[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11294-11308]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    BIPARTISAN SPORTSMEN'S ACT OF 2014--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 3:15 
p.m. will be controlled by the majority and the time from 3:15 p.m. to 
4:15 p.m. will be controlled by the Republicans.
  The Senator from Vermont.


                              Cost of War

  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I wanted to say a few words about the 
conference committee in terms of legislation protecting the health of 
our veterans. We are working hard on it in the Senate, the House is 
working hard on it, and our staffs have been meeting. I have been in 
touch often with Chairman Miller in the House. We had, I thought, a 
very productive conference committee before we left.
  As we continue to proceed, if there is anything I have learned since 
I have been chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, it 
is that I think as a people, as a nation, we underestimate the cost of 
war, and before anyone votes to go to war again I think they should 
fully appreciate the repercussions of that vote.
  What going to war means is not--as in the case of Afghanistan and 
Iraq--losing some 6,700 brave men and women. That is a terrible loss, 
but I also want people to remember the families, the wives, the kids, 
the mothers, and the impact that loss has had on their lives and the 
need for us to protect those wives and those children to make sure they 
can have the quality of life they are entitled to despite their loss.
  But it is not only loss of life. We have had in this war a horrendous 
epidemic of men and women coming home with post-traumatic stress 
disorder. I am not sure of exactly the number, but it could be as high 
as 500,000 men and women coming home from war with PTSD and that is a 
very difficult illness which needs a lot of care and that illness, 
again, impacts the entire family--wives, kids. It impacts the ability 
of a worker to go out and get a job to earn an income. That is a cost 
of war.
  Needless to say, the cost of war is the many who came home without 
legs, who came home without arms, who came home without eyesight. The 
cost of war is a high divorce rate for folks who come home who cannot 
readjust well into their family life. The cost of war is an extremely 
high rate of suicides. The cost of war is widows who are now having to 
rebuild their lives. And on and on it goes. The bottom line is the cost 
of war is enormous in terms of human suffering and the impact on not 
only the individual who fought in that war but on the entire family.
  As I think our colleagues know, several weeks ago Senator McCain and 
I put together a proposal to deal with the current crisis at the VA, 
and I am very proud that legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 93 
to 3.
  What are we dealing with? What is the cost of this proposal? This is 
an expensive proposal because the cost of war is expensive. What a VA 
audit told us is that more than 57,000 veterans are waiting to be 
scheduled for medical appointments. These are the folks who are on 
these waiting lists, some of which were secret, some of which had data 
manipulated. These are folks who should have been getting into the VA 
for timely health care but who were not. On top of that, there is an 
unknown number of veterans who are on no lists because of poor work 
being done at the VA. They were not on any list. How many there are we 
don't know, but many of those people need to be seen.
  So what our legislation does is say we are going to make certain that 
all of these veterans who are waiting for health care--who have waited 
far too long for health care--will, in fact, get health care as soon as 
they possibly can, and they will get that health care either through 
private physicians, they will get that health care in community health 
centers, they will get that health care at the Department of Defense 
military bases, they will get that health care at the Indian Health 
Service, but they will get that health care in a timely manner, and 
that is going

[[Page 11295]]

to be an expensive proposition. We cannot provide health care to tens 
and tens of thousands of veterans in a short period of time outside of 
the VA without spending a substantial sum of money.
  No. 2, long-term, what is clear to me and I think to anybody who has 
studied the issue is that if we are serious about eliminating these 
waiting lists and getting people into the VA in a timely manner, we 
have to make sure that at every facility in this country the VA has the 
requisite number of doctors, nurses, and other types of personnel they 
need in order to accommodate the growing numbers of people who are 
coming into the VA.
  If we are talking about hiring thousands of doctors in a moment, by 
the way, where we have a very serious doctor shortage in this country, 
that is going to be an expensive proposition, as well as hiring the 
nurses and other personnel and building or leasing the space we need. 
That is issue No. 2. That is going to be expensive, but long term, if 
we are serious about keeping our commitment to the men and women who 
put their lives on the line to defend this country, that is exactly 
what we have to do.
  The third area in this legislation which is going to be expensive is 
we have now for the first time said to veterans that if they are living 
a distance away from a VA facility, more than 40 miles, they are going 
to be able to go to a private doctor. That will cost us some money as 
well.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator from Vermont yield for a question 
through the Chair?
  Mr. SANDERS. I am happy to yield the floor to the Senator from 
Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. I don't ask the Senator to yield the floor, but I would, 
through the Chair, address the Senator from Vermont.
  First, I thank the Senator for his bipartisan effort with Senator 
John McCain which led to an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote on the floor 
of the Senate to address what we consider to be a crisis in the 
Veterans' Administration. Press reports have suggested in the most 
extreme situation that some veterans' lives were being compromised 
because of the failure of providing timely care to these veterans. It 
resulted in an investigation of VA facilities all across the United 
States. It resulted in the resignation of the Secretary of the 
Veterans' Administration and promises for dramatic reform, but I have 
to say to the Senator from Vermont what he has accomplished with 
Senator McCain is tangible.
  I would like to ask him two or three questions about the current 
state of affairs. How long ago was it that we passed on the floor of 
the Senate this bipartisan measure?
  Secondly, did this measure involve emergency spending to deal with 
the emergency in the Veterans' Administration?
  Third, did the House version of their VA reform include the resources 
the Senator from Vermont mentioned, the new doctors, the new nurses, 
the new facilities to accommodate this wave of veterans. Those are the 
three questions that I think are critical.
  I close by saying thank you again and again, because as chairman of 
the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the Senator has reminded us of the 
real cost of war.
  There are many people who vote quickly to go to war who will not vote 
quickly to pay for the care we promised our veterans when they come 
home. Thank you for caring.
  Mr. SANDERS. I very much thank the Senator. Let me answer the very 
last question first, and I will go through the others.
  I think throughout the history of this country, not only in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, I think as a people we have underestimated the real cost 
of war. There was no word called PTSD at the end of World War II, but 
anyone who thinks that men and women did not come home from war 
suffering from that ailment would be very mistaken. So the cost of war 
is real, and it is not just missiles and tanks and guns. If this 
country means anything, we take care of all of those who serve, to the 
last day of their lives, when they need that care. I don't have the 
date in front of me, but I think it was about 3 weeks ago when we 
passed that legislation by a huge vote. I think there were only 3 
people who voted against it. It was a vote of 93 to 3--huge bipartisan 
support for the bill.
  But equally important, to answer the important question raised by the 
Senator from Illinois, there was also an overwhelming understanding 
that paying for this bill is a cost of war. It has to be emergency 
funded, and in a strong bipartisan vote the Senate said, yes, that is 
how we are going to pay for it.
  In terms of the House bill, the House bill was a reasonable bill, but 
they did not go into the detail we did in terms of how it will be paid. 
But the major point I do want to make--I was just going to get to that 
and I appreciate the Senator from Illinois raising it. This bill is not 
going to be paid for by cutting education or food stamps. That isn't 
going to happen. That isn't going to happen, first of all, because it 
is not going to happen and, second of all, it would be grossly 
disrespectful to the veterans of this country. The veterans of this 
country need help. They need help now. This legislation must be passed 
as soon as possible, and it must be passed in terms of the emergency 
funding. This is a cost of war.
  I would ask my friend from Illinois, the whip, can he recall what 
kind of programs were offset and what kind of taxes were raised to pay 
for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
  Mr. DURBIN. Through the Chair, I would answer the Senator, without 
asking him to yield the floor, and say this: When we decided to embark 
on the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan, it was with at 
least the understanding of then-President Bush that these would be 
costs that would be added to the deficit of the United States. We would 
not be paying as we fought. We would be waging a war, spending the 
money necessary to wage it successfully, and we would deal with the 
cost of it at a later moment in time. Many of us, even those of us who 
voted against the invasion of Iraq--and I was 1 of 23 on the floor of 
the Senate voting against it--voted for the resources to wage the war, 
saying if our men and women in uniform are risking their lives, we will 
stand by them, equip them, and bring them home safely. I also believed 
and understood that I had an obligation to every one of those men and 
women in uniform, having promised them that if they would risk their 
lives for America and come home needing our help, whether it is health 
care or education or the basics of life, we would be there.
  I say to the Senator from Vermont thank you for reminding us of the 
pledge made by America to these veterans and I believe the pledge made 
by Republicans and Democrats in Congress to stand by them when they 
came home.
  Mr. SANDERS. The Senator is exactly right. While no one is quite 
exactly clear how much those two wars will end up costing us, the 
estimate is between $3 and $6 trillion. The point Senator Durbin made 
is even those who voted against the war--and I did as well--understood 
that when we sent men and women off to battle they would have to have 
all of the resources they needed to do their mission. Equally 
important, what we are saying now is when they come home wounded in 
body, wounded in spirit, we need them to have the resources they 
require to make their lives whole again. That is a moral obligation. I 
thank the Senator for raising that point.
  I will yield the floor in a second, but first I will conclude by 
saying that I want to see this bill passed as soon as possible. We are 
working as hard as we possibly can, but anyone who magically thinks the 
only problem facing the VA is more accountability and better management 
is not correct. We do need better management at the VA, we do need more 
accountability at the VA, and this legislation will provide that.
  People who are incompetent and people who are dishonest should be 
fired. There must be more transparency, and there certainly must be a 
much clearer chain of command that goes from Washington to regional 
hospitals and facilities and back up again.

