[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16501-16502]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, six months ago our Nation 
accomplished something that so many generations before had struggled to 
achieve. Six months ago yesterday, with the enactment of the Patient 
Protection and Affordable Care Act, our Nation stood up and declared 
that the health of our citizens is worth fighting for.
  There has been a lot of debate, as the Presiding Officer knows, in 
this Chamber and in the House of Representatives and on the talk shows 
and talk radio. There is a lot of debate about theories and death 
panels and health care and preexisting conditions. But behind all of 
that is human beings in difficult situations. After hearing people say 
things about this health care law that simply aren't true, it is 
important to remember how this affects individual human beings.
  This legislation began to take effect when, yesterday, several things 
happened. One is that a 22-year-old who is home from school who just 
got a job but doesn't have insurance in that job can stay on her 
parents' health care plan until she turns 27. Small businesses can get 
tax breaks to insure their employees. Something most small businesses--
almost every small businessperson I know--want to do is provide decent, 
affordable health insurance to their employees. They will be better 
able to do that because of this bill. Also yesterday, because of this 
legislation, we saw movement toward the doughnut hole being closed. 
That simply means that senior citizens, conflicted with very high 
health care costs, having to choose between medication and heating 
their home or proper food, cutting their pills in half or having to 
skip a day in taking it because they couldn't afford it--this bill will 
begin to close that doughnut hole that President Bush and the 
Republican Congress created.
  We are seeing major progress which affects individual people. Mary 
from Ashtabula, OH, which is in the northeast corner of the State, 
shared a story with me about her friend who is paying $56 each month 
for medications to treat her chronic illness. After the doughnut hole 
kicks in, she worries that her friend will have to pay literally 10 
times that--not $56, which she can handle, but literally $500 per 
month, which she can't. This increase will catastrophically affect her 
friend, who is 80 years old and living on a tight budget. Next year, 
because of this legislation that is taking effect now, Mary's friend 
will see her prescription drug costs cut in half.
  Robert from Cleveland wrote me a letter sharing his concerns about 
being young and uninsured. As happens to many young adults, Robert was 
dropped from his mother's insurance on his 21st birthday. He has been 
unable to obtain full-time employment. He has remained uninsured, not 
by choice but because he really had no options. In fact, he saw the 
risks associated with being uninsured firsthand as he accompanied his 
also uninsured friend to the hospital after sustaining a basketball 
injury not too long ago. His friend left the emergency room with a 
$3,000 bill. Robert understands that young adults such as him and his 
friend will no longer have to face the uncertainty and fear associated 
with being uninsured.
  This legislation also, as of yesterday, allows States such as Ohio 
and every

[[Page 16502]]

State in the country to set up what are called high-risk insurance 
pools. We all know--and the Presiding Officer knows it from talking to 
people in Rochester and Duluth and St. Paul, and I have talked to 
people in Toledo and Dayton and Springfield who can't get insurance 
because they have a preexisting condition. So 462 Ohioans already have 
signed up for what is called this high-risk insurance pool. That means 
that even with a preexisting condition, those 462 Ohioans have 
insurance. Six months ago, they were uninsured and uninsurable. Today, 
they have insurance.
  Laura from Hamilton County wrote to me when she learned about the 
health care law. She wrote:

       I cheered when I learned that children with chronic 
     conditions cannot be denied health insurance coverage. I have 
     a child with Type 1 diabetes. I have worried for years about 
     what will become of him as he ages and moves off our 
     insurance policy. I have worried for years what his health 
     plan options will be. It is a relief to now be able to shift 
     our efforts to battling the disease, not the health care 
     system.

  Any mother or father with a sick child wants to focus their efforts 
on taking care of that illness, not fighting with insurance companies, 
not worrying about cobbling together payments to pay the doctor, the 
hospital, and the drug company.
  I am proud to say these changes are just the beginning. As of 
yesterday, when you renew or purchase a health insurance plan, you 
don't have to worry about lifetime limits. We know what happens: If you 
get sick, if you live in Akron or Youngstown and you get very sick and 
spend a lot of time in the hospital, insurance companies--it is called 
rescission--will simply cancel your insurance because you exceeded the 
lifetime limits they set up. Well, no more lifetime limits because of 
this bill.
  From now on, recommended preventive services, immunizations, 
mammograms, and other recommended screenings, will be covered without a 
copay or deductible. We want people to get screened, to get preventive 
care. It saves their health, and it saves all of us money. So they can 
get less expensive health care. For them, taking away their requirement 
to pay copays and deductibles will make a huge difference.
  There are now new restrictions on private insurers from placing 
unreasonable limits on your coverage. Patients can access out-of-
network emergency room services and children can no longer be denied 
insurance because of a preexisting condition. Think of the parents we 
talk to who have a child who is sick and can't get insurance because 
that child has a preexisting condition, as if a parent wanted it that 
way. Now we have fixed this.
  The Presiding Officer was part of this debate, as all of us in this 
institution were, during last year and the beginning of this year when 
we passed this bill. We know what the opponents--people speaking mostly 
on behalf of the insurance industry, the drug industry, and people who 
just don't agree that we should do something like this--we know what 
they did. They lied about death panels. They spread half-truths about 
costs. They even labeled health care reform ``communism.''
  They did the same thing with Medicare. I remember the same arguments 
when I was a kid. I was 12 years old, 13 years old when Medicare 
passed. They used the same arguments about Medicare. They said: The 
government is going to stand between you and your doctor. They said: It 
is going to turn the United States into the Soviet Union. They said: We 
are never going to be able to get health insurance again. It is going 
to be big government running our lives. I don't think they say that 
about Medicare anymore. They have tried to dismantle and privatize 
Medicare, but they know it has worked.
  In the 1930s, these same people with the same philosophy campaigned 
against Social Security, saying it wouldn't work. In the 1960s, they 
campaigned against Medicare, saying it wouldn't work. Now they are 
campaigning against the health care law.
  There are Republicans all over this country--not many voters, I don't 
think--who are talking about repealing the health care law. So what 
they are going to do is kick the 23-year-old off their parents' 
insurance. Now they are going to take away these tax breaks for small 
businesses to insure their employees. They are going to reinstate the 
doughnut hole. They are going to put more costs back on senior 
citizens, who finally are getting some help with their drug costs. I 
don't get it. They are going to bring back preexisting conditions. They 
are going to say it is OK again to deny somebody coverage for a 
preexisting condition. I don't think the public is going to buy that. I 
don't think this institution will vote that way.
  It is important to recognize from where we have come. Most of all, it 
is important to think about individual human beings we have met who are 
affected so positively by this law. They are going to be able to get 
insurance. They are not going to be denied coverage if they have a 
preexisting condition. Businesses will be able to help their employees 
by covering them for insurance. Senior citizens are going to get 
significant help for their drug costs. What is not to like about that? 
That is why it is important that we stand firm as we mark this 6-month 
beginning of these changes that will make our health care system work 
better, be more responsive to people, and, most importantly, take care 
of individual Americans better than ever before.

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