FAA Reauthorization Act of 2007

Floor Speech

FAA REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - May 01, 2008)

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

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

HEALTHY AMERICANS ACT

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, there is now an historic coalition here in the Senate, a group of 14 Senators. Seven Democrats and 7 Republicans are sponsoring a health bill guaranteeing all Americans quality, affordable health care coverage. There has never been such a coalition in the history of the Senate.

Today our group got some historic news. The Government's go-to officials for budgeting and taxes have thrown decades of conventional wisdom into the trash can. They have informed our group that all Americans can have quality, affordable health care coverage without breaking the bank.

Briefly, here is what the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have found. They found that our legislation, the Healthy Americans Act, can be up and running in 2012. They found the legislation would become budget neutral in 2014. That means our legislation is self-financing in the first year that universal health care coverage would be fully implemented in our country. In the years after 2014, because the legislation holds down health cost increases, it starts to generate budget surpluses for the Federal Government.

This analysis is fresh, independent evidence that health care can be fixed without massive tax increases or boatloads of additional Government spending. It is a chance, in my view, for Congress and our country to look at the issue of health care reform with fresh eyes, because what the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have analyzed doesn't involve a set of lofty principles or some of the oratory from the campaign trail, but it is actual legislation.

Because this report is a historic document, I ask unanimous consent that the letter dated today from the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation be printed in the Record. The report is available on the CBO Web site www.cbo.gov.

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I wish to touch on a few points with respect to this report. Obviously, the key to fixing health care is to contain costs. Our bipartisan legislation does that by making sure all Americans have more clout in the marketplace. We achieve that by making sure that everyone goes into a big pool, because if they are off by themselves, they don't have a lot of ability to get the best deal for their health care dollar. But if they belong to a bigger group, they have a lot better chance of containing costs. We cut the administrative costs of health care. We use a State and regional pooling approach that has been found to cut administrative costs. We get patients out of unnecessary hospital emergency room visits because more would get seen on an outpatient basis. We make progressive changes in tax law and we empower consumers, because for the first time, if they have employer-based health coverage, they could actually find out what is being spent on their health care. Right now, basically all they know is they are not seeing their wages go up because health care costs are eating up all of the employers' resources. We think making sure that the worker knows what is being spent on health care provides them a new set of opportunities to get more for their health care dollar.

My view is that today's health care system is largely driven by employers and insurance companies. Clearly, there is a significant role to play for them. But what we do in our legislation is provide a bigger role for individuals and especially their health care providers--the thousands of doctors and nurses and physician assistants. We make sure that everybody under our legislation could have a health care home. So instead of being lost in an incredibly complicated health care system, there would be one person who would coordinate each individual's care.

A big part of what we are doing in this bill is to modernize the employer-employee relationship in the health care field. What we are doing in 2008 in health care as it relates to employers and employees isn't much different than what was done in 1948. The Chair can remember all of the efforts of President Truman to make changes in American health care. So we modernize that relationship. We continue to let employers who choose to offer coverage, but we give the workers more choices with respect to their health care and we give the employers much needed cost relief, which is especially essential at a time when they are competing in tough global markets.

I want to mention all of my colleagues who are sponsoring this legislation with me. Senator Bennett of Utah, a member of the Republican leadership, is the principal cosponsor. Senator Bennett's knowledge of economics, in my view, has few equals and I could not have a better partner for this whole effort. We have seven Democrats and seven Republicans who are on the effort. I am particularly pleased that so many from the Senate Finance Committee, where Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley have worked in a bipartisan tradition for years, are part of our effort. From the Senate Finance Committee we have Senator Grassley and Senator Crapo and Senator Stabenow cosponsoring the legislation, all of them making a great contribution in this area.

As we go forward in the days ahead, Senator Stabenow's expertise and interest, particularly in health information technology, is going to be instrumental. For example, Dr. Orszag, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, who brings great professionalism to this effort to look at health care, this morning when he briefed eight of us in the Senate on the legislation, mentioned the fact that the evidence suggests as much as 30 percent of the health care dollar is spent in a fashion that produces very little value. So what Senator Stabenow is trying to do with health information technology, electronic medical records, and other innovative approaches is to wring more value out of every health care dollar. Her contribution is so very important.

Senator Grassley and I have worked together on many health care issues. Of course, the partnership we have on the Finance Committee between Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley is a very rare and a very beneficial alliance here in the Senate, and I so appreciate Senator Grassley's involvement.

Senator Crapo is my partner in the West who has a great interest and long-standing involvement in rural health care, and we are very pleased that he is an additional voice on the Senate Finance Committee for the legislation.