[[Page 11296]]

  At the end of the day, the best management in the world is not going 
to provide the quality and timely health care veterans need unless we 
have the doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel, and that is the 
simple fact. Excellent management, yes; transparency, yes; fire 
incompetent people, yes; but we also need the doctors and nurses to 
provide quality and timely care to the veterans of our country.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, it has been 2 weeks since the House and 
Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees held our first conference meeting 
to fix the VA health care system. It is a disservice to our veterans 
that we have not met again. My fellow conferees and I should be at the 
table actively negotiating a path forward.
  Chairman Sanders is right when he says the situation at the VA is an 
emergency. I had the opportunity to meet with veterans last week in 
Hilo, HI. My discussion with them underscored the urgency of addressing 
the longstanding issues at the VA.
  For those who have not visited Hawaii, Hilo is on the Big Island of 
Hawaii, and it is home to volcanoes, rain forests, and just about every 
other climate. It is also twice as big as the rest of Hawaii's islands 
combined. In fact, it is roughly the size of Connecticut but with only 
a fraction of the population. It can take hours to drive from Hilo to 
the second largest town, Kailua-Kona. Of the roughly 143,000 people 
living on the island, 15,000 are veterans.
  I am raising these facts because I want my colleagues to understand 
that veterans in communities like those who live on Hawaii Island need 
our help and they need it now.
  The veterans I met in Hilo expressed to me that they cannot get care 
anywhere other than the VA on the Big Island, as private physicians are 
few and far between. In fact, while 90 percent of Hawaii Island 
residents have health insurance, there is a serious physician shortage. 
This results in long wait times for non-VA health care. Given these 
long wait times for private physicians, Big Island veterans rely on VA 
for their primary care. Those Hawaii Island veterans who have private 
insurance have, out of their own pockets, paid for flights to the 
island of Oahu to get the care they need. This means over $300 out-of-
pocket just to get to their medical appointments. The $300 does not 
include any costs associated with the care itself.
  This is another reason that expanding access to non-VA providers is 
needed to immediately address the VA health care emergency. With this 
expansion, we must ensure that every veteran in our country, whether 
rural or urban, can more easily get the care they need if the VA is 
unable to accommodate them. Rural and urban veterans in Hawaii and 
across our Nation deserve better.
  A recent audit of the VA in Hawaii found that veterans were waiting 
over 140 days to receive care. A more recent update found that while 
progress is being made, the wait is still over 100 days. Nationwide, 
nearly 60,000 veterans are waiting simply to get an appointment, and of 
course that is unacceptable. This is why I stand eager and ready to 
work with my Senate and House colleagues to ensure that the veterans of 
this country get the care they need and the benefits they have earned.
  This conference committee must reconvene as soon as possible to move 
forward on the important task to finalize legislation that does three 
important things: No. 1, directly addresses the emergency circumstances 
that have been uncovered at the Veterans' Administration; No. 2, 
ensures that all of our veterans receive access to the care they 
deserve; and No. 3, begins the long-term work of restoring veterans' 
trust not only in the VA but in Congress's ability to effectively 
oversee the VA and provide the resources necessary to care for our 
veterans.
  Nearly the entire Senate agrees that the current VA situation is an 
emergency and that Congress must act. I am hopeful we can all agree on 
that point, but my fellow conferees need to be at the table now, face 
to face, to work out solutions to make the VA work for our veterans.
  I hope we will include provisions in the Senate-passed legislation 
that will provide for 26 major medical facility leases and provide for 
the resources and authority to expedite hiring of VA doctors and 
nurses.
  In addition, while I agree that accountability of executives is 
needed, we should avoid politicizing the nonappointed civil service 
process and allow some due process for VA employees.
  Furthermore, our veterans rely on the services of qualified, 
committed professionals at the VA. In fact, the veterans I met with 
last week indicated that they really liked VA care; however, they were 
concerned that VA doctors were already overstretched in terms of 
patients. I don't believe that simply telling VA doctors to see more 
patients is the only or best answer, nor is it enough to allow veterans 
to seek care from private providers. We should be doing more to attract 
more health professionals to VA, especially primary care providers. We 
have to recognize the long-term benefits of attracting a high-quality 
workforce to VA and that we can improve accountability in a carefully 
balanced way.
  Investing in the VA is an essential step toward building back the 
trust of our veterans.
  I understand my colleagues' concerns with the cost of the proposals 
before us, but inaction will not overcome those concerns. Those of us 
serving as conferees need to sit down and discuss how to get our 
veterans what they need quickly. The time for action is now. Veterans 
in Hawaii and across the country are counting on us and deserve no 
less.
  I yield the remainder of my time and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              GUN VIOLENCE

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I wish to begin by thanking my 
colleague, the senior Senator from Illinois, for his very eloquent and 
powerful remarks on the need to address gun violence in this country 
and to do it as part of our consideration of the Bipartisan Sportsmen's 
Act. I look forward to joining with him in the coming days--in fact, 
perhaps in the coming hours--in offering commonsense, sensible measures 
that will give us the opportunity to help stop gun violence in this 
country, addressing domestic violence as well, which so often leads to 
gun violence. Women are five times more likely to be killed in domestic 
violence when there is a gun in the home. The Senator from Illinois 
also addressed straw purchases and issues relating to drug trafficking. 
We have raised those and other issues in the past but have not yet 
successfully passed legislation in the Senate, not even addressed it in 
depth.
  So I hope we will have the opportunity in these next couple of days 
to consider these kinds of measures, because the scourge of gun 
violence is continuing in our neighborhoods and on our streets, just as 
it took the lives of 20 beautiful children and 6 great educators in 
Newtown, CT, almost a year and a half ago, and 2 more people on Sunday 
on the east side of Bridgeport alone, and tens of thousands of others. 
It continues to cause death and injury and costs in lost lives and 
dollars throughout this country. We have an obligation as part of this 
measure to do better than we have in dealing with this tremendous, 
horrific, and unspeakable problem. It affects so many innocent 
children, particularly the children who are affected in urban 
neighborhoods where there are driveby shootings; in rural neighborhoods 
all across the country; in our cities and on our streets and in our 
schools.
  We have an obligation to do better and to put priorities first when 
it comes to the use of guns. I understand the reasons for expanding or 
providing more opportunities in this bill that may involve firearms, 
but first things

[[Page 11297]]

first. Let's cure the safety of the country. Let's consider 
commonsense, sensible measures on gun control before we expand the use 
of guns and firearms in this country.


                         Veterans' Health Care

  I am here as well to address the separate, unrelated issue of doing 
better to care for our veterans. The Veterans Access to Care Through 
Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014 is now in 
conference. I am on that conference committee. This body passed that 
bill by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 93 to 3 on June 11. It 
is a comprehensive bill to start addressing the problems that came to 
our attention so dramatically. There were reports of deadly delays, 
destruction of documents, manipulation of data, and falsification of 
records, as well as tragic reports of unacceptable wait times that were 
concealed at VA health care facilities. Books were cooked and criminal 
wrongdoing was covered up. That is the reason I have called for a 
criminal investigation, and one has now begun. I hope it will produce 
accountability from the health care system of the VA.
  More fundamentally, we have an obligation in the Senate and in the 
Congress to address the underlying issues that led to those deadly wait 
times and delays, the cooking of books and covering it up that has so 
dramatically undermined trust and confidence in the VA health care 
system. If anything, since June 11, the problem seems to have worsened. 
In fact, comparing May to July, the recently released figures of July 
3--just last week--the numbers of medical appointments delayed for 
longer than 30 days has tripled in Connecticut and doubled nationwide. 
Nationwide, that number has gone from 242,069--roughly a quarter of a 
million veterans whose appointments were postponed by 30 days or more--
to 636,436. That is the number of veterans waiting longer than 30 days 
for an appointment. In Connecticut, the comparable numbers are 998 to 
2,727--a tripling of the appointments delayed for longer than 30 days. 
In other parts of the country at other clinics and facilities, those 
numbers quadrupled.
  The possible good news is that maybe--just maybe--the doubling, 
tripling, quadrupling of those numbers of appointments longer than 30 
days delayed means the numbers are more accurate and truthful. We don't 
know. I have demanded an explanation. I have written to the Acting 
Secretary of the VA, Sloan Gibson, calling for a public explanation for 
these numbers and the very alarming and astonishing trends, drastic and 
dramatic increases in those numbers of appointments suffering from 
delays.
  Justice Brandeis once said:

       Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and 
     industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of 
     disinfectants.

  These chronic failings at the VA demand a better explanation. 
Veterans deserve to know if things have gotten worse or is the 
reporting just better. All of us--the public whose taxpayer monies fund 
the VA--deserve the same kind of explanation. There should be a 
criminal investigation if there has been obstruction of justice and 
destruction of documents and falsification of records which involve 
Federal criminal wrongdoing.
  The act we now have in conference committee will help address many of 
these problems looking forward, moving ahead, by providing more access 
to private doctors and private hospitals outside the VA system to 
minimize and reduce and perhaps even eliminate those unacceptable 
waiting times of longer than 30 days for an appointment. It will 
provide more doctors--more than $500 million for that purpose alone. It 
will impose accountability by enabling easier firing and seeking to, in 
effect, claw back, or at best stop, some of the financial incentives 
that may have driven the false reporting.
  In those ways and a variety of others, this bill will help us move 
forward and achieve progress.
  No one should be under any illusion that this bill alone will solve 
all the problems. It is not a panacea. It is not a permanent solution 
to the VA's problems. We need, for starters, a new leader. The VA has 
no permanent Secretary. The confirmation of a new one is imperative. 
But tough questions are absolutely essential to determine whether the 
President's nominee should be the one to lead this agency, and I am 
certainly hoping he will be.
  The Veterans' Affairs conference committee met on June 24. I 
emphasized the importance at that hearing of honoring the commitment of 
our men and women in uniform by addressing the VA challenges with 
adequate funding and essential legislation. I am hopeful we will move 
quickly and effectively after that first June 24 meeting now to present 
to both Houses a final version of this bill so we can truly address the 
problems our veterans deserve to have solved and the VA has an 
obligation to eliminate. We need to assure that the differences between 
the two bodies are resolved and send this bill to the President for his 
signature. A country that really values its veterans, truly honors 
their service, should not subject them to waiting delays, secret 
waiting lists, and false records. This broad, bipartisan, historic bill 
to ensure that delays in treatment are eliminated and bad actors at the 
VA health centers are held accountable is a critical step to keep faith 
with our veterans and let us move forward quickly and responsibly with 
this bill.
  Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                              Afghanistan

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, there are a few of us who want to come 
down and talk a little bit about specific things in our States that are 
reaching a crisis point by having to participate in ObamaCare. But 
before doing that I want to make just one comment to make sure it is in 
the Record and that we can talk about the election that took place over 
in Afghanistan.
  We have had quite a time over there. We have lost actually 2,197 of 
our own troops in Afghanistan, and we have had about ten times that 
many who have been injured. So it has been a real crisis for a lot of 
people. For a long period of time things had been going well. I think 
when the decision was made by this President to pull everything out at 
a given time things started turning around a little bit. Now they are 
in the middle of a--in Afghanistan the election took place. I know we 
are not supposed to say this, and there is no official position--I want 
to make that clear--by the United States of America, but to me there 
are two people running against each other. There is a good guy and a 
bad guy--that holdover from the old administration, whose name is 
Ashraf Ghani, who is Karzai's chosen one, who is one who would continue 
to go in a lack of leadership and not take advantage of the 
opportunities they have right now; then Abdullah Abdullah is the other 
one.
  My concern with this--and I expressed this concern on the Senate 
floor about 3 weeks ago. I said: I know we have deadlines. We are going 
to have a primary, which we already had. Then we are going to have a 
primary runoff. Then on June 22, which is 2 weeks from today, there 
will be an official declaration as to who won the primary runoff.
  The Presiding Officer is fully familiar with this. We talked about 
that this morning. Well, in this runoff situation, we have found a lot 
of discrepancies. It seems to me that while I consider one guy to be 
the good one and one to be the bad one, all of the mistakes that were 
made and the irregularities that were found were found in favor of 
Ashraf Ghani, as opposed to Abdullah Abdullah.
  Let me give you an example. In one of the provinces--it was the 
Wardak Province--Ghani's vote count went from about 17,000 in April to 
170,000 in the runoff. Stop and think about that. That is almost 
mathematically impossible. When you consider the number of

