[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 18251]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I spent a lot of time, as my 
colleagues have, traveling our States during the elections, to be sure, 
but also since. I hear a lot of discussion from regular people--not 
from people running for office per se but regular people--about what 
this new health care law has meant to them. I meet 22-year-olds who are 
now on their parents' health insurance plan. If you are 22 in this 
country today, your chances of finding a job with decent health care 
are not real high in most places in our country, and they now celebrate 
the fact that they can be on their parents' health insurance 
automatically. That is a big victory for consumers and a big victory 
for those families.
  I also talk to people who have children who have preexisting 
conditions and could not get insurance as a result. The law now is, an 
insurance company cannot deny insurance to a family with a child with 
preexisting conditions. We also know now that someone who is sick and 
their health care is very expensive, that they cannot be thrown off 
their insurance because it costs the insurance company too much money.
  We know now, and I hear from small businesses who almost all want to 
insure their employees but simply cannot because of the high costs, 
they now are getting a 30-percent tax credit to be able to insure their 
employees, something, as I said, they wanted to do whether they live in 
Conneaut in northeast Ohio or Middletown and Hamilton in southwest 
Ohio. I see that all over my State--in Bowling Green, in Toledo, in 
Zanesville and Chillacothe and Columbus and Bellaire. We are also 
seeing that so many senior citizens are getting hit hard by high drug 
prices.
  We have begun. As one of the leaders in that effort on the HELP 
Committee, Senator Bennet, the Presiding Officer, knows that we have 
been helpful in now beginning to close that doughnut hole that seniors 
fall into. After they have had $2,000 of drug costs, they are still 
paying the premium every month, but they do not get any coverage until 
their costs go above $5,000. That is sort of a cruel bargain that this 
Congress, for reasons I did not exactly understand--I opposed it back 
then--passed the drug benefit and inflicted that on seniors. We are 
beginning to fix that.
  We know all that. Those are citizens I talk to about that. Put that 
aside for a minute, unfortunately, and look at so many elected 
officials in a State, conservative elected officials, mostly 
Republicans, who are saying we should repeal the health care law and we 
should bring back preexisting condition, take 23-year-olds, home from 
college or home from the service or whatever, and if they do not have 
TRICARE, throw them off their parents' health care plan, take away the 
tax cuts to small businesses. That is what they want to do and repeal 
this health care plan.
  My only question is, I guess I am waiting for the first Republican 
elected official--whether he is an attorney general in Ohio or 
elsewhere or whether he is a Congressman or she is a Congressman or a 
Senator--I am waiting for the first one who says: I want to repeal this 
plan. Take away these consumer protections; I want to repeal this plan 
and take away health insurance for people who are in high risk pools 
who are getting insurance now and people down the road who are going to 
get covered with health insurance, the 50 million Americans who do not 
have it and the tens of millions of Americans who are underinsured. I 
want to hear one of those elected officials, who is saying repeal the 
health care plan, say they are not going to take their government 
health insurance. I cannot believe the number of elected officials, 
mostly Republicans, who have been the beneficiaries of government-
sponsored health insurance--taxpayer-financed health insurance for 10 
years, 20 years, 30 years--who are saying: No, I want to repeal health 
insurance for millions of Americans who are about to receive it. Some 
of them are already getting it; all of them getting better consumer 
protections.
  They will keep their plan, paid for by taxpayers. They want to deny 
it to others. I am waiting for one of my colleagues--and Republicans 
around the State and around the country who are calling for this health 
care law to be repealed--to step up and say: Oh, I am not going to take 
government insurance either. I am still waiting for that day.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.

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