[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 4055-4056]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, President Truman once said, ``Healthy 
citizens constitute our greatest national resource.''
  Two years ago last week we passed the affordable care act. We passed 
it to help give every American access to quality affordable health 
care.
  People such as Cece Whitney from Helena, MO, know exactly how much 
help this law provides. Doctors diagnosed Cece with cystic fibrosis by 
age 7. By high school she carried an oxygen tank. By the end of college 
she received a double lung transplant. Even with insurance coverage 
Cece and her family paid tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket. 
But things looked even worse when she hit an arbitrary coverage limit, 
and if she had lost her insurance before health reform she might not 
have been able to find any insurance coverage at all.
  Insurance companies could have turned her away simply because she was 
born with cystic fibrosis. But now, thanks to the affordable care act, 
Cece will always be covered. She will always have access to the care 
she needs.
  A year ago, on the affordable care act's first anniversary, Cece 
shared her story about seeing health reform signed into law with her 
local newspaper. She said she cried tears--tears of extreme joy. She 
wrote:

       I knew that I no longer had to worry about losing or being 
     denied coverage because of my `preexisting condition.' And I 
     no longer was going to be denied coverage for exceeding 
     arbitrary caps set by insurance companies.

  Cece's story is not unique. Health reform is working for people in 
Montana and across the country, and it is saving them money. The law 
improved our health care system and enabled it to focus on prevention 
and keeping Americans healthy. We have reforms to pay for quality of 
care rather than quantity of services. In just 2 years, health reform 
has lowered costs for millions of Americans. Parents can now afford to 
cover their entire family, including children up to the age of 26. More 
than 2.5 million young adults have been able to stay on their parents' 
plan thanks to health reform.
  Prescription drugs are now cheaper for seniors because of the act. 
Already more than 5 million Medicare beneficiaries have saved more than 
$3 billion on drugs. Again, that is $3 billion saved by seniors on 
drugs, and health reform eliminates the so-called Medicare prescription 
drug doughnut hole. This puts dollars back in seniors' pockets--dollars 
they can use for groceries or electricity bills.
  Seniors now receive free annual wellness visits and free screenings. 
This focus on prevention leads to better health outcomes, and it keeps 
them healthier. It saves money by allowing seniors and their doctors to 
catch conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes before they 
become serious and costly.
  Health reform also helps those who wish to retire early to afford 
insurance until they qualify for Medicare. The law has provided almost 
$4.5 billion in aid to businesses to give early-retiree coverage to 
these employees. Let me repeat that. The law has provided almost $4.5 
billion in aid to businesses to enable them to give early-retiree 
coverage for their employees.
  Health reform is also saving Americans money through new consumer 
protections. It is ending insurance company abuses. Medical loss ratios 
is one that comes to my mind. Because of health reform, parents can now 
keep their kids who have preexisting conditions on their plan, and 
insurance companies can no longer exclude these children. Insurance 
companies can no longer place lifetime and restrictive yearly limits on 
their health coverage that can cost Americans such as Cece Whitney tens 
of thousands of dollars, and insurance companies can no longer go back 
and scrutinize applications for tiny errors as a way to deny payments 
after a customer gets sick.
  Health reform has also created the Medicare and Medicaid Innovation 
Center to put good ideas from the private sector into action. The 
center is already working with more than 7,100 organizations--
hospitals, physicians, consumer groups, and employers included--to 
reduce costly hospital readmissions.
  Health reform provides law enforcement with new tools and resources 
to protect Medicare and Medicaid from fraud and abuse. These efforts 
recovered more than $4 billion last year. New antifraud provisions in 
the act, in the health care bill, helped recover more than $4 billion 
in fraud last year. Just a few weeks ago, Federal agents made the 
largest Medicare fraud bust in U.S. history. Ninety-one people were 
charged with defrauding taxpayers for nearly $300 million.
  More parts of the affordable care act that will help consumers will 
start in the year 2014, including the State-based affordable insurance 
exchanges. On these exchanges people will be able to save money. How? 
By shopping for an insurance plan that is right for them. It is like 
getting on Expedia or Orbitz: you just get on and shop around and find 
the one that is best for you.
  For too long, individuals and small businesses shopping for insurance 
on their own have had very limited options. The plans that were 
available were often too expensive. Now, for the first time, insurance 
companies will have to compete against each other for business on a 
level playing field. That will mean lower premiums, better coverage, 
and more choices.
  Health reform has also reduced government costs by dramatically 
slowing the growth in spending. According to our nonpartisan 
scorekeeper, the Congressional Budget Office, health reform slowed the 
growth in health spending by 4 percent. That will save taxpayer dollars 
and help get our deficit problem under control.
  We need to let the law keep working to save families and taxpayers 
more money. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that repealing the 
affordable care act--repealing it now--would increase the Federal 
deficit by nearly $143 billion over the next decade. Repeal would cost 
the Federal deficit $143 billion over the next decade according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, and it would increase the deficit by more 
than $1 trillion in the decade after that.
  Repealing health reform would also leave tens of millions of 
Americans without insurance. Studies have shown this would cost every 
American family an extra $1,000 a year. That is something we cannot 
afford. The affordable care act has already saved millions of Americans 
money and helped them get affordable health care, and millions more 
will gain access in the coming years. Healthy citizens are, indeed, the 
greatest asset our country has. We need to let health reform keep 
working for all Americans.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona.

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