[[Page 11298]]

registered voters there, this number actually exceeds the number of 
registered voters. So you went from 17,000 in the same province when 
they went through the primary back in April, and then that jumped up by 
tenfold to 170,000 in the runoff. That is an increase of 1,000 percent 
over April's result. All of those, of course, were in an area where--it 
is in a part of the country where Ghani's vote was more favorable.
  Then the other thing I think is unprecedented, I think we all know in 
our own States, whether it is in West Virginia, Oklahoma, or any of the 
rest of them, the vote percentage turnout is less in rural areas than 
it is in urban areas. In urban areas you have to go next door to vote. 
It is very convenient. In many rural areas, certainly in my State of 
Oklahoma, you have to drive maybe 30 or 40 miles to vote. So the 
percentage turnout is less. It happens that Ghani's support comes from 
the rural areas. In this runoff election that just took place, they had 
a 75-percent turnout in those areas. At the same time, in the urban 
areas, they only had a 24-percent turnout.
  First of all, I do not think we can name one election in history that 
had a larger turnout in a rural area than it did the urban areas in the 
same election. So we are looking at something that could not happen and 
logically it did not happen. That was something that certainly worked 
in the favor of Ghani's election.
  Right now everyone agrees on one thing; that is, that the election 
was at least falsified. If not, it was just a rigged election. There 
are a lot of organizations out there--the European Union, for example, 
and the U.N. and other groups such as OSCE, which is the Office of 
Security and Cooperation in Europe--that all agree we should have an 
audit of this election--at least an audit which should include some 
independent source. So I want to get on record now, because I fear if 
nothing is done in the next 14 days, he will be declared the winner, 
with these discrepancies, I think that would be doing a great 
disservice to the people of Afghanistan. They would lose faith in their 
system, because what I am saying here on the Senate floor they already 
know.


                              Health Care

  Let me jump into another area I am very interested in, as is every 
Member of this body. I can remember back in the 1990s we had what was 
referred to as ``Hillary health care.'' At that time, there were 
several members of Parliament--one of them was up here and we had a 
hearing. That person said: You know, it is hard for us in the United 
Kingdom to understand why we have had this type of socialized medicine 
for as many years as I can remember--this is his quote. He said:

       Yet we are now finally realizing that your system over in 
     the United States is a much better system. We are now 
     starting to discard the whole socialized medicine system.

  That is something we saw way back in the 1990s. It came again with 
the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare. We have a lot of examples in my 
State of Oklahoma, heartbreaking accounts. Since the rollout last fall, 
my office has been flooded with stories from Oklahomans who found 
ObamaCare to be one massive broken promise from President Obama.
  These stories include a woman from Broken Arrow, OK, who reported a 
20-percent increase in her monthly premiums.
  A father from Owasso, OK, shared a story--I talked to all of these 
individuals personally--of his son and daughter who serve as 
missionaries in Indonesia. Their health care deductibles in the United 
States have more than doubled from $1,200 per person to $2,600 a 
person.
  One teacher, a public schoolteacher from Copan, OK, who teaches--
actually not in public school, it is adjunct college classes. She 
shared that not only did she have her work hours cut but is now paying 
$950 a month in premiums for health care with a $6,000 deductible.
  Another teacher from Sallisaw, OK--that happens to be the strawberry 
capital of the world in case you guys did not know that--shared that 
her deductible increased by $1,000 from last year.
  A man from Noble told us his company modified health plans to match 
the ObamaCare requirements. It is a company he owns. He says these 
changes cost him a 40-percent increase in his out-of-pocket expenses 
and his premium costs.
  A man from Tulsa who lives actually in my same neighborhood has a 
family of five. He works for a small business. He shared with us that 
he is now paying $4,000 more for insurance than he had paid a year ago.
  This November, a new open enrollment period will begin in at least 
one State, Virginia, which has already reported an astounding 22-
percent increase over the past year.
  All of that is happening. People from any State, any of the 50 
States, could come down and talk about the individual cases in their 
States. We have one good thing that is going on right now. We have a 
great attorney general by the name of Scott Pruitt. Scott Pruitt, the 
attorney general from Oklahoma, has a lawsuit. It is called Pruitt v. 
Burwell. Oklahoma has standing to proceed on a case that the IRS acted 
beyond Congress's intent in its effort to impose penalties in States 
that have Federal exchanges.
  We have 36 States that have Federal exchanges. These exchanges are--
well, first of all, the administration had a motion to dismiss. It was 
overruled 11 months ago, so this is a real case. The State has asked 
for summary judgment.
  Success in this case would mean the dismantling of the ObamaCare 
employer and individual mandates for all 36 States that have at least a 
partially federally facilitated exchange. I guess you can say it might 
end up being our attorney general from the State of Oklahoma is going 
to be the one who is going to be the most successful in doing something 
about this thing we should have learned a long time ago was not going 
to work.
  I have a personal interest in this, having had--there are states or 
countries that have socialized medicine. We have Canada, we have Great 
Britain, we have many other countries. In making a study of these, you 
find there is limited coverage for people when they reach a certain 
age.
  I see our good friend from Wyoming who is a medical doctor. He has 
given his second opinion many times. In one of those he talked about 
you get past a certain age, you are unable to get the treatment. I 
happen to have had occasion to have four bypasses at an age when in 
some countries I would not have qualified.
  It is something we have been very active in. We are going to 
hopefully be the heroes from the State of Oklahoma in offering relief 
to at least 36 of our States.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments from the Senator 
from Oklahoma who, like the Senator from Wyoming who is on the floor 
here with us here today, has heard from many of his constituents about 
the impact ObamaCare is having on them, the real-world economic impact.
  I have received countless letters from my constituents in South 
Dakota telling me about the challenges they are facing because of 
ObamaCare. Those challenges consist of the economic costs associated 
with the new health care law: higher premiums, higher deductibles, 
higher copays, the loss of the doctors they like, the burden the law is 
placing on their businesses if they are an employer, and less control 
and less freedom, which is something that is important to so many 
Americans, particularly when it comes to their health care.
  I want to take a few moments to highlight some of the stories that 
constituents of mine have shared with me. I know the Senator from 
Wyoming is here to do the same, to talk about the impact not only in 
his State of Wyoming but all across the country.
  One person named Erik from southeast South Dakota wrote to me to tell 
me his family's health care plan was cancelled thanks to ObamaCare. His 
old plan was $448 a month, with a $5,000 deductible and a 20-percent 
copay after that. The cheapest bronze plan he could find was $987 a 
month, more than

[[Page 11299]]

double what he was paying before, with a $6,500 deductible and a 40-
percent copay. He said, ``This means that I would need to incur about 
$26,000 in eligible medical expenses each year before insurance is a 
benefit to me.''
  Then there is Megan from McCook County, SD, who contacted me to tell 
me the cheapest plan she could find for her family of 4 would cost her 
a staggering $17,000. Seventeen thousand dollars. That is more than 
some people pay for their mortgage in an entire year.
  Randy from Hot Springs, SD, contacted me to tell me an exchange plan 
similar to his old insurance plan is $1,222 a month, almost 2\1/2\ 
times the cost of his old insurance plan.
  Sheri, from a small town in Minnehaha County, said:

       Next year, our insurance is changing, and I will lose my 
     family practice doctor of 22 years--the doctor that delivered 
     all my children and that has cared for our teenage children 
     all of their lives. We'll also lose all of the back-up 
     doctors our family has seen when we couldn't see our regular 
     doctor. . . . I was happy with my insurance, and now I have 
     to lose my doctor.

  Then there is Denny from Rapid City, SD, who told me the following:

       My insurance company cancelled my policy. I am currently 
     paying over $800 a month for a family of four. . . . If I 
     sign up for ObamaCare, I would be paying over $2,500 a month. 
     I cannot think of any way this is considered affordable 
     health care!

  Linda, a small business owner and operator from a small town along 
the Missouri River, wrote this:

       We need your help. . . . We have one full-time employee, 
     and we provide health care coverage for him, his wife, and 
     their children. . . . Our monthly premium in 2013 was 
     $2,964.20 or $35,570.40 annually. Our monthly premium--as a 
     result of the ``Affordable Care Act''--for 2014 is $3,524.75 
     or $42,297 annually.

  A huge increase from what they were paying before, from 2013 to 2014.
  She says:

       I have been told by our agent to expect even more 
     substantial increases in 2015. This is very frightening for 
     us.

  Lyle from Brookings, SD, said that thanks to ObamaCare, his monthly 
premium almost doubled and his deductible doubled.
  He says:

       I'm a small business owner, and would like to hire an 
     employee next spring. Well, that's not going to happen!

