[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1955-1956]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we continue to debate the Affordable Care 
Act. The Affordable Care Act, of course, is the effort we passed in the 
Senate to try to make America a better place for those who need health 
insurance.
  Our goal was accessibility, to make sure more and more people would 
have access to affordable health care. Our goals tried to transform 
health care into something that was more preventive, something that 
reduced the likelihood that someone would be hospitalized or have a 
serious disease. Our goal was to try to make certain we created 
incentives within the practice of medicine--for quality care, not the 
most expensive care. And we have achieved many of those goals in the 
first year.
  Some 10 million Americans now have access to health insurance through 
the Affordable Care Program, and yet the Republicans in the House, as 
late as last week, for the 56th time voted to repeal the Affordable 
Care Act.
  Now we might ask ourselves: What do they want to replace it with? 
They surely wouldn't just walk away from it. And the answer is: They 
don't have a replacement. They are so determined to kill this program. 
I will say to their credit that two Republican Senators have stepped up 
and said: Here is what we would suggest as an alternative. I will 
acknowledge they are the first, I believe, after all these years, to 
actually step up with a proposal. But it is important for us to take a 
close look at this proposal.
  This new plan which the Republicans offered does not offer the same 
protection when it comes to insuring people with preexisting 
conditions. Does anyone know a person in their family or a friend with 
a preexisting medical condition? Everybody's hand ought to go up 
because we all do. Everybody has somebody in their family with some 
history--a history that, in the old

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days, would disqualify them from health insurance or end up with 
premiums they couldn't afford. The new Republican approach to replace 
the current protection of people with preexisting conditions doesn't 
give the same opportunity for health insurance for those people. That, 
to me, is a fatal flaw.
  Secondly, we decided we would make prescription drugs under Medicare 
for seniors more affordable. We used to have something called the 
doughnut hole. It cost seniors over $1,000 a year to pay for their 
prescription drugs. We started closing that doughnut hole, and it saves 
on average in Illinois, for every senior citizen, $780 a year. So that 
is $780 for these seniors to have in their savings, in their checkbook. 
The new Republican approach, the Hatch-Burr program, eliminates that 
and we go back to the doughnut hole. We go back to this debt.
  Sadly, it doesn't provide the Medicaid coverage which people in low-
income categories need. Take a close look at Medicaid. The vast 
majority of people receiving Medicaid benefits in America are children 
and pregnant moms. When we cut back on Medicaid, as this Hatch-Burr 
proposal does, we do it at their expense. But the largest number in 
terms of dollars spent who receive these benefits are those in nursing 
homes who are broke.
  Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, keep them alive. When we cut 
back on Medicaid, cut back on reimbursements to the nursing home, the 
obvious question is: What is going to happen to grandma? What is going 
to happen to mom?
  So when they start cutting back on Medicaid, look long and hard. The 
people whom we are protecting on Medicaid Programs are some of the most 
vulnerable in America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I was listening to what the Senator from 
Illinois was saying. I could not say it as well as he did, but I agree 
with every single word he said and I suspect that Vermonters, 
Republicans and Democrats alike, agree with what he said.

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