I would also like to credit the other Senators who are involved. We are very pleased that Senator Landrieu, who is helping to reinvent health care in her State as a result of destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina and all of the challenges they face, has been particularly interested in and creative in thinking about opening up new opportunities for entrepreneurship in her State and elsewhere. Senator Landrieu correctly points out that if you modernize the employer-employee relationship in health care, that is going to mean we are going to have more entrepreneurs. It is going to be good for business. It is going to be good for our economy. We are going to be able to grow our economic base in the country. Senator Landrieu argues very eloquently, in my view, that if you provide some cost relief for the employers who got into the business of driving health care by accident in the 1940s, you are going to be able to create jobs and strengthen our economy.

Senator Nelson, a former insurance commissioner, is one of our cosponsors. He has great expertise in insurance regulation. In fact, he pointed out this morning some of the tools that are going to be necessary to prevent price gouging in health insurance and is making a great contribution there.

Senator Lieberman has a long-standing interest in this and is a cosponsor. Of course, his involvement is particularly critical because his State is a center of health insurance and technology and there are a variety of major economic concerns involved.

We are very glad to have Senator Gregg, who is the ranking member on the Budget Committee and a driving force on keeping down health costs to make health care more affordable and available to all. We're also pleased to have the support of Senator Inouye, who as chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, has shown his leadership in health care research for our soldiers and sailors with benefits for all Americans. We also appreciate the support of Senator Corker, who has been a leading advocate for reforming the tax code to make health insurance more available and affordable. And we're grateful for support from Senator Coleman, who has the world renowned Mayo Clinic in his state and himself has been a leader in the area of health technology. And we are especially pleased to have the support of two former governors, Senator Carper and Senator Alexander. The Healthy Americans Act gives a major role to the states in reforming our health system and it's critical to have the support of Senators with the knowledge of state government and executive leadership experience they have supporting our legislation. It is a group unlike any other we have seen in the history of the Senate. Fourteen Senators--seven Democrats, seven Republicans--actually cosponsoring together a piece of legislation that will guarantee all Americans affordable, good quality coverage.

This legislation ensures that all of our people have choices such as we have here in the Congress. We have choices among a number of very good private sector packages. It ensures that coverage for the first time will be portable. You can take your coverage from job to job to job, which is something that millions of Americans desperately want.

It is our future. The fact is that today, by the time you are 35 years old, you are likely to change your job 7 times. Yet the system almost locks you into your present position. You cannot move. You cannot go to another opportunity. I think to have a portable health system where you can take your coverage from job to job to job and not worry about losing your coverage if you want to take a promotion or start your own business is particularly important.

The best part about it is that the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office have said this can be done in a revenue-neutral way.

We have had a number of Senators involved who have longstanding credentials in terms of being tougher on budgets and concerned about fiscal discipline. Now, the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office have said that, contrary to popular wisdom that universal coverage is going to break the bank and require tax hikes and new spending, it can be done in a budget-neutral kind of fashion.

Finally, I want to add since I think I really didn't do him justice earlier--Senator Inouye has been a wonderful addition to our group. He and his staff have had a great interest in looking at a number of health reform issues, particularly ones that make better use of our workforce, focused on prevention and quality. We are thrilled to have him as well.

Madam President, I note that one of our colleagues has come to the floor. I will wrap up simply by saying that I think the entire Senate should be very grateful for the outstanding work done by the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office, led by Peter Orszag and Edward Kleinbard. Those two organizations have never issued--in the history of their organizations--an analysis like the one they made available today. Never in the history of the organizations has there been such an analysis.

I submit that if there had been an analysis like this done the last time the Congress debated universal coverage back in 1993 and 1994, if there had been a report like this one from the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation, they could have moved forward on a bipartisan basis to actually pass legislation, see it signed into law, and end the disgrace that a country such as ours, which is good and strong and talented, hasn't been able to fix American health care.

This time, I think we are up to it. Senator Bennett and I have kept apprised the leadership in the Senate on both sides of the aisle. It is our determination to work with colleagues of both political parties. We intend to work with the Presidential candidates. I have talked with Senators Clinton and Obama many times about the Healthy Americans Act. I talked to Senator Graham last night about the Congressional Budget Office briefing. We know of his involvement with Senator McCain. If you are going to deal with a big, important issue, it has to be bipartisan.

Today, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have made a significant contribution to our effort to move forward and actually enact universal health coverage that works for all Americans. We are indebted to their organizations.

I am particularly grateful to colleagues who have joined as cosponsors in this effort. Senator Bennett and I will continue to work with colleagues like Senator Baucus, Senator Kennedy and others over the next 6 or 7 months so that this can be ready to go for the next President of the United States.

I yield the floor.

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