Obamacare
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues from Connecticut and California for coming to the floor.
We saw for the last hour Republican Senators come to floor and tell a number of stories about individuals and the difficulties they have run into with health insurance. I don't dispute the facts they have brought to the floor, but I do dispute their characterization of what America faces at this moment in time.
I supported the Affordable Care Act. I believe it was the right thing to do. I still believe it. I will tell you right off the bat--and most Democrats and Republicans would agree on this point--it is off to a rocky start.
This Web site that was supposed to be ready October 1 we are told will be ready by November 30. I hope it is, and the sooner the better. I am told it is improving by the day. That is good. Americans need access to information about health insurance. And when they have that access, they can do something--for many of them for the first time in their lives--go shopping for health insurance. There are a lot of people who have never had that luxury. Some have never had health insurance one day in their lives. Others have been given a ``take it or leave it'' situation, with a policy that may or may not be worth anything.
I listened carefully to the Republicans for a long time on the issue of health insurance. I have heard a lot of criticism, a lot of complaints. They want to defund ObamaCare. They want to delay the Affordable Care Act. They want to destroy it.
They do not have an alternative. ``We want to repair it and replace it.'' Then let's hear your proposal. We never heard one during the course of our debate on creating this law 3 1/2 years ago. We kept waiting for a Republican plan. The honest answer is they had none and apparently they still do not.
The reason they do not is they fall back and say let the marketplace decide. Many of us know the marketplace in health care personally. We know a marketplace that has turned away 40 to 50 million people who are uninsured in America, people who still get sick, still go to the hospital, and whose bills are paid by everyone else.
The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of responsibility and rugged individualism. What about the responsibility we all have, if we can afford it, to have health insurance and as a country to provide the means for those who cannot afford it so they can have protection too. That to me is responsible. Trying to just stop this reform is irresponsible.
When you get into the specifics on the Affordable Care Act you never hear a Republican Senator come to the floor and make a case against the specifics. Do you know why? They cannot. Is there a Republican Senator who will come to the floor and defend the right of a health insurance company to turn down a person or a family because of a preexisting condition? That is the situation we faced when we passed the Affordable Care Act. Is there a family in America who does not have someone with a preexisting condition? Most families do. My family has in the past and does now too.
Preexisting conditions can range from the very serious to conditions which are chronic and manageable, from asthma and diabetes to cancer survivors. The list is long. The Affordable Care Act says you cannot turn down a person in America for health insurance because of a preexisting condition.
The Republicans say they want to repeal that. If they want to go back to the day where you can turn down a person because of a preexisting condition, then have the courage to come to the floor and say it. They will not.
The law also says you cannot limit the lifetime payout on a health insurance policy. There were a lot of people who thought $100,000 was a lot of money for health care until they got into a serious situation. We are one diagnosis, one serious disease, one accident away from medical bills that would wipe out $100,000 in a day or two. So we put in the Affordable Care Act that there can be no upper lifetime limit when it comes to the payout under the health care insurance policy.
The Republicans say they want to repeal it. I challenge any Republican Senator to come to the floor and explain that one.
Did you know as well that of the family policies sold in America, 60 percent of the family policies did not cover maternity benefits? We require the coverage of maternity benefits. Let me tell you, my wife and I are not in a situation where we are likely to ever use those personally, but we happen to believe it is a good policy across America and it is family friendly across America to make sure policies cover maternity. Those who talk about family values and love of family and love of babies and children, why in the world would you not want to include that protection in all family policies? Spread the risk across the population but make sure every family can afford to have prenatal care for a healthy baby and a healthy mom when that blessed event arrives. I am waiting for the first Republican to come to the floor and say that is a bad idea too.
Incidentally, health insurance policies used to discriminate against certain groups, particularly women. We said that is over. You cannot discriminate against women and treat them differently. You have to be fair in the allocation of this risk and you cannot use gender as a basis for increasing the cost of a policy. The Republicans want to repeal that. I am waiting for the first Republican Senator to come to the floor and say health insurance policies, because of the free market, should be allowed to discriminate against women. That is a reality.
The other provision we provide in the Affordable Care Act, finally, is families with children coming out of college, looking for a job, can keep their kids on their health insurance policies to the age of 26. We do not know exactly how many are helped by this. Some estimate 300,000-plus young people still on their families' policies. Why is it a good thing? Because a lot of young people coming out of college do not find a job right away, and some that do may not have a full-time job or benefits. If you have ever been a mom or dad--and I have been in that circumstance as a father, where I called my daughter and I said: Jennifer, do you have health insurance? Dad, I don't need it; I am healthy. Those are things that keep you up at night. The Affordable Care Act provides additional protection for these young Americans who are just starting out in life and trying to find a job. The Republicans want to repeal it. I am waiting for the first Republican Senator to come to the floor and make that case. Oh, we should make sure young people in their twenties do not have health insurance. That is the result if you repeal the Affordable Care Act.
What about senior citizens? Medicare Part D provides prescription coverage so senior citizens can stay healthy, independent, and strong for as long as possible. The problem we had, of course, was something called the doughnut hole. It meant out-of-pocket expenses seniors had to pay for those prescriptions. We are closing and filling the doughnut hole so seniors are not giving up their life savings in order to have the prescription drugs they need for a healthy life. They want to repeal that. They want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I am waiting for the first Republican Senator to come to the floor and say seniors ought to pay more for the prescriptions they need under Medicare, because that is the result of repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Let me also say this. Life experience tells us several things. First, premiums on health insurance go up with some frequency. We are trying to slow down the rate of growth, but they have been going up for a long time. In some markets, for example, when it comes to individual policies people are buying, those have gone up rather dramatically, sometimes 15 percent a year for a long period of time. Second, in that market of individuals buying health insurance, 67 percent of those policies are canceled every 2 years. Now they come to the floor and tell us stories about premiums going up and cancellations. Can I remind my friends on the Republican side that has been going on for a long time. Now they blame every cancellation on the Affordable Care Act. They blame every premium increase on the Affordable Care Act. That is just not factual. It is not true.