  We were told that ObamaCare would lower costs and make health care 
more affordable. Instead, it has driven up costs for these Americans 
and for many others. What middle-class family can afford to spend 
$17,000 a year on insurance? How can a small business with one employee 
afford a $7,000 yearly hike in insurance premiums? The answer is they 
cannot.
  As if high health care prices were not enough, ObamaCare is also 
damaging many Americans' job prospects.
  There is the 30-hour workweek rule, which is forcing many employers 
to cut their employees' hours. There is the medical device tax, which 
has already resulted in thousands and thousands of lost jobs in the 
industry and will likely result in many more if it isn't repealed. 
There is the employer mandate, which is discouraging many employers 
from expanding and hiring new employees. And there are the many rules 
and regulations that are placing a huge financial and logistical burden 
on small businesses.
  ObamaCare isn't working. It was supposed to help Americans. Instead, 
it is hurting them. It is time to start over and to replace this law 
with real health care reforms--reforms that will actually lower costs 
for Americans, give them back their health care choices, and improve 
access to care.
  That is what we ought to be doing. But, unfortunately, we have lots 
of folks here in this Chamber who are trying as desperately as they can 
to run away from the issue without fixing it.
  So as we get into these November elections and the run-up to them, a 
lot of vulnerable Democrats who voted for this are looking for a way 
out. But in many cases this was their signature achievement. This is 
the President's signature law. So they own it. They own that vote. Yet 
they are trying to figure out a way to spin it to the American people 
so that it will come across in a different way than the reality the 
American people are experiencing.
  This is the headline in Politico from yesterday: ObamaCare ``War Room 
Prepares for Sept. Surprise.'' They know there is more bad news coming 
out in September of this year when the new insurance rates are 
announced to kick in.
  So what is the White House doing? They have six people assigned to 
congressional Democrats to help do damage control in their States or 
their districts when this bad news comes out. And it inevitably will 
because there is no way that all the new mandates and requirements 
associated with this law don't lead to higher prices--in addition to 
all the higher taxes that go with it.
  So the headline is the ``War Room Prepares for Sept. Surprise,'' and 
it goes on to detail how they are trying their best to spin this in a 
way that confuses the American people into thinking it is something 
better than it is. Unfortunately for the spinners, the reality that 
most Americans are confronting and experiencing is a very different 
one--and that is the reality I talked about earlier: higher premiums, 
higher deductibles, higher copays, fewer choices when it comes to 
doctors and hospitals, fewer full-time jobs and more part-time jobs as 
employers look for ways to avoid dealing with these mandates and 
requirements that are imposed under ObamaCare. But it is forcing more 
and more people onto part-time jobs when they would like to be working 
full time. That is why last week when the jobs numbers came out and 
people were hailing the numbers--sure, there was some good news there. 
But there was an awful lot of bad news, and one of the bad news items 
was that a good majority were actually part-time and not full-time 
jobs.
  Why? One of the reasons is the mandates and requirements under 
ObamaCare and the institution of a 30-hour workweek, which is forcing 
employers to hire employees for fewer than 30 hours so they don't get 
stuck with having to provide government-approved health care, which 
would dramatically increase what they are paying for health care today.
  That is the reality that most Americans are confronting. I hope at 
some point, as these realities continue to sink in with the American 
people, their elected officials here in Washington will come together 
and realize this isn't working; it is not working for employers; and it 
is not working for middle-class families in this country who are 
increasingly squeezed by these higher costs; and it certainly isn't 
working for our economy.
  I know the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Barrasso, who has been mentioned 
by the Senator from Oklahoma, is a physician and understands these 
issues very well and has spoken at great length here on the floor about 
ObamaCare and its impacts. I know he is going to share some of the 
stories that he has received from not only the people he represents 
from the State of Wyoming but from those around the country who are 
feeling the impacts of this law.
  So would I yield for the Senator from Wyoming.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I join my colleague from South Dakota 
and agree with what he is seeing in South Dakota and I am seeing in 
Wyoming and that people all across the country are seeing with regard 
to the President's health care law. People are very concerned because 
it hits them in their pocketbook.
  What we are seeing is that people's premiums are going up. The 
deductible that they have to pay before they get to use their insurance 
is going way up. The copay that they have to make has gone way up.
  So in terms of people's actual pocketbook issues and the things that 
concern them, they are paying more and getting less, and it is because 
of the mandates in the Obama health care law.
  The President of the United States says: ``Forcefully defend and be 
proud'' of this law. Yet day after day, I don't see Democrats who voted 
for the health care law coming to the floor to forcefully defend or be 
proud of it. And there is very little to be proud of.
  We all get letters from people in our home States. I was home over 
the

[[Page 11300]]

Fourth of July visiting around the State, going to many communities. I 
haven't run into anyone who says this has actually significantly helped 
make their life better. People have come up to me at parade routes, 
rodeos--all the different places we have been--and they have great 
concerns about the health care law and the impact on their own personal 
life, what money is left over at the end of the day to help put food on 
the table, to get the kids off to school, clothing for the kids, and 
how the impact of the health care law is making it harder and lowering 
the quality of life in spite of the President's promises, which they 
say are just not true.
  I got a letter from a young woman, Shelly in Worland, WY, in Washakie 
County, in the center of the State. I know the community very well. She 
writes to me:

       I know you have heard my story a hundred times, but I feel 
     maybe one more won't hurt.

  She wanted to share what is going on in her specific life in Wyoming 
related to the health care law.

       Yesterday in the mail I received a notice that my . . . 
     health insurance will go from $637 to $897, and my $10,000 
     deductible is now $11,000.

  So her premiums have gone up and the deductible has gone up. It is a 
double whammy hitting her. But, she says:

       My plan now meets the requirements of the health care 
     reform law.

  And let's be serious about this. The requirements of the health care 
law mandate that many people all across the country end up buying much 
more insurance than they ever will need, ever will want, and will ever 
use. But it has to comply with what the Federal Government says they 
need.
  The families of Wyoming have a better idea of what they need for 
their health insurance than Barack Obama has in terms of what he thinks 
they might need. The families of Wyoming know what they need much more 
so than the Democrats in this body who voted the mandates onto these 
people and said they have to have all of this insurance. This woman 
doesn't need it, doesn't want it, and is not going to use it. Yet she 
is paying more out of her pocket, impacting that family's life so it 
can comply with the health care law instead of what is best for her and 
her family.
  She goes on to say:

       My husband is self employed on the family farm, and I am 
     also self employed at a beauty shop. Needless to say we have 
     always pinched our pennies. My children are all grown, my two 
     daughters are both kindergarten teachers in our wonderful 
     state, and my son is working with us on the farm. We have 
     worked very hard not to use any of the government assistance 
     raising our children on less than $30,000 a year.

  We are talking about hardworking families from all across the country 
pinching their pennies, making sure that they use their money wisely, 
not relying on the government. That is what we have here.

       So now I am forced to enter the health care reform circus.

  That is what this is. This is a circus forced down the throats of the 
American people by the Democrats in this body and by the President of 
the United States who forced this onto the American people, this health 
care reform circus.

       I know I missed the deadline because I was determined to 
     not be a part of this, but now I simply cannot afford this 
     insurance. I tried to navigate the website last night and 
     finally gave up after being kicked off three times.
       To make matters worse my insurance was offering one 
     decreasing deductible that we were counting on. We also lost 
     that in our new policy. We had our deductible down to 3,000. 
     We have been saving in an HA, but I'm afraid it won't last 
     long. I have just been told I have a rare bone disease called 
     fibrous dysplasia. It is causing some eye issues, and I am 
     facing some sort of surgery to remove the diseased bone 
     behind my eye.

  This hardworking Wyoming family:

       After working so hard to take care of ourselves my husband 
     and I are faced with having to have help. This makes no sense 
     to us. We were doing fine until the government stepped in.
       There has to be an answer somewhere. Thanks for your time.

  I practiced medicine for 25 years in Wyoming and took care of many 
families just like we have here with Shelly, knowing how hardworking 
people are--and the Presiding Officer knows that as well--in rural 
communities, people who roll up their sleeves, go to work every day, 
and don't want assistance from the government. They just do their job. 
And this is a family that has been hurt by the President's health care 
law--hurt dramatically. They had gotten their deductible down to 
$3,000, and now it is up to $11,000. Their premiums are higher than 
they were before, and she has a lot more insurance than she is ever 
going to want, need, can afford or will ever use.
  But we are seeing this all around the country. It is not just in 
stories from Wyoming. CBS Money Watch in the middle of June came out 
with a report called ``For some, Obamacare delivers sticker shock.''
  It is interesting, just trying to follow the press from around the 
country. These aren't isolated cases. We are seeing this all across the 
country.
  The article goes on:

     . . . Obamacare is delivering a hefty dose of sticker shock.

  What did the President of the United States promise the American 
people? He promised the American people that under his plan insurance 
premiums would drop $2,500 per family by the end of his first term--not 
stay flat, not go up a little--would actually go lower $2,500 per 
family per year by the end of his first term. ``Obamacare is delivering 
a hefty dose of sticker shock.''
  Now, who is getting hurt by this? All Americans are getting hurt, but 
the Washington Post had an interesting story on June 24. I wish the 
President would pay attention to this. The President of the United 
States needs to know that it is ``Older women who bear the brunt of 
higher insurance costs under Obamacare''--the headline in the 
Washington Post June 24.
  The new government report is out:

     . . . women age 55 to 64 will face a huge spike in cost when 
     they go out to buy individual insurance on the federal 
     exchange. These women bear the brunt of the increased 
     premiums and out of pocket expenses after the Affordable Care 
     Act.

  Winners and losers--and President Obama has chosen older women to 
bear the brunt of higher increased insurance costs under the President 
health care law.
  We are going to hear that again and again as Democrats stand up to 
talk about the issues facing our country. It is older women who are 
bearing the brunt of the higher insurance costs under the President's 
health care law, as reported in the Washington Post.
  Then, how incompetent is the Web site? Let's take a look at what the 
New York Times said July 1: ``Eligibility for Health Insurance Was Not 
Properly Checked, Audit Finds.''

       An independent audit of insurance exchanges established 
     under the health care law has found that federal and state 
     officials did not properly check the eligibility of people 
     seeking coverage and applying for subsidies, the latest 
     indication of unresolved problems at HealthCare.gov.

  I remember listening to President Obama talk and be interviewed by 
President Clinton in September of last year in New York City at the 
Clinton Global Initiative, or something like that. President Obama 
said: Easier than shopping on Amazon. Cheaper than your cell phone 
bill.
  This is in a report to Congress on Tuesday:

       In a report to Congress on Tuesday, the inspector general 
     for the Department of Health and Human Services . . . said 
     that the exchanges . . . did not have adequate safeguards 
     ``to prevent the use of inaccurate or fraudulent information 
     when determining eligibility.''
       Moreover, in a companion report, the inspector general said 
     that the government had been unable to verify much of the 
     information reported by people applying for insurance 
     coverage and financial assistance to help pay premiums.
       We are talking about the Inspector General of the 
     Department of Health and Human Services of the Obama 
     administration.
       ``As of the first quarter of 2014,'' [the Inspector 
     General] said, ``the federal marketplace was unable to 
     resolve about 2.6 million of 2.9 million inconsistencies''--

--because the Web site that President Obama has said would be easier to 
use than Amazon, cheaper than your cell phone was not fully 
operational. What kind of government incompetence are we talking about?

