premiums have skyrocketed, outpacing the growth in wages over 
the same period. Quality affordable health care is slipping further and 
further from the grasp of middle-class Americans. Between 1999 and 
2007, the average American worker saw wages increase 29 percent. 
Insurance premiums during that same time rose more than 120 percent. 
They see the premiums skyrocketing, but their health care is slipping 
away.
  There is something else. The profit margins of the insurance industry 
soared. Over the last 7 years the profits of the seven largest publicly 
traded health insurance companies increased by 428 percent. Profits 
increased by 428 percent, from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion. Yet look 
at what our workers' wages went up--29 percent.
  Now you begin to understand why people in this country are upset and 
discouraged and outright mad about their lack of health insurance 
coverage, about the affordability of that coverage and the quality of 
that coverage. Yet with all of this money that is going to their CEOs 
and huge increases in the profits they make, our Republican friends on 
the other side of the aisle say they still need a Federal handout. The 
industry cannot find a dime to bring down prices for consumers but they 
can find millions to lobby for more special favors.
  The Wall Street Journal reported that the health care industry 
boosted their efforts in lobbying this year. In a quote from the Wall 
Street Journal:

       Overall, the health-care sector reported a five percent 
     increase in lobbying expenditures to $133 million, making it 
     the single largest spender on lobbying of the 10 major 
     industry sectors tracked by the Center for Responsive 
     Politics. Health-insurance companies increased lobbying 
     activity by 11 percent to $7.8 million, according to the 
     data.

  An increase of 11 percent. You wonder why all this health sector this 
year had $133 million in lobbying expenditures. I think, if I am not 
mistaken, the supposed, stated purpose of health insurance is to 
protect Americans from the cost of illness. Supposedly their purpose is 
to keep the American people healthy and productive for the benefit of 
society. Yet over some 60 years, this industry, the health insurance 
industry, has transformed itself from an industry that is there to help 
you to an industry that is there to take money from you when you are 
healthy and avoid paying your bills when you get sick. This is an 
industry with armies of actuaries and functionaries whose job is to 
prevent you from enrolling if you have a preexisting condition. It is 
an industry that looks at the fine details of your medical records when 
you get sick so they can figure out how to cancel your policy and leave 
you high and dry when you need their help the most, as has been said 
many times around here.
  The majority, actually 62 percent of bankruptcies in America, is 
because of medical costs, and 80 percent of that group had health 
insurance. They actually had health insurance, but they had to file for 
bankruptcy because--they didn't know it, but in their contract, in 
their policy, there was some fine print called a rescission clause, or 
there is fine print in there on terms of their annual or lifetime caps, 
which most people do not even know are in their policies. But when they 
got very sick, all of a sudden their policy got rescinded, which means 
when it came up for renewal the insurance company didn't renew it, and 
here you are with an expensive chronic disease or illness such as 
cancer or heart disease or disability, and they cancel your policy. You 
are left with only one recourse--file for bankruptcy.
  This is an industry which defines being a victim of domestic violence 
as a preexisting condition. I spoke about this previously. Only in 
America, with this health insurance industry running everything in 
terms of our health care coverage, only here would we have a situation 
where a woman can be the victim of domestic violence, be battered, get 
medical help, go to the hospital perhaps, a victim of domestic abuse, 
and then later on find that she can't get her policy renewed because 
she has a preexisting condition, the preexisting condition of being the 
victim of domestic violence.
  You may think that is outlandish, but it is true, and it happens. All 
we are seeking is competition, openness, transparency, and fairness.
  The insurance industry, what are they seeking? They are seeking to 
preserve and protect a sweet deal they have been enjoying on the backs 
of middle-class Americans and seniors. The proposal Senator Lincoln is 
offering says basically: Enough is enough. In defense of their 
outlandish salaries, the insurance company CEOs cite the difficulty of 
their jobs and the complexity of their tasks. The President of the 
United States probably has a pretty difficult job. He has a few complex 
tasks to confront. There is no reason insurance company CEOs should get 
a tax break on salaries higher than the President's. That is exactly 
what the Lincoln amendment does.
  I thank Senator Lincoln for her commonsense proposal. I think 
consumers across America should know that when they pay their hard-
earned dollars to cover the soaring cost of premiums, they are not just 
chipping in to pay for the CEOs' next new yacht or the newest Mercedes 
in the driveway. In homes across Iowa people are clipping coupons and 
making do with secondhand, patching up instead of buying new. They have 
had to make sacrifice after sacrifice to afford premiums that provide 
coverage for their health care. It is outrageous that their hard-earned 
cash goes for gold-plated salaries and bonuses. Senator Lincoln is 
right to take a stand against these excesses. I urge my colleagues to 
support her amendment.
  The Lincoln amendment is consistent with a major theme of our 
legislation. It is basically standing up to the health insurance 
industry on behalf of consumers. Her proposal will add one more 
important item to the list of benefits our legislation will bring to 
American patients.

