Emergency Healthcare Relief for the Survivors of Hurricane Katrina

EMERGENCY HEALTHCARE RELIEF FOR THE SURVIVORS OF HURRICANE KATRINA

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question through the Chair?

I came on the floor late. I heard Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley talk about this bill. I want to try to bring it down to the most basic information, so if someone misses the debate, they will understand what we are talking about.

This is generally what we are trying to do. We are taking people who are displaced out of their homes, out of their jobs, out of their communities because of the hurricanes--people who, frankly, are going through a lot of personal and family hardship at this moment--and saying that one thing we are going to help you with immediately is to make sure that you have health care. If you qualify, you would have Medicaid--that is for people in the lower income categories--or if you had private health insurance where you used to work in a business that has gone away, we are going to step in here for 5 months and say, We are going to give you this peace of mind. You will know that you have health insurance.

Is that what this bill does?

Ms. LANDRIEU. That is what this bill does.

Mr. DURBIN. I understand that this is a bipartisan bill that Senator Grassley, Republican of Iowa, Senator Baucus, a Democrat of Montana, have written to make sure that the millions of people who have been displaced will have basic health care.

Is that is what this bill does?

Ms. LANDRIEU. The Senator is correct. That is what this bill does. Senator Vitter from Louisiana and Senator Landrieu--and I am almost certain that every Senator of the affected States--have signed off on this, asked for it and said ``yes.'' We desperately need it.

Mr. DURBIN. I would like to ask the Senator how many times she has brought this bill to the floor. How many times have we tried to provide this basic health care, basic protection to these victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita so far?

Ms. LANDRIEU. I believe the Senator from Iowa and the Senator from Montana have been working on this for 2 weeks. We are into our fourth week of Katrina and the first week of Rita.

But again, it is the largest natural disaster that has hit the Continental United States. We are getting ready to rebuild, after we work out our differences, a major American city for the first time since the Civil War and the region that surrounds it. We are learning as we go. There is not a textbook to follow. So we have to use our common sense. We have to trust each other on some of these things.

The Senator from Iowa and the Senator from Montana have run this committee, and their members have put a great bill together that is modest but so needed.

I am hoping the Senator from Illinois can help us figure out how to move this legislation quickly.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator would further yield for a question through the Chair, I thought our biggest complaint about the Federal Government's response to Katrina was that, even when we were warned, we weren't ready. Many of us are calling for a nonpartisan, independent commission to answer some basic questions. Why weren't we ready? But when it comes to this issue about health care for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, we know what the need is. And apparently, because of objections heard on the floor of the Senate, we are delaying, postponing, this basic health care for these victims of this hurricane.

Ms. LANDRIEU. That is what it seems to be. It is unfortunate.

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