[[Page 11301]]

  The Associated Press on July 1: ``Health law sign-ups dogged by data 
flaws.'' Unable to resolve 2.6 million so-called inconsistencies--it is 
astonishing. And they call it ``another health care headache for the 
White House.'' The problems continue out of sight. The President is 
trying to hide these problems--trying to hide them from the American 
people. The President says one thing, tries to sell a story. The 
President now has his own war room set up--not to solve the problems. 
Oh, no. He is not trying to solve the problems. He has a war room to 
try to spin the information so the voters don't get to see what they 
are not being deceived by. They can see through this. You have a war 
room with six people trying to spin the health care numbers rather than 
trying to solve the problems, trying to lower the cost of care, trying 
to help patients get care--not empty coverage and expensive coverage. 
There are so many problems in the world, and what the White House has 
decided to spend its time and money on is set up a war room to try to 
spin the issues of the Obama health care law, not to solve the 
problems.
  Go around the country, State by State. California: ObamaCare massive 
backlog stalls medical expansion. Connecticut: Anthem seeks 12.5 
percent rate increase. Back to California: Confusion over doctor list 
is costly for ObamaCare enrollees in the State.
  You can work your way around the country, and State by State, whether 
you do it from east to west, north to south, do it in alphabetical 
order, in every State there are horror stories about the impact of this 
health care law.
  Connecticut again: ObamaCare glitch leading to canceled policies. 
Constituents calling to talk to their State representatives say their 
insurance policies have been canceled because the subsidies that helped 
discount the premiums hadn't been paid--hadn't been paid. According to 
people involved with the insurance companies, the issue of mistaken 
policy cancellation ``is real.'' So the insurance companies are saying 
it is absolutely true, it is absolutely real.
  I see other colleagues on the floor.
  I would say that in Colorado, a State that I go through every weekend 
at least twice going to Wyoming and coming back to DC from Wyoming, 
people in Colorado are very concerned. ``Colorado health exchange site 
needs surgery.'' This is NBC 9 News, Colorado. A reporter said:

       I'm not going to sugar-coat this: The official state 
     website where Coloradans can shop for health insurance is a 
     mess. Sure [the web site] looks pretty slick at first glance. 
     It lets you window shop for plans and offers some (but not 
     all) good info about the health care law. But when you 
     actually create an account and start shopping, the site 
     offers an experience that is clunky, counter-intuitive, and 
     often confusing.

  That sounds to me like the Obama administration--clunky, 
counterintuitive, and often confusing.

       That's the web product being offered to Coloradans after 
     receiving more than $179 million in federal grants to develop 
     the state exchange.

  This reporter says:

       If you are looking for a passionate argument of the pros 
     and cons of [ObamaCare], as a reporter I avoid making public 
     policy arguments.
       However, if this is the official system the people of 
     Colorado are getting to shop for individual coverage, it 
     should be a good one. Nine months after it began selling 
     health plans, this website is not a good one. It should be 
     upsetting to everyone in the state of Colorado, especially 
     supporters of the healthcare law.

  I would apply that to anyone from Colorado who is on this Senate 
floor or in the House of Representatives who voted for the health care 
law.
  He said:

       It should be upsetting to everyone in the state, especially 
     supporters of the healthcare law. My family obtained a health 
     plan despite the website.
       By way of background, I am not remotely anti-technology. I 
     grew up in Silicon Valley. I built my own computers as a kid. 
     I once had a job working in tech support for [a dot-com 
     company], a sophisticated e-commerce platform . . . My goal 
     in this review is to shine a light on some really basic (and 
     deeply frustrating) problems that any commercial dot-com 
     would be pulling all-nighters to fix.

  Well, that shows you the difference between a commercial dot-com and 
the government of the United States.
  It says:

       For some reason, these issues have been allowed to hang 
     around for the better part of a year by the Connect for 
     Health Colorado.

  And then today, the Denver Post: ``Colorado exchange expects more to 
drop health coverage''--giving up, not paying their premiums, not 
renewing their coverage. They are expecting double what was initially 
anticipated of the number of people who aren't paying their premiums. 
They realize this empty coverage they are paying a lot of money for 
isn't actually good for them. They are paying too much in premiums. 
Their deductibles are high, their copays are high.
  I can go on and on. The people of America know what they wanted with 
health care reform. They wanted to be able to get care they need from a 
doctor they choose at lower costs. That is not what they got from 
President Obama's health care law that the Democrats in this body voted 
for. What they got are higher premiums, higher copays, higher 
deductibles, maybe cannot keep their doctor, cannot keep their 
hospital--not what the President promised, not what people wanted, and 
it is time to go back and start over to work on a health care system 
that gives the American people what they truly want, truly need, and 
deserve.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friends who have been here talking about this. 
Both Senator Thune and Senator Barrasso spent so much time on figuring 
out ways this could work better and obviously it is not working as well 
as people hoped it would.
  There is a series of headlines I saw on my desk today. CNN Money 
said: ``Were ObamaCare applications accurate? Who knows?''
  Reuters says, ``Obama care exchange is not properly verifying 
applicant data.''
  The New York Post: ``Obamacare data errors could jeopardize coverage 
for millions.''
  The Washington Times: ``ObamaCare markets foul up eligibility and 
verification parts in applications.''
  The New York Times: ``Eligibility for health insurance was not 
properly checked audit finds.''
  Wall Street Journal: ``Reports Fault Controls of Health Exchanges.''
  This is simply not working. It wasn't as though there was a lot of 
time to make it work either. It was from early in 2010 until the law 
was implemented in the end of 2013, and there is one problem after 
another, which is a good indication of what happens when the government 
tries to do more than the government is capable of doing, when the 
government tries to prescribe all kinds of decisions that would be so 
much better left to individuals as long as the government has done what 
it could to ensure a more aggressive, active, competitive marketplace. 
But that is not what happened here.
  The Associated Press this weekend had a headline that read: ``Senate 
Democrats try to pull focus from ObamaCare.'' Of course they would, 
because every Democrat who is in the Senate when this bill passed voted 
for the bill.
  You know, if there is one long-term political lesson to learn here, 
surely it is that when you do something this big, you should do it in a 
way that no matter what you have to do you find a way to get people on 
both sides involved. Don't do this in a way that shoves it down the 
throats of the country or your colleagues.
  More bad news, more broken promises, higher premiums. The 
anticipation this fall is that premiums, notices of which are going to 
go out later this year, are going to go up. They are going to go up in 
double digits. The promise in 2009 was not only that families would pay 
less money but they would pay $2,500 less money. Somehow the people who 
were for this bill in the administration knew so much about health care 
and so much about the impact of what government having more control of 
people's health care would do, told us not only that the premiums were 
going to go down, but that they

[[Page 11302]]

were going to go down $2,500 per family. Now most families are finding 
that there is a $2,500 number, but it is the number that you would feel 
lucky to have if your insurance for your family just went up that much.
  July 1, Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General 
released a report that was the subject of all those headlines I just 
read. The report said they didn't do enough to verify, haven't checked 
this closely enough, don't know if people are eligible for the 
government assistance they are getting for their insurance. It said the 
administration was unable to put safeguards in place to protect 
taxpayers and prevent incorrect subsidy payments from happening.
  The report also found the administration didn't even follow its own 
eligibility verification in many instances. They didn't go through the 
procedures they had set up for themselves. In fact, of the 2.9 million 
verification inconsistencies, they were unable to resolve 2.6 million 
of them. They wind up with 2.9 million problems when they find out 
their verification inconsistencies, and 2.6 million of the 2.9 
million--hey, we cannot figure this out. We didn't get enough 
information. We don't know why the system is not working, but it is 
not.
  In January 2014, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, 
Secretary Sebelius, certified to Congress that the ObamaCare exchanges 
could verify that individuals receiving tax credits and cost-sharing 
assistance were actually eligible to receive taxpayer-provided 
assistance. Now apparently by July of 2014, 6 months later, the people 
who check to see if that was true or not find out it is not true at 
all.
  Middle-class Americans have enough pain with this law already without 
finding out their tax dollars are going to pay bills of people who 
don't qualify to have that much of their bill paid or maybe not even 
any of their bill paid. Recently I spoke on the floor about a contract 
in Missouri and three other States with a British company, Serco, about 
the lack of transparency and accountability in the act. As the St. 
Louis Post-Dispatch recently reported: ``Whistleblower allegations last 
month claimed that workers slept, read or played games at 
Wentzville''--this is the Wentzville facility--``played games at 
Wentzville and provoked a flurry of questions from congressional 
delegation[s].''
  Further quoting, ``We played Pictionary. We played 20 Questions. We 
played Trivial Pursuit,'' one employee told the Post-Dispatch. She 
estimated she processed six applications the entire month of December.
  CMS didn't acknowledge these allegations but they said they had 
``adjusted Serco's work to accommodate changing operational needs.''
  Two months ago Senator Alexander and I called these reports into 
question and we sent a letter to CMS and said: What are you doing there 
and why is this not working? I don't know if we said it in the letter 
but we could have said: Why did you contract with a British company 
that was already in trouble with the British Government for not 
providing these services?
  These are not particularly technical services. If there is only one 
country in the world that can provide services to the United States, we 
found the one place in the world where we found a company that was 
already in trouble with their own government for not providing services 
and said you're the company for us. We want you to be the ones that 
provide these services for people who cannot apply over the Internet 
and send in their applications in some other way.
  So to Senator Alexander I say: What about these charges that people 
simply don't have anything to do and rather than admit that they have 
nothing to do, you see library books stacked up on the table. Here is 
the Trivial Pursuit game. Touch your computer every once in a while. 
Refresh your computer once every 10 minutes so it looks as though you 
are doing something.
  Two weeks ago we finally received a reply after 2 months of having 
this question out there, and I think I put that reply in the 
Congressional Record. It was so much of a non-answer answer. It was 
more like: We got your letter. We are going to look into this and see 
if we can figure out what's happening.
  I don't think it would be that hard to figure out.
  I recently learned that CMS determined that Serco had met the terms 
and conditions of the contract which apparently involved, if you 
believe these employees, playing board games and reading library books, 
and CMS decided this British company does such a great job they were 
going to exercise the first option of the contract and on June 28 they 
awarded an extended contract to the company through what they said was 
``a full and open competition'' to provide these services.
  The lesson here is that the government needs to think long and hard 
before it gets into the world of making decisions for people that 
people can better make for themselves. The government doesn't need to 
think long and hard to believe there is a government responsibility to 
ensure a certain amount of consumer protection, that what companies say 
they are going to do they are required to do, that they clearly tell 
you what they are going to do. Families can decide what they want in 
their insurance policy better than the government can decide what they 
want in their insurance policy.
  I am sure every Member in the Senate gets stacks of letters--I know I 
get them--from those who are retired and don't understand why they need 
pediatric dental care and policies that cover a half dozen things they 
could never possibly use. They don't understand why those policies are 
now so expensive that they can no longer afford to have the policy they 
had. They don't understand the reason for cutting Medicare and starting 
a new government program. It doesn't make sense to them. It doesn't 
make sense to cut funding to a program--a program which is clearly 
facing challenges as our society gets older--by $600 or $700 billion 
over 10 years in order to start a new program where the costs will be 
so much more than anybody anticipated.
  I am pleased to join my friends today who have been here for the 
better part of this last hour talking about the challenges we face. We 
know there are better solutions. More competition and buying health 
care insurance across State lines would have been a couple of 
solutions. Associated health plans where a small business or an 
individual can find some group to become part of--the government could 
have made that easier instead of making it illegal and impossible.
  There should be more transparency by providers. I would like to know 
what hospitals and doctors charge and what their results are. And they 
know. There is no reason that cannot be made available. In fact, one of 
the better provisions in the Affordable Care Act said the government is 
supposed to do that, but of all the things the government could have 
done, that is something the government has not found time to do.
  They could address medical liability reform. There was a double 
handful and maybe even just a single handful of things we could have 
done to say: Let's try these things and see if they don't make the 
system work better and see what lesson we learn by injecting these two 
or three or four or five things into a health care system that was the 
best health care system in the world; it just didn't have the amount of 
competition, transparency, and access it needed to have.
  I will continue to hope we will move forward, learn the hard-learned 
lessons of the implementation of this plan, and go back and find what 
was working so well and figure out what we need to do to make that work 
even better.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Texas.