[[Page 29520]]

  As I said before, this bill ends the practice of denying coverage 
because a person has a preexisting medical condition. I would wager 
probably every Member of this Senate has some kind of a preexisting 
condition of some sort, and every one of us could be turned down if we 
didn't have the kind of secured program under the Federal employees 
program. Why shouldn't the rest of the American people have the same 
kind of security?
  This legislation ends the lifetime limits and bans unreasonable 
annual limits. Our bill gives young people better options to stay on 
their family's and parents' plan until they are age 26. It also ends 
the outrageous practice of charging women higher prices for the same 
policy, the exact same policy a man gets. I can remember, during my 
town meetings back in August, talking about this issue. People were 
startled to learn that an insurance company can charge a woman up to 
twice as much for the same policy--same age, all the same parameters, 
same occupation, same kind of history. They can charge a woman up to 
twice as much as a man for the exact same coverage, the exact same 
policy. We get rid of that in this bill. We do not allow that kind of 
discrimination in any other kind of industry. Why should we allow it in 
this industry?
  Our bill provides better options for individuals, small businesses, 
farms, for the self-employed. I have said many times the biggest 
winners in our health care reform bill are small businesses and the 
self-employed. Right now they are sort of at the end of their rope. 
They have no bargaining power whatsoever. Our bill will create 
exchanges so they will be able to go on the exchange and pool with 
other people for more options, more competition, more transparency 
available.
  Some places in Iowa we have only one insurance company offering 
policies. There is absolutely no competition. Setting up the exchanges 
will allow our self-employed and small businesses to get more 
bargaining power.
  These are the kinds of measures the American people want and need to 
make sure they get a fair deal on the coverage they buy. We need a 
health insurance industry that is a partner for employers and ordinary 
Americans, charges fair premiums, treats us right, and pays our bills 
when we get sick. That is what our bill is all about. It is to end a 
lot of these outrageous practices that have gone on for far too long in 
the health insurance industry.
  A lot of times people say: You are always beating up on the health 
insurance industry. Not really. We are just taking them to task for 
where they have gone. Years ago when they first started out, they were 
doing a good job. Then the greed, the normal human nature and greed for 
more profits, higher CEO salaries, $24 million salaries for CEOs, gold-
plated benefits packages for all their CEOs and corporate executives; 
it just got out of hand. It became a situation where almost one health 
insurance company was trying to outdo the others in terms of how much 
money they could squeeze out of the consumers. It is just a system that 
sort of ran amok.
  Now it is up to us in the Congress to rein it in, to make the health 
insurance industry what it ought to be--a fair and reasonable, 
competitive system for the consumers. That is what this bill does. To 
me, that is the American way. That is why we have to stay here on the 
weekends, if we have to. If we have to be here today, fine; and 
tomorrow, fine; and all next week, fine; and next weekend; and, if we 
have to, right through the holidays.
  The American people are looking to us to get this job done. We are 
going to get the job done. No matter how much our friends on the 
Republican side want to delay, delay, delay, and try to kill this bill, 
it is not going to happen. This bill is unstoppable because the 
American people are demanding that we do something about it. We are 
responding to that, and we are going to get the job done.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, we gather today on a Saturday which, as 
many Americans know, is rare, but it is entirely appropriate and 
essential that we make sure we spend the time on a weekend to debate 
this bill and to get the bill passed. I commend the words of Senator 
Harkin and his great work over many months on this legislation. We are 
grateful for his leadership. I commend Senator Lincoln on the amendment 
we will vote on today regarding executive compensation.
  I rise to speak about children, as this bill affects their lives--in 
particular, the lives of children who are particularly vulnerable. I 
have said a number of times in this debate that at the end of this 
debate, when the bill is enacted into law, we should be able to say 
that no child is worse off, especially a child who happens to be poor 
or has special needs. That is what I rise to speak of this morning.
  I had a joint resolution a number of months ago that was filed 
relating to this bill. It was joined in by Sen-
ators Dodd, Rockefeller, Brown, Whitehouse, and Sanders. It was simple. 
It basically said what this chart says: No child worse off at the end 
of the debate. It is a fundamental principle, but I also believe it is 
a commitment we must keep. When we talk about the legislation before 
us, we are not talking about some new system. We are talking about 
figuring out a way--and I think we have in the Senate--to fix what is 
broken and build upon what works. I believe that is what we are trying 
to do.
  When it comes to children, we have special considerations, and we 
have to have unique strategies to make sure they get the best health 
care possible. As so many child advocates tell us--and it seems like 
such a simple maxim--children are not small adults. That is a profound 
statement. You can't just take a health care program for adults and 
overlay that on the health care that is provided to children. Children 
are not small adults. They are different. The care they get has to be 
different. It has to be tailored and focused on their needs. The care 
they get, especially a child who is vulnerable, is determinative of 
their life. If we don't provide them the kind of care in the dawn of 
their life, as Hubert Humphrey talked about, there is very little after 
that we can do to save them or to allow them to reach their full 
potential.
  That bright light inside a child, if we miss the opportunity to care 
for that child, will never be the same. We have an opportunity in this 
debate, and at the end of the debate with the legislation, to 
positively affect the lives of countless American children.
  I have some changes I will propose to the Children's Health Insurance 
Program, but I wanted to speak this morning about parts of the bill 
that speak directly to the needs of at least two vulnerable children, 
two young girls by the name of Hannah and Madeline from Pennsylvania.
  I will get to their story in a moment, but their mother, Stacie, 
communicated with us and a lot of other people about their lives and 
their challenges. I did want to first review some of the basic parts of 
the bill. We often say this bill contains consumer protections. That is 
a nice-sounding phrase, but when you talk about consumer protections in 
the lives of young children such as Hannah and Madeline, it takes on a 
whole new meaning. I will talk more about them in a moment.
  I want to walk through some of the basic provisions in the bill as 
they relate to children and what we have in the bill already.
  No. 1, the bill ensures pediatric input into benefit packages so that 
the skill and the knowledge of a pediatrician and the kind of care they 
can provide to a child is part of the benefits package. Again, children 
are not small adults. The bill also ensures benefit packages that 
include pediatric benefits including critical oral and vision health 
care.
  We all remember the tragedy last year of Diamante Driver of the State 
of Maryland, a young boy who lost his life because his family did not 
have coverage for an infected tooth and couldn't afford the care. We 
are talking about a child in America who died from an infected tooth 
that would have cost $80 to treat. This horrible tragedy that everyone 
in Washington was talking

