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Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I come to the Senate floor today to speak about Senator Orrin Hatch, and I think it is very fitting that the distinguished Senator from Nevada be in the chair because she has been doing very good work on the Senate Finance Committee. And as she knows, Senator Hatch was my partner in leading the Senate Finance Committee for 5 years.

The Senate greatly mourns his passing, and I am going to take a few minutes to reflect on the important work he did serving the people of Utah and all Americans, particularly with respect to the Finance Committee.

It is no secret that Senator Hatch and I did not always agree 100 percent of the time. We had differences on taxes. We had differences on asylum and immigration. We had differences on the environment. One thing that the two of us did agree on was the value of showing up every day and searching for bipartisanship and for common ground.

And we were able to do that, sometimes defying the odds on the Senate Finance Committee, and I am going to briefly recount some of those accomplishments in honor of his memory. First, the landmark reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program, for a decade, the longest ever commitment to children's health since the program was created.

And by the way, Senator Hatch was the coauthor of the original bill with his Democratic partner, the late Ted Kennedy. What a success CHIP has been shown to be. A wonderful State-Federal partnership. More than 9 million kids have affordable, quality healthcare thanks to CHIP. Within 2 years of becoming law, 47 States have set up a CHIP program, and today every State participates in CHIP.

As my friend from Nevada knows, sometimes it is hard to get the States to agree on whether you might buy a 7Up, all the States, but the CHIP program is a huge effort, and what a remarkable accomplishment, led by Senator Hatch, in keeping kids covered and healthy. In fact, just 5 years after the program was enacted, CHIP reduced the uninsurance rate for children by half.

Now, the road to a 10-year reauthorization was not exactly smooth. In fact, the authorization actually expired for nearly 4 months, but despite the setbacks and, as I say, taking on long odds, Chairman Hatch and I just kept at it, focusing on the impact that this historic legislation would have on the reason we all do public service, which is to make people's lives better. And it was clear that this was a real opportunity to make a lasting investment in the well-being of kids, and we were committed to doing that together.

So, now, thanks to the leadership of Chairman Hatch, the healthcare for millions of America's kids is secure until 2027. And I know because I remember looking over just a few desks away to Chairman Hatch and wondering if we were going to be able to keep this effort bipartisan, if we were going to actually get it done. He would smile, and he would look over at me in that kind of way, just sort of ``Stick with me, colleague,'' because he so often treated me almost like a son. And it always made me feel that there was a chance, as I said, to show people that even in a very polarized and divisive time, we could get something really important accomplished like standing up for kids.

Now, the next item that I want to mention involves transforming the Medicare Program. As my friend from Nevada knows, my roots are with the Grey Panthers, a senior citizens group. When I was coming up, Medicare was a program for acute illness--if you broke your ankle, if you had a horrible case of the flu, you went to a hospital, you saw your doctor-- not Medicare today in Nevada and Oregon.

Today, Medicare is about chronic illness: cancer, diabetes, heart disease, strokes, COPD. That is overwhelmingly the Medicare Program today.

And when I briefly was chairman of the Finance Committee, I held the first hearing on updating Medicare to place the focus squarely on updating what we always have called the Medicare guarantee. Medicare isn't a slip of paper; it is a guarantee. And Chairman Hatch graciously agreed to continue that effort.

It began when I was the chair. And it took the better part of 2 years and a lot of guts for Chairman Hatch to take that on because the rule-- the rule at that time--was you didn't even bring up fundamental Medicare reform because everybody went to opposite sides, and that was the end of the discussion. Chairman Hatch said: Not on my watch. We are going to do something very different.

And there were groundbreaking developments in that chronic care bill that make a difference today for Americans. Throughout the pandemic, it was clear that we needed to make bold reforms to increase the role and opportunity for telehealth to serve our people.

All our colleagues would come back from a visit home, do something about telehealth. Well, what happened was that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services was trying to move quickly, and they were looking for a model. And I remember then-Secretary of Medicare and Medicaid Services Seema Verma called me up and said essentially: Would you mind if we used the model for expanding telehealth which Chairman Hatch and you led in the Finance Committee?

And we said: We are thrilled, all in, let's go.

And today that model continues to expand. As my colleague from Nevada knows, in the recent major budget bill, we expanded it to audio only because we had so many rural communities where they didn't have broadband, where there was a big senior population, and they wanted to expand telehealth. None of that was possible unless Chairman Hatch was willing to take on a big Medicare reform undertaking, updating the guarantee, recognizing that in the 21st century it wasn't like Medicare when it began, and it really is going to make a big, big difference.

And as I say, we are going to keep expanding telehealth. My colleague knows we are looking to have a major mental health reform effort in this session. A big part of it will be expanding telehealth in covering mental health services. Chairman Hatch did so much to make that debate possible.

Finally, a third area--and this was all in one Congress, three major bills--and I could take kind of another prism and talk about the chairman, but we passed the Family First Prevention Services Act. What an incredibly important task that was.

We saw with foster care families, there was a challenge in getting the care that people needed in those facilities, and we saw that many families who weren't in the foster care system were trying to make decisions about how to do what was best for their family. Maybe a loved one, a parent of a child had had some drug challenges, an alcohol challenge, and the choice at that time--Madam President, I think you will recall this--was essentially two options: One, keep the child in a family situation that was far from desirable or, two, send the child off to a foster care facility that left something to be desired, some good foster care, some not so good.

Chairman Hatch led the effort to a third path, Family First, so that now when you have families, there might be an older relative, a grandparent, it is called Kinship Care. The grandparent can step in and help the family as a parent might be dealing with that alcohol challenge.

And States all over this country now are moving to use Family First. They are moving to make it possible for a grandparent to step in as a caretaker for grandkids.

Building flexibility into the system, as my friend from Nevada and I have often talked about, that is not a Democratic or a Republican issue, that is just common sense. And often--often--Chairman Hatch would say: What is just a commonsense approach here?

I am going to talk for the remainder of my time about what a pleasure it was to be with Senator Hatch, personally.

We met almost every week, alternating between our offices. He would tell stories. He wore a mezuzah with great pride because he so valued his friendship with the Jewish people.

He told wonderful stories about his childhood in Pittsburgh, saving up money to take the trolley to the symphony, and fascinating stories about his friendship with Muhammad Ali, which almost invariably led to putting his fists in the air and showing me a little bit about the shadowboxing that he did with his wonderful friend, Muhammad Ali.

And then, of course, you would always hear about his side career as a platinum-record-selling musician and composer. And, finally, he was so good to his friends; he almost invariably inflated their accomplishments to those he was with, such as he did for years with me about basketball.

He loved talking about books, especially history books. I gave him books that my father had written; he read them closely. He would often bring big books to the floor of the Senate on a late night. And I see so many of our wonderful staff who can probably picture Chairman Hatch sitting right there--and I see the nods--with a big book, reading, and that was a special moment as he made his way through a thick history volume and then told us a little bit about it.

What an accomplished Senator. What a good man. Nancy and I send our condolences to Elaine, to their children, to the many staffers who worked with Chairman Hatch over the years. And I want to close this way because this is how Chairman Hatch often closed a meeting. We would meet in each other's offices every week.

And I remember, often he would stand up at the end of the meeting, giving me one of those inimitable Orrin Hatch smiles, and he would look at me and he would go: ``So long, friend.'' That was Orrin Hatch today.
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