Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of the Sebelius nomination. And before he leaves the floor, I also want to say to my friend from Arizona that I think he knows I share many of his substantive concerns about what it is going to take to get bipartisan health reform legislation. For example, a key component of it will have to be malpractice reform. It will have to include the areas the Senator from Arizona has touched on--the question of comparative effectiveness. And I think in both of these areas there is a long way to go to get it right. It is my interest, particularly this afternoon, to assure the Senator from Arizona that there is going to be an effort to pull out all the stops to make this a bipartisan effort here in the Senate to fix America's health care, and I want to tell him I am looking forward to working with him on that.

To pick up on this point, many Senators have come to the floor to discuss the needs of tackling health care issues in the kind of bipartisan fashion that Senator Kyl has talked about and I have mentioned. I strongly support the Senators who are making this a special focus of this discussion today when we consider Governor Sebelius's candidacy to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

For a bit of background, Senator Bennett and I, in particular, have been working for several years in talking to most Members of the Senate. I personally have gone to see about 85 Senators in their office, to listen to them, to get their views about health care reform, all with an idea to make the issue of reconciliation on health care irrelevant. What we wish to do, Senator Bennett and I, working closely with the chairs and ranking minority members of our key committees, is to find a way to get a very substantial bipartisan vote here in the Senate for health care reform.

I think we are well on our way to doing that. I believe there is literally a philosophical truce on health care within the grasp of the Senate.

When one looks at this debate, both political parties have had valid points to make. My party, for example, is right on the idea that we cannot fix health care unless all Americans get good-quality, affordable coverage. The reality is, we cannot begin to organize the market for health care unless we get everybody covered. Without covering everybody, there is too much cost shifting, there is not enough focus on prevention and wellness, and we have a real question about what to do about clogging up hospital emergency rooms--which is an issue in Colorado and Oregon and across the land.

So Democrats have been right on the point of saying to fix American health care all Americans have to have good-quality, affordable coverage. But our colleagues on the other side of the aisle--and Senator Bennett has championed this; Senator Grassley has championed this--have been right in saying there needs to be a significant role for the private sector in American health care as well. It is going to be important not to freeze innovation, to steer clear of price controls, to have a wide berth for the private sector to innovate and offer private sector choices as part of the solution to this challenge of fixing American health care. So we meld together these two points of view--Democrats who have been right on the idea that we have to cover everybody, Republicans who have had a valid point with respect to a role for the private sector--and, in my view, we are on our way to 68, 70, 72 votes in the Senate for comprehensive health reform.

So we very much need to tackle this in a bipartisan way. In my view, there are a few words that speak volumes about Governor Sebelius's outlook on the need for having bipartisanship in the health care arena. Those words were spoken by a former leader in the Senate, Bob Dole. I want to quote for the Senate a couple of the remarks made by Senator Dole when he came before us on the Senate Finance Committee.

Senator Dole said:

For more than 20 years, Kathleen Sebelius has served the State of Kansas as a legislator, insurance commissioner and Governor. All of her accomplishments required bipartisan approaches. Her work has earned her the respect of Democrats and Republicans. .....

Senator Dole goes on to note that one of our most respected former colleagues, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, has actually written Members of the Senate with respect to her support for Governor Sebelius.

Then Senator Dole goes even further, and he says:

Governor Sebelius and I are from different parties. We have different views on different issues, some highly controversial. But that is not the issue here today. Candidate Obama is now President Obama and gets to make the Cabinet selections. He has determined that she is well qualified and that she understands the importance of the enormous task before her when confirmed by the entire Senate. I agree and that's why I am here to support her nomination. We need a Secretary of Health and Human Services--

Said Senator Dole--

who has the skills, experience and courage to shape and guide this historic legislation through Congress. It will not be easy but I know Governor Sebelius will never stop trying.

Those were the words of former Senator Dole, somebody to whom I look again and again for counsel on health care. I