[[Page 29521]]

about at the time was entirely preventable. We remembered his story and 
his tragedy in the bill by making sure that oral and vision health care 
are part of what we do.
  In addition, the bill mandates prevention and screenings for 
children. It creates pediatric medical homes. People say: What is a 
medical home? That is not a place. It is a way to treat someone, so if 
an American, especially a child, has a primary care doctor, which many 
of them unfortunately don't--and that is another part of what we are 
trying to do--that primary care doctor should be surrounded by the 
expertise we can bring to bear to help the child. We have so much 
knowledge and wisdom and ability when it comes to our doctors. We have 
remarkable pediatricians whose sole focus is to help a child in one 
part of their needs, the health care needs of that child. Why should 
not every child be surrounded by that kind of expertise? That is what 
we are trying to do.
  We strengthen the pediatric workforce. We can't just say we need a 
lot of pediatricians and hope it happens. We have to make sure we have 
a workforce and a recruiter workforce to do that.
  Senator Dodd and I and Senator Brown--I know Senator Dodd is on the 
floor--added a loan repayment provision in the bill for pediatric 
specialists and providers for mental health services for children.
  I have two more items and then I will get to the story of Hannah and 
Madeline.
  We expand drug discounts for children's hospitals and finally 
increase access to immunizations. The CDC will provide grants to 
improve immunizations for children and adolescent adults.
  But let me talk for a couple moments--I know we have others who are 
waiting to talk this morning--about these two children: Hannah and 
Madeline. The good news is--this picture is a dramatic depiction of 
what they were suffering from when they were diagnosed with leukemia at 
the age of 4. They are 11 years old now, and they are doing better, but 
they still have enormous challenges in their lives. Their mother Stacie 
Ritter wrote as follows:

       When my identical twins were both diagnosed with [a kind of 
     leukemia]--

  And she talks about it--

     at age four, we were told they would need a bone marrow 
     transplant in order to survive.

  Imagine that. I have four daughters, and I remember when they were 
about the age of 4. I never had to worry about any of this. I never had 
to even think about it. But if my wife and I--my wife Teresa and I--
were given this news, we would have been given coverage for a condition 
such as that by an insurance policy because I happened to be a State 
government employee, and now I am a Federal Government employee. So I 
never had to worry about that diagnosis for my daughters. Other than 
the challenge of the diagnosis itself, I did not have to worry about 
coverage. But Stacie Ritter and her husband Ben did. She says:

       I learned that the insurance company thought my daughters 
     were only worth $1,000,000 each. It sounds like a lot of 
     money. It's not!

  She says that with an exclamation point.

       When you add up the costs involved in caring for a patient 
     with a life threatening disease like cancer $1,000,000 barely 
     covers it.

  I think that is an understatement.

       Fortunately the hospital social worker recommended we apply 
     for a secondary insurance through the state considering the 
     highly probable chance we would hit that [million dollar] 
     cap. And we did hit that cap before the end of treatment. 
     Thankfully the state program kicked in and helped pay for the 
     remainder of treatment.