                              Immigration

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday I came to the floor and spoke 
about President Obama's reluctance to see firsthand the ongoing and 
growing humanitarian crisis occurring on the U.S.-Mexico border.
  Today I come to the floor to renew my call--as other elected 
officials from both sides of the aisle have done--urging President 
Obama to please come to the border, where this humanitarian

[[Page 11303]]

crisis is unfolding. It has been reported that the President will be in 
Texas for 2 days starting tomorrow. He will be there Wednesday and 
Thursday on a fundraising trip.
  I am not suggesting a handshake on the tarmac or a roundtable 500 
miles away from the border, but please come and see it with your own 
eyes, as I have. Talk to the Border Patrol. Learn from not only the 
migrants who have traversed Mexico at the risk of their own lives to 
come to the United States, but find out what we need to do to deal with 
the ongoing crisis and what we need to do to solve it.
  I urge him to do so not as a political statement but so he can 
witness what is a very sad and in many ways tragic situation and one 
that could have been mitigated if not prevented. Unfortunately, this is 
a humanitarian crisis that his policies and the perception about his 
commitment to enforce our laws have helped create.
  Given the recent White House announcement that the President refuses 
to visit the Rio Grande Valley this week, it unfortunately appears that 
my request today will fall on deaf ears and therefore suggests to the 
American people that either the President doesn't really understand 
this border crisis or he simply doesn't care.
  To give the President a fair shake, I was with the President after 
the tragic shootings at Fort Hood in 2009 and last year. I was with the 
President at the memorial service in West, where first responders were 
tragically killed as a result of an explosion. Why he is so stubborn 
and hardheaded that he refuses to visit the Rio Grande Valley and 
witness this ongoing humanitarian crisis with his own eyes is really 
mystifying.
  Governor Perry has been doing what I have been doing and urging the 
President to visit the border. He happened to share with the media--
Governor Perry, that is--last night a White House letter inviting him 
to an immigration roundtable in Dallas. This crisis is unfolding on the 
border and not in Dallas. I brought a map of Texas with me so the 
President can see this for himself. This is Dallas. This is where the 
crisis is unfolding in the Rio Grande Valley, which is about 500 miles 
away.
  Thankfully, the President doesn't have to fly commercial; he flies on 
Air Force One. My guess is that it would probably take him an hour out 
of his scheduled activities in Texas to go to the border and maybe 
another hour on the ground to talk to the Border Patrol, as I did last 
week. If he did that, he would see these children jammed in detention 
facilities at the Border Patrol detention stations. It would give him 
an opportunity to talk to some of them, as I did in my visit last week. 
I think it would be helpful to the President.
  I think one of the biggest problems Presidents have is they end up 
living in a bubble. They only get access to information that is 
filtered through their advisers and counselors, and sometimes 
Presidents simply don't understand; they are tone deaf to the problems 
which confront the country. That is why it would be in the best 
interests of my constituents in Texas, it would be in the best 
interests of these children who are part of this humanitarian crisis, 
and it would be a contribution toward a solution to this crisis if the 
President would simply travel 500 miles from Dallas, TX, where he 
invited Governor Perry to a roundtable, down to the Rio Grande Valley.
  As I said, the President's trip to Texas will focus on fundraising, 
and I understand that. But the problem is his policies have had a 
disproportionate impact upon my constituents who live along the U.S.-
Mexico border. In fact, it is my recollection that the President of the 
United States has not once visited the Rio Grande Valley, where a 
majority of this ongoing crisis is taking place.
  He did come to El Paso back in 2011. When people suggested we had a 
problem with security at the border, he ridiculed them by saying: Well, 
maybe we ought to build a moat along the border. That is actually 
insulting coming from a person who has never actually been to the 
border, particularly the Rio Grande Valley, where a majority of these 
children are crossing.
  Indeed, over time what has happened is much of the illegal 
immigration that comes across the border has migrated from Nogales, AZ, 
to the Rio Grande Valley. You can't see it on this map, but if you 
understand the geography here, most of these children are coming from 
Central America. The shortest distance from Guatemala and Honduras to 
the United States is through the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
  The President should also visit Brooks County, which is a place I 
have visited. This is where the Falfurrias checkpoint is located. They 
have found many dead bodies of immigrants who died from exposure while 
trying to circumvent the checkpoint at Falfurrias. What happens is 
coyotes, as they call them--human smugglers--will bring them across the 
border, put them in stash houses on the border, and many of those 
conditions are inhumane in and of themselves. What will then happen is 
that the coyotes--smugglers--will bring them in trucks up the highway, 
and before they hit the checkpoint in Falfurrias, they will tell them 
to get out of the truck, give them a milk jug full of water, and tell 
them they will see them on the north side of the checkpoint.
  So dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of immigrants over time 
try to walk--some in the 100-plus-degree Texas weather--around this 
checkpoint, and some simply don't make it. If you understand where they 
have come from--some from Central America--many are terribly 
dehydrated, already ill from exposure, and for many of them their last 
steps are in Brooks County while trying to walk around this checkpoint 
in Falfurrias.
  I think the President would benefit from doing what I have done. He 
should visit the residents in Brooks County, talk to the Border Patrol, 
and learn more about the problem and how we might effect a solution. If 
he refuses to go out of stubborn pride or whatever the reason is, then 
he will simply be ignorant of the best ways we can work together to 
solve this underlying problem.
  In recent weeks I have shared only a few of the many horrific stories 
regarding the dangerous journey countless numbers of children take to 
get to the United States from Central America. They call the train that 
many of them ride in the corridors controlled by the cartels who treat 
human beings as a commodity--like drugs and guns. They treat human 
beings as a commodity that makes money for them. These immigrants go 
through the corridors on a train system they call The Beast.
  There is a chilling book written by Salvadoran journalist Oscar 
Martinez about The Beast. In it, you find out that 6 out of 10--maybe 
more--women who come up along this train system known as The Beast are 
sexually assaulted. Migrants are routinely kidnapped and held for 
ransom by the gangs and cartels that patrol this area, and many of them 
simply don't make it.
  I shudder to think of how many of the young children--some as young 
as 5 have been detained at the border region--never make it to the 
border because they die in the process. That is not humanitarian. That 
is not friendly. That is cruel. We ought to be telling the truth about 
this horrific journey and discouraging parents from sending their 
children from Central America up through Mexico on the back of The 
Beast only to die in the process or to be assaulted, kidnapped, or 
horribly injured and maimed.
  Well, this is one of the many reasons why I think the President would 
benefit from a visit. It is hard to ignore the facts, especially when 
you see them with your own eyes and you get a chance to talk to our 
hard-working professional Border Patrol, doing an incredible job with 
limited resources.
  When you have 52,000 children coming across the southwestern border 
at the Rio Grande sector since October and 39,000 women with minor 
children detained in the Rio Grande sector, unless you go and talk to 
the Border Patrol and learn about this with your own ears and eyes, you 
may not realize that drug interdictions are depressed because our 
Border Patrol is basically

[[Page 11304]]

trying to change diapers and deal with the humanitarian crisis. They 
are overwhelmed and are unable to do one of their principal jobs, which 
is to interdict illegal drug importations into the United States.
  So I hope the President will reconsider. He is not going to Texas 
until tomorrow. My understanding is he will be there for 2 days, and 
certainly he has an hour or 2 hours out of his schedule that he could 
dedicate to seeing the crisis for himself and learning more about it, 
and then coming back and working with us to try to stop it.
  Of course, we all feel nothing but sympathy for the children and 
families who sacrifice their lives trying to make it to the United 
States but fail because of the impression that our immigration laws 
simply will not be enforced. Many of my colleagues have come to the 
floor and said, If we would pass the comprehensive immigration bill the 
Senate passed last year, that would do it. Well, I would say, with all 
respect, that is demonstrably false, because even the President and 
Secretary Johnson of the Department of Homeland Security have conceded 
that none of these children would be eligible, under the President's 
deferred action Executive order--none of them would be eligible for 
entry and to stay in the United States. So passing that law would have 
nothing to do with this current crisis.
  Between President Obama's failure to enforce our immigration laws and 
his ever-shifting explanations, it is no wonder he has lost credibility 
on this issue. Many Americans simply don't have confidence that the 
President is willing to faithfully execute the laws of the United 
States, including our immigration laws. No wonder Speaker Boehner and 
so many of our House colleagues have gotten so frustrated they have 
decided maybe the only alternative is to take the President to court. 
We know the President has had a pretty bad couple of weeks when it 
comes to overreach, and he has been rebuked several times recently for 
unconstitutional acts such as trying to determine when the Senate is in 
recess and evade the confirmation process in the Senate.
  If the President wants to know why we haven't been able to pass 
immigration reform, all he has to do is look in the mirror. All he has 
to do is look at his own policies which have created an enormous amount 
of distrust between not only Congress and the executive branch but in 
his agencies so that they will actually do what they are supposed to 
do, such as the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement--ICE--and the other components of the Department of 
Homeland Security.
  Given all the differing narratives coming out of the White House 
concerning this surge of unaccompanied minors, it is time for the 
President to directly address the problem.
  I know the President has sent over today a $3.7 billion request for 
more money. I have no doubt that some pieces of it are justified. For 
example, we need enhanced detention facilities. We need more 
immigration judges and other people as part of that process so hearings 
can be conducted on a timely basis and a legal determination made 
according to existing law whether people can stay or whether they have 
to be returned to their country of origin.
  Visiting the border is just one in a series of steps the President 
could take to regain some of his own credibility but also to help 
address this crisis.
  This is not just a humanitarian crisis; this is also a national 
security crisis, as recently testified to by the head of Southern 
Command, General Kelly, a Marine general who is head of that combatant 
command. He is in charge of that area of the globe from Mexico south 
known as Southern Command, and he says because of inadequate resources 
and equipment and manpower to deal with the drug cartels moving illegal 
drugs from South America up through Central America through Mexico to 
the United States, 75 percent of the time, General Kelly said, they 
simply have to sit and watch because they don't have the resources. I 
would hope that some of the money included in this $3.7 billion request 
would be dedicated to making sure that General Kelly and our law 
enforcement agencies have the resources and equipment necessary to stop 
the drug cartels from moving drugs from South America through Central 
America and up through Mexico.
  As General Kelly said, we have this intersection of criminal conduct 
and terrorism that sometimes takes place with organizations such as 
Hezbollah, for example, that has established a presence in South 
America, historically, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure 
out this vulnerability can be exploited by other people and not just 
the drug cartels.
  The question remains, if one has enough money, can one make it into 
the United States? Unfortunately, I think we have to answer that 
question in the affirmative. Last year alone, 414,000 people were 
detained on our southwestern border from 100 different countries--100 
different countries. So this isn't just about people who have no hope 
and no opportunity trying to come to the United States from Mexico and 
trying to get a job; this is about uncontrolled immigration through our 
southwestern border from all over the world. Admittedly, most of them 
come from Mexico and Central America, but this is a vulnerability where 
people can come from Pakistan, they can come from Afghanistan, they can 
even come from Iran--countries of special interest, countries that are 
state sponsors of international terrorism. So this is worthy of the 
President's attention and worthy of a Presidential visit, and I hope he 
will change his mind and do that.
  I think President Obama needs a wakeup call. He needs to realize that 
the situation along the border is not as rosy as perhaps he is under 
the impression it is. Only by visiting the border and visiting 
firsthand and seeing with his own eyes and listening with his own ears 
to the professionals who are working there so hard and are simply 
overwhelmed will he be able to get a good idea of not only what the 
problem is but what the solutions are. Then and only then, I believe, 
will he be ready and will we be ready to sit down and work together 
through this request the President has sent us and figure out how we 
can solve the problem.
  Once again, I hope the President will reconsider his decision, since 
he is going to be in Texas anyway on Wednesday and Thursday, and go to 
the border, just 500 miles away. On Air Force One it is easy to get 
there. It won't take much time. He could spend an hour on the ground, 
and then I think he will come away glad he has taken advantage and 
accepted this invitation by Governor Perry and me and other Texans to 
come see the problem for himself.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             VA Health Care

