[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5082-5083]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I wish a happy baseball opening day to 
everyone. Actually, it started last night, not today, but it sounds 
better to do it during the daytime.
  Although it is opening day for Major League Baseball, it also happens 
to be the last day for Americans to sign up for ObamaCare, the 
Affordable Care Act.
  To date there are over 10 million newly-insured Americans benefiting 
from the health care law now in effect, and there are millions more who 
have changed their insurance because of this legislation. So it is 
clear Americans are signing up for this quality health care in record 
numbers--and that is an understatement.
  I also am very happy we have been able to come to an agreement on the 
Medicare physician payment system. It is a 12-month fix. We need to 
take action on this to ensure that Medicare patients will be able to 
see their doctors. But the fact remains this legislation is not 
perfect. It is not ideal. I wish we could have followed the chairman of 
the Finance Committee, Senator Wyden, who came in kind of late. Most of 
the work was done by Ambassador Baucus before he came in. But he worked 
really hard, and he wants to pay for it in a way I think is 
appropriate--to use the unspent money we have from the wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, called OCO, the Overseas Contingency Operations fund. But 
at this stage it doesn't appear it is now going to happen.
  This legislation wasn't some last-minute deal. Senator Baucus worked 
on this for months, and it is the basis for what we are going to do 
here today. There were tough negotiations. Unfortunately, the parties 
could not come to an agreement on what a permanent fix should be. I 
said that I believe a permanent fix should be what Chairman Wyden 
suggested and continues to suggest.
  But House Republicans, though, chose to pass a partisan bill and 
increase the number of uninsured Americans and raised the cost of 
premiums. I believe we should repeal the defective payment system 
without increasing costs and without limiting access to quality health 
care. We need to restore sanity to the Medicare payment system without 
cutting benefits to seniors and without shifting the financial burden 
to hospital and other providers. We have done enough of that already. 
But right now we don't have the votes to do what would be the better 
thing to do.
  So for millions of elderly Americans and their doctors, this fix is 
good news. It means the promise of accessible, quality health care to 
our Nation's seniors is being honored again--this time for another 
year. So while I am pleased with this temporary patch, I hope it is our 
last patch.
  In the meantime, I extend my appreciation to Senator Wyden, the 
chairman of the Finance Committee, for his work to bring stability to 
the Medicare payment system. From the moment he assumed the gavel to 
become chairman of that committee, he hit the ground running on this 
issue, as well as reforming the entire Tax Code. As we speak he is also 
doing some good work on the so-called tax extenders. It is my 
understanding he is meeting with his committee members today.


                         Unemployment Extension

  After confirming this long-awaited judge for the Ninth Circuit and 
approving a patch for the Medicare payment program, the Senate will 
turn to a long overdue extension of benefits for the long-term 
unemployed. This is a matter of really significant importance to 
millions of Americans. We have waited 3 months since Republicans first 
filibustered a bill to restore emergency benefits. More importantly, 
unemployed Americans have waited even longer. Since that filibuster, 
nearly 1 million more Americans have lost their benefits. That is 
300,000 people a month who have been thrust into poverty not knowing 
how they will pay their bills.
  I received a letter recently from a Nevadan named Jane who pleaded 
for Congress to extend benefits for the long-term unemployed. She is 
what we would call an older American, an older Nevadan. She didn't make 
the plea for herself. It was for her son. She said:


[[Page 5083]]

       Please do all in your power to get this matter resolved. . 
     . . My son has been looking since May of last year. He held 
     his last job for 26 years and doesn't have a lot of 
     experience in other fields. I cannot continue to help him. I 
     lost my husband last July and lost his Social Security. I 
     only have mine now. Please do what you can to help those who 
     are in this position.

  So imagine an elderly woman, a widow, so desperate to assist her 
middle-aged son that she is using her meager Social Security check to 
help him get by. Now her own financial situation is in jeopardy.
  Jane and her son have already seen what happens when much-needed 
unemployment benefits don't get extended. For Nevadans struggling to 
pay their rent, to keep the lights on or to feed the kids, they have 
waited long enough. But we know why Republicans prefer to wait. For 
many of my colleagues across the aisle, waiting means doing nothing. So 
the fact is the majority of Republicans here in Congress are simply 
opposed to helping the long-term unemployed. Most won't say so, but 
that is the truth.
  One GOP Congressman from California even said that an extension of 
unemployment benefits ``will encourage unemployment.'' That is a tough 
one to follow. This elected Congressman believes that the half million 
people in the State of California who had their unemployment benefits 
terminated actually prefer to be jobless. I don't think so.
  Here in the Senate last Thursday only 10 out of 45 Republicans voted 
to help Democrats break the 3-month filibuster. In fact, the GOP 
Senators from the State with the third-highest population of eligible 
long-term unemployed--Texas--both voted to block an extension of 
benefits. It is as if they simply don't care that some of their own 
constituents are teetering on the verge of indigence.
  Notwithstanding this opposition to extending unemployment benefits, I 
am confident we will pass this bipartisan legislation in the Senate 
this week here. Then, hopefully, the Republicans in the House will have 
soft hearts and strong minds and allow this to pass over there. It is 
in their hands.
  We hope they will be considerate to the roughly 2.8 million long-term 
unemployed across the country. Perhaps then these struggling Americans 
will finally get the relief they deserve.

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