  The State program--it sounds a lot like a public option, doesn't it, 
an awful lot like a public option. So at least for this part of the 
story, they were able to get some help through a State program, a kind 
of public option. We will talk more about that later.
  But then Stacie goes on, and the lead headline of this section is one 
word, ``Bankruptcy.''

       During this time my husband had to take family medical 
     leave so we could take turns caring for our one year old son 
     and our twins--

  These twins, as shown in these pictures--

     at the hospital. . . . For the 7 months my husband was out on 
     family medical leave, he was able to maintain his employer 
     based insurance for us via $117.18 a month COBRA payments.

  My recollection is, COBRA was an initiative by the Federal Government 
to make sure, if you lose your job, you do not lose your health 
insurance. We have to extend it right now--another government 
initiative that was helpful here.

       After spending all our savings to pay the mortgage and 
     other basic living expenses we had to rely on credit cards.

  So a mother and a father who get this diagnosis for their children at 
age 4 have to rely on credit cards to get the help their daughters 
need.
  Stacie writes:

       In the end we had no choice but to file bankruptcy. And 
     when you file bankruptcy everything must be disclosed, we 
     even had to hand over the kids' savings accounts that their 
     great grandparents--

  Their great grandparents--

     had given them. . . .

  Is this the kind of system we want, when a mother and a father are 
hit with that diagnosis for their two daughters, when they are age 4, 
that we have a system that says: Do you know what. We have to cap your 
coverage. We can help you a little bit, but we are going to limit it. 
You will figure it out. Don't worry. That is basically what the system 
said to them.
  So what are we doing? Well, we have a bill that happens to speak to 
these kinds of situations. It is ironic--I guess is the word--that on 
page 16 of the bill, which is actually the second page of the text, we 
have a provision that says this:

       A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering 
     group or individual health insurance coverage may not 
     establish . . . lifetime limits on the dollar value of 
     benefits for any participant or beneficiary. . . .

  It is not complicated. It is not legalese. It is very specific to the 
lives of these two children. The first provision in the bill says there 
are no lifetime limits. So you cannot say to Hannah and Madeline: 
Sorry, we know you have leukemia and we know you need expert care and 
treatment, but we are going to limit your care.
  So for those who think this is complicated and difficult in a lot of 
debate here in Washington, it is not complicated. If we had this 
provision as a matter of law in effect when Stacie got that diagnosis 
for her daughters, she would not have had to worry about coverage. She 
would not have had to use credit cards and go into bankruptcy and take 
the savings these children were given by their great grandparents.
  Why do we tolerate this system? Why do we go, year after year, and 
talk about changing it, saying: Oh, isn't that terrible we have these 
situations and we let it go and we say that is too bad we couldn't get 
the bill passed; it got a little difficult in Washington.
  Well, the time for talk and debate and discussing the finer points of 
this is over. We have to act to make sure a family such as this never 
has to go through what these parents went through but especially what 
these two young girls went through.
  I will conclude with this: This picture, as dramatic as it is, I 
think connotes a lot of hope. Look at those two young girls, facing the 
most horrific of circumstances, and they are smiling and hopeful. But 
they still need help. We are going to be spending time in the next 
couple days getting this bill done so we can make sure we help them in 
the future.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, I wish to thank 
our new colleague from Pennsylvania. From the moment he arrived here, 
he has raised the profile of this issue involving children and 
families. As someone who has been involved, myself, for a long time 
chairing the Subcommittee on Children and Families, and with the help 
of the Presiding Officer and others, we did the Family and Medical 
Leave Act back some 17 years ago; the childcare legislation almost 25 
years ago, dealing with infant screening, premature births, autism--a 
whole host of other issues.

[[Page 29522]]

  I wish to thank him for bringing what has been a tireless effort 
since he has arrived in this Chamber, adding yet another voice, another 
strong voice, on behalf of children in our country. Jay Rockefeller, 
our colleague from West Virginia, has been a stalwart for years on 
these issues as well. I know Sherrod Brown of Ohio is also working very 
hard on these issues, and I wish to commend him.
  So I wish to say thank you to my colleague from Pennsylvania. The 
points that he raises are good ones.
  I know our time has expired, and I apologize for interfering with our 
other colleagues' time, but I wish to thank him for his efforts. I 
cannot think of a more noble cause to be involved in. There will be a 
lot of debate about this bill, but we must keep in mind that the most 
innocent in our society, our children, are born into circumstances 
totally beyond their own control. And there are too many instances 
where they are suffering from one problem after another. A great 
country such as this, with great resources and potential, ought to be 
able to ensure that every child in this country--regardless of the 
economic circumstances or the physical circumstances they are born 
into--gets the kind of care that America can be proud of. I say to the 
Senator, you are a champion of that, and I thank you for it.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________