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I believe when it comes to caring for our 
Nation's heroes, we can't accept anything less than excellence.
  As have many of my colleagues, I have been very troubled by the most 
recent allegations of the VA failing to provide veterans timely health 
care. The VA generally offers very high-quality health care and does 
many things as well or better than the private sector. But when you are 
caring for our Nation's heroes and you have the backing of the full 
resources of the Federal Government, ``just as good'' is not enough. We 
expect more. So I am very frustrated to be here again talking about 
these deeply disturbing issues and the Department's repeated failures 
to change.
  GAO and the inspector general have reported on these problems many 
times over the years. Last Congress we did a great deal of work around 
wait times, particularly for mental health care. I think the VA is 
starting to see that business as usual is not acceptable.
  The administration has taken steps to begin addressing some of the 
major systemwide problems, but much more needs to be done. Tomorrow, 
when I

[[Page 11305]]

meet with the President's nominee for the VA Secretary, I am going to 
ask him how he plans to make these changes. That is why I am very glad 
to be serving on the veterans conference committee, because Congress 
needs to act as well.
  The most important thing we can do right now is to pass responsible 
and effective legislation to bring much-needed reforms to the VA, and 
we need to do it soon.
  There have been major bipartisan efforts in both the House and in the 
Senate to move legislation addressing these problems. Many Members have 
been part of those efforts, and I commend them all for their commitment 
to bipartisanship and for putting the needs of our veterans first. It 
is vital that we continue to build on this bipartisan momentum and to 
continue making progress if we are going to address some of the 
immediate accountability and transparency concerns that are plaguing 
the VA and to fix its deep-seated structural and cultural challenges.
  I know Members have a wide range of concerns with the bill, and I 
believe we can address those concerns responsibly and in a way that 
puts our veterans first and gives the VA the tools it needs to address 
the challenges it faces. That means building and strengthening the VA 
system so it delivers the best care for the long term. But it is 
important for us to act quickly to start making these changes. We 
cannot allow this process to break down. Veterans are still waiting to 
get the care they need.
  Many of us were rightly outraged the VA did not act to help veterans 
because the Department ignored all the information and did nothing. 
This Congress must not do the same and fail veterans by not acting.
  I urge all of our colleagues to work as hard and as quickly as 
possible to finalize an agreement and get it to the President. More 
problems will be uncovered and the investigations will proceed, and we 
will need more action from the VA, the administration, and Congress, 
because our Nation made a promise to the men and women who answer the 
call of duty, and one of the most important ways we uphold that is by 
making sure our veterans can get access to the health care they need 
and they deserve, no matter what it takes.


                           Highway Trust Fund

  I also wish to speak about another important issue Congress needs to 
act on, and that is the looming crisis with the highway trust fund.
  As is the case with other States around the country, my home State of 
Washington relies on the highway trust fund to pay for construction 
projects. These are projects that ease traffic on our highways, repair 
bridges, and make safety improvements. This year, for example, 
officials in Washington State plan to use money from the highway trust 
fund to improve safety at railroad crossings in Centralia. They plan to 
replace anchor cables on bridges in Seattle, and they plan to repave 
roads across the State to fix potholes and to make roads smoother for 
our drivers. But here in DC, the Department of Transportation and many 
of us in Congress have been warning for months that the highway trust 
fund needs more revenue to pay for these critical projects in my home 
State and across the country. Without that revenue, the trust fund is 
going to reach critically low levels next month.
  This is coming now just a few months after Republicans pushed us into 
a government shutdown. If Congress fails to act soon, families and 
businesses and States would see another shutdown, this time with 
highway projects around the country.
  I had hoped we would be able to get this done by now. The last thing, 
I can tell my colleagues, the American people want to see right now is 
another countdown clock on the evening news. But we still have a chance 
to get this done before it is too late. Instead of lurching to yet 
another crisis and putting our construction projects at risk, let's 
work together and do the right thing for our families and our workers 
and the economy.
  The clock is ticking for Congress to find the much-needed revenue. 
Starting August 1, the Department of Transportation said it will start 
delaying payments to our States for projects that ease traffic on 
clogged highways and make important repairs to our bridges. On average, 
States will lose 28 percent of their Federal funding. Without that 
money, many States are going to have to delay or stop work on their 
construction sites. Officials in my home State have said up to 43 
highway projects could be threatened, and across the country more than 
1,000 construction projects could be at risk, according to the 
Department of Transportation.
  If there is one thing Democrats and Republicans should be able to 
agree on, and usually do, is that we should be investing in and 
improving our transportation infrastructure, not letting it crumble. A 
construction shutdown would threaten jobs and businesses. If States 
have to scale back their plans, companies are going to hire fewer 
workers to repair and improve roads and bridges across the country. 
Without a fix, nearly 700,000 jobs will be at risk next year, according 
to the Department of Transportation. And let's remember, the 
construction industry was one of the hardest hit sectors after the 
economic downturn and has not yet fully bounced back. In fact, weakness 
in the U.S. labor market is actually due to the lack of growth in the 
construction sector, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. 
Louis. Allowing our highway trust fund to dip to critically low levels 
would deliver another blow to the construction sector as it is 
struggling to recover.
  Last fall, families and communities across our country were forced to 
endure a completely unnecessary government shutdown. That shutdown, we 
all know, hurt our people and threatened a very fragile economic 
recovery and shook the confidence of the American people who expect 
their elected officials to come together and avoid such an unnecessary 
crisis. I was proud to work with Democrats and Republicans at the end 
of last year to pass a bipartisan budget deal that prevented another 
government shutdown. It restored critical investments in families and 
the economy and it put a halt to the constant budget crises.
  I was proud to build on that bipartisan momentum and work with my 
friend Senator Isakson and others on a workforce investment deal that 
passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support. We hope, by the way, 
that will pass the House tomorrow and get signed into law.
  We know bipartisanship work is possible. We know the country is 
better for it when it happens. We know it is what families we represent 
expect from all of us. So today I am calling on Republicans to work 
with us in good faith to do the right thing and help us avoid this 
construction shutdown. I know Republican leaders once again are worried 
about their tea party fringe pushing them into another unnecessary 
crisis, but I hope they are able to push them aside and work with us to 
get this done. Republicans saw how devastating it was for them--and 
their constituents--when they hurt the country with the government 
shutdown. I am hopeful that gives them any additional incentive they 
may need to work with us this time.
  State and local governments, workers, businesses, and drivers are 
looking to us to resolve this crisis and avoid another shutdown. States 
cannot afford important highway construction projects without this 
important highway trust fund. Families cannot afford to have a few 
Members of Congress putting jobs at risk again. With the clock winding 
down fast, we cannot afford to put this off any longer. So let's 
resolve this looming crisis. Let's work together and prevent a 
construction shutdown this summer for our economy, for our businesses, 
and for our families across the country.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page 11306]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          Summer Food Programs