Let me tell you about some mail I have received on the subject. Here is an email from a constituent in Illinois I would like to read. Here is what this constituent writes:
As a lifelong Republican I am absolutely appalled by the extremists who have hijacked MY party! And I am thoroughly ashamed of all the attempts to defund President Obama's healthcare act.
Already, my medical costs have dropped due to early provisions of the act--and if it passes [becomes law] it appears I will be able to save $6,000 per year on the cost of my premiums!
I realize that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for the healthcare bill, but I would make two comments:
1. When the act is broken down into its component parts, polls consistently show that the American people do agree with the program.
2. All I'm asking is that we give it a fair trial--[give it a fair chance]--say, two years. Of course it will need tweaking and revising.
But if it doesn't work, it can be repealed then. Quite frankly, obstructionists are a public embarrassment to those of us who grew up with a different Republican party that cared about people and was not madly trying to exclude as many as possible through hateful bigotry and racism.
This is TOO IMPORTANT to let it fail! I stand with the President and the Democratic Party on this issue and hope that you will do everything in your power to see that the Healthcare Act remains in force.
Take a look at what is going on around this country. There have been Senators from States who come to the floor, and I will use for example the Senators from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, both of whom came to the floor and called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Let's take a look at the numbers. I believe, with a flawed startup, which I will readily concede, in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, according to the Washington Post, 76,294 people have already submitted completed applications under the new health care law; 39,207 are eligible to enroll in the plan, and as of this date, 5,586 have selected a plan. Kentucky is leading, on a per capita basis, many other States; some larger, some smaller. Kentucky is leading while its two Senators come to the floor and rail against the very health care law the people of Kentucky apparently need and want and are exercising their right to choose.
I salute Governor Beshear in Kentucky. He stood and said: Get out of the way. If you don't want to help Kentuckians to get good health care, get out of the way. We are going to give them a chance, and he is doing it. Other States, fighting the President and fighting Congress tooth and nail, they are not going to cooperate at all. We wonder why the startup has been so slow. It has to be without that cooperation, it makes it more difficult. I am not making any excuses for the Web site. It has to be improved. It has to be better--and it will be.
Take a look at that experience in Massachusetts. The Senator from California talked about that earlier. During the first month of enrollment in Massachusetts, 123 people signed up--in the first 30 days. By the end of the year, though, 36,000 had signed up. The number of uninsured young people went from 25 percent to 10 percent within 3 years. Massachusetts today, because of the leadership of Gov. Mitt Romney and the cooperation of the Democratic legislature in that State, has nearly universal health insurance coverage. However, the rollout was not without some problems, just as ours. The current Governor, Deval Patrick, said there were a series of Web site problems. He also said the Web site was a work in progress for the first few years. There were outages during peak times and problems searching for providers.
I recently met with a doctor from Boston. He is one of the best. He said people in Massachusetts cannot remember what it was like before, what it was like before people had health insurance. This doctor is an oncologist. He deals with people who are diagnosed with cancer. He had a 19-year-old woman come into his office before they had this version of the affordable health care act in the State of Massachusetts, and he said to her: We can cure you, but we have to really do this aggressively. It is going to take chemo, going to take radiation, it is going to take surgery.
This 19-year-old woman said: Please, don't tell my parents. I cannot afford to pay for this. If they hear this, they are going to mortgage their home to pay for my medical care and I don't want them to do it.
The parents learned and the parents made the decision and they mortgaged their home and their daughter's life was saved. This oncological doctor, this cancer doctor, said to me: Senator, I have never run into another case like that since Massachusetts passed its affordable health care act, since people have basic insurance and basic protection.
The life-and-death choices people make every single day should be front and center here and not the political squabbles that have become the trademark of this town. We have to understand that there are hard-working people across America who have no health insurance. There are families with people with preexisting conditions who cannot get a decent policy. They are going to be given their chance. We will be a better America for it, and I say to the Republican critics: After this is in place, after thousands, maybe even millions of Americans have signed up, you are not going to take it away. They are going to fight to keep it, and I am going to stand by them in that fight to make sure they have supporters and champions on the floor of the Senate.
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Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator, and responding through the Chair, there was a time, as a Member of Congress and a Senator, this was a normal request. People would call your office and say: I am at my wit's end. My health insurance company will not cover the problems my family faces. Can you make a call to an insurance executive? And we have. Almost to a person, Members of the House and Senate have done it, trying to advocate to get them to open coverage under a health insurance policy. That was the reality and, frankly, for many of these health insurance companies, any excuse would do.
They would disqualify people on preexisting conditions because as an adolescent the insured had acne. Acne was deemed as a preexisting condition and subject to disqualification.
I see the Senator from Colorado is on the floor, and I want to yield time to him.
I thank my colleague from California for coming forward. I hope at some point the Republicans--who are so adamant about repealing and ending ObamaCare, as they call it, or the Affordable Care Act--would have one good idea on their own about providing affordable health insurance to the people across America. We all share that responsibility.
I yield the floor.
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