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to talk about the 
challenge we have to make sure every child in America who is eligible 
for one of the programs that help children have enough to eat and have 
nutritious food is getting served. The problem across the country is we 
have a number of children who are receiving meals during the school 
year, either school breakfast as part of the School Breakfast Program, 
or the School Lunch Program. So at some point in time they are getting 
a meal at school, and maybe more than one meal. Then they go home for 
the summer, and even though they are eligible for the summer programs, 
which tend to be in different locations, may not be at one school or 
one central location, a lot of children do not get the benefit of those 
programs. The program name is the Summer Food Service Program. Many 
Americans may have heard of the School Lunch Program, the School 
Breakfast Program, probably have heard less about the Summer Food 
Service Program.
  We know that even though children are taking a summer vacation from 
school, hunger does not take a summer vacation. Hunger is always a 
clear and present danger, a reality for children, especially children 
in low-income communities from low-income families. This is a reality 
for so many children, millions of them across the country and their 
families. But it is also preventable. It is a tragedy when a child does 
not have enough to eat. But this is preventable if we do the right 
thing.
  We know that during the school year, when you add up all of the 
children who receive a meal at school, it amounts to about 21 million. 
That is the good news, that that many children are being served. The 
bad news is when they go home for their summer vacation, by one count, 
the last count we have, only 3 million children are getting a summer 
meal, even though as high as 21 million are eligible--or 21 million 
receive that kind of help during the school year.
  In my home State of Pennsylvania, the dropoff, the last number we 
have, is during the course of the year, just about 777,000 children 
received a meal, about three-quarters of a million children. The 
problem, though, is the summer number goes way down to, at last count, 
105,000, just a little more than 105,000, so there is a little more 
than a 7-to-1 difference between the school year and the summer 
program.
  One of the things we have to do is to get the word out. That is why I 
brought along this poster that highlights this. To find a site in your 
State, in your community--there are many sites, tens of thousands of 
them across the country--you may need to inquire about it. You may need 
to make a phone call to find out about the sites--1-866-3-HUNGRY, and 
then a different one, 1-877-8-HAMBRE.
  We want to make sure that in addition to knowing the 800 numbers, you 
have a Web site. It is pasummermeals.com. That, of course, applies to 
Pennsylvania, pasummermeals.com. So if you live in Pennsylvania, that 
is your Web site.
  These numbers are national numbers, the 1-866-3-HUNGRY, and then 1-
877-8-HAMBRE. That is one way to find out, for families to find out, 
for advocates, anyone who is concerned about this or wants to know more 
about what their community has available for them, because, as I said 
before, it is different than the circumstances during the year. During 
the year, children go to a school and that school has a School 
Breakfast Program and/or a School Lunch Program. In the summer, you 
have the same services available, the same opportunities, same 
eligibility for children, but the sites are--there are more sites. And 
sometimes, when people do not know, when they cannot be served by a 
school, they may have to go to another place in their community.
  This is a major issue. Because we know that all the science tells us 
if we want children to learn more now and earn more later, that is what 
we all hope is not just the right thing to do, but if you have enough 
to eat you probably learn better. Obviously if you can learn more, you 
are going to earn more, literally, in your lifetime. This is not just a 
rhyme, it has a scientific foundation.
  We want to make sure that in addition to having the best possible 
educational programs for children to learn, we want to also create the 
best circumstances for them to learn. I do not know about people here, 
but in the course of my day, if I do not eat breakfast and then it gets 
to noontime or 1:00 and I have not had something to eat, it is pretty 
hard for me to be as functional and as effective as I want to be. I can 
only imagine what it is like for a child who does not have enough to 
eat, not just on one particular day of the week but maybe more than one 
day or a couple of days in a row. I do not know how they can function, 
let alone learn and study, take tests and achieve and be successful 
over time. They need the same kind of help in the summer as they have 
during the year.
  So if we are making it possible, if our government and communities 
around the country are making it possible for a child to have a school 
breakfast and/or a school lunch, why would we not make sure they have 
meals during the summer as well, especially when there is a program in 
place they are eligible for?
  We have to call attention to it. I know this is a challenge in all of 
our States. We want to make sure we are highlighting, getting 
information out so our children can have opportunities not only to have 
enough to eat but to eat meals that are nutritious.
  I was at a site in Philadelphia yesterday, the Gesu School, which is 
in north Philadelphia. I taught there as a volunteer 31 years ago. I 
actually not only handed out the lunches to the children at that site, 
but I was able to see what was in them. They were good meals, but they 
were also very nutritious, something that can help a child grow and 
learn and move into the future. We are grateful we have these programs. 
But if we do not tell people enough about them, we are going to 
continue to have that terrible dropoff from the number of children 
served during the year--again, as I said, 21 million children, dropping 
off to only 3 million children served in the summer. There is no reason 
why we should allow that to happen. There is no reason why we should 
say that is anything other than unacceptable.
  I am grateful to have this opportunity and grateful for the support 
this program has across the country. We need to get the word out. We 
need to get these 800 numbers out as much as we can.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for 10 or 12 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          Research Misconduct

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Earlier this year I learned about a case of research 
misconduct that happened at Iowa State University. A team of scientists 
was working on a vaccine to fight HIV. One of the researchers, Dr. Han, 
committed fraud to make it appear as though the vaccine for HIV was 
working. He purposely spiked the testing samples so it looked as if the 
vaccines actually fought HIV. Dr. Han's fraud helped his team get $16 
million in national grant money from the National Institutes of Health 
or around here we refer to that as the NIH. NIH is part of the 
Department of Health and Human Services or what we refer to as HHS.
  HHS gives out billions of dollars in research grants every year. In 
2013 NIH gave out over $20 billion in research

[[Page 11307]]

grants. Obviously that is a huge amount of money by any standard.
  The government has a responsibility to make sure this money is well 
spent. Unfortunately, it looks as if the government is relying on the 
grant recipients to do oversight instead of the government seeing that 
the money is well spent.
  In this case officials at Iowa State University were unaware of the 
fraud until another team of scientists couldn't duplicate the results. 
Iowa State University took the problem very seriously and notified 
Health and Human Services. I compliment them for that. But if it 
weren't for Iowa State University's actions, I doubt the Government 
ever would have found out about this tremendous amount of fraud.
  The Office of Research Integrity at Health and Human Services was 
created for the specific purpose to prevent and investigate research 
misconduct. The Office of Research Integrity investigated the 
allegations of misconduct at Iowa State University and in fact 
confirmed that Dr. Han knowingly committed fraud. Dr. Han even admitted 
to the fraud. The Office of Research Integrity imposed only a 3-year 
ban on Dr. Han from receiving any more Federal grant money.
  That is basically a slap on the wrist from the Office of Research 
Integrity. It makes absolutely no sense that someone who admitted to 
that level of fraud could be eligible for another Federal grant in just 
3 years.
  I asked the Office of Research Integrity why the penalty for Dr. Han 
was so light and if it would try to recover any of the $19 million in 
research grants. The taxpayers subsidized what was supposed to be 
promising HIV research, but it was based on Dr. Han's fraud. His phony 
results were the basis for those grant applications. The Office of 
Research Integrity says it considers a 3-year ban a very strict 
penalty. To Iowans, that doesn't sound like a very commonsense penalty.
  In fact, the Office of Research Integrity says that 3 years is the 
maximum penalty it can give unless there are aggravating circumstances. 
That 3-year limit is set by the White House Office of Management and 
Budget. So the Office of Research Integrity claims that somehow its 
hands are tied. But in this case the Office of Research Integrity did 
not even try to demonstrate aggravating circumstances to enforce a 
longer debarment than 3 years against Dr. Han.
  The Office of Research Integrity admitted that there is nothing to 
keep Dr. Han from conducting research again funded by American 
taxpayers after those 3 years. The Office of Research Integrity claims 
it does not have the authority to recover funds in case of research 
conduct.
  Now, think about that for a minute. This Office of Research 
Integrity, with the responsibility to make sure money is wisely used 
and research is honest, says it does not have the authority to recover 
funds obtained by fraud.
  The Office of Research Integrity--we are talking about research 
integrity--says it is the responsibility of the agency that issued the 
research grant to recover money obtained by fraud.
  So I asked the National Institutes of Health about its involvement in 
this case. The National Institutes of Health first said that only 
$500,000 of the $19 million in research grants would be recovered. The 
National Institutes of Health also claimed it was not responsible for 
recovering the fraudulent grant money. According to the National 
Institutes of Health, oversight is the responsibility of the 
educational institution receiving the money. NIH said:

       ISU as grantee is legally responsible and accountable for 
     the use of funds provided for the performance of grant-
     supported project or activity.

  It looks as if each office I asked just simply passes the buck along 
to somebody else. But a pass-the-buck attitude doesn't work when it 
comes to government oversight.
  I also asked Health and Human Services about the case. Health and 
Human Services said that:

       Grant recipients have the primary obligation to conduct 
     investigations of their own researchers.

  Universities need to be responsible and accountable with Federal 
research grants. By taking action when it learned of the fraud, Iowa 
State University did that in this case. But that does not give the 
government an excuse not to do oversight. And if the government is 
relying on universities to report fraud instead of doing the oversight, 
there are probably other cases of fraud that are never caught.
  If someone writes a taxpayer-funded check, they should be responsible 
for making sure the money is being well spent. The funding agency, and 
Health and Human Services as a whole, should do more to protect 
taxpayers' dollars, especially when many are calling for even more 
taxpayer funding for the National Institutes of Health.
  The Office of Research Integrity has a clear mission to prevent and 
investigate cases of research misconduct.
  But I am concerned not only about this case but allegations about the 
Office of Research Integrity made by its former director, Dr. David 
Wright. Dr. Wright resigned only days after I started my investigation.
  In his resignation letter, Dr. Wright said that bureaucratic red tape 
was keeping him--Dr. Wright--from doing his job. He said up to 65 
percent of his time was spent ``navigating the remarkably dysfunctional 
HHS bureaucracy to secure resources and . . . get permission for ORI to 
serve the research community.''
  We ought to take his allegations very seriously, and HHS should do so 
as well. When researchers abuse the public's trust, the Office of 
Research Integrity should use all the powers at its disposal to resolve 
the problem.
  I recently learned that Dr. Han has been indicted for four felony 
counts of making false statements. Regardless of the outcome of this 
indictment, it is encouraging to see an effort to increase 
accountability for spending of taxpayers' money.
  Also earlier this week the National Institutes of Health confirmed 
for the Des Moines Register that it would stop the final grant payment. 
That of course will save taxpayers $1.4 million.
  So it is good news that the National Institutes of Health is taking 
action to recover taxpayers' money in this fraud case. But this is only 
one case, and the National Institutes of Health's actions came after 
months of public attention and my investigating. I worry that more 
cases may go unnoticed and even unaddressed if there isn't a public 
outcry. We can't afford that. We can't afford to have cases like this 
go unnoticed and unaddressed.
  Federal oversight of research funds is far too weak. The government 
is doing far too little to recover money lost to fraud. We can't afford 
a ``fund it and forget it'' attitude. Fraudsters need to be held 
accountable, and people handing out taxpayers' money need to know that 
if they are careless with that money, Uncle Sam will come knocking at 
the door for a refund.
  Although Secretary Sebelius recently left Health and Human Services, 
I expect the new Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell to take this issue 
very seriously. Ultimately, the Secretary of HHS has the responsibility 
to ensure that health research grants are not abused. She needs to 
ensure that agencies within HHS have all the tools they need to recover 
money lost to fraud and to prevent it from happening in the first 
place. Secretary Burwell should investigate Dr. Wright's allegations 
about the Office of Research Integrity and fix the problems that Dr. 
Wright outlined before his resignation.
  Oversight is an extremely important part of the government's role. 
Unfortunately, it is often ignored and taxpayers' dollars are abused. 
When researchers abuse the public's trust, Health and Human Services 
and its components should use all the power they have to investigate, 
resolve the problem, and get the money back. They owe it to the 
American taxpayers.
  I yield the floor, and 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. DONNELLY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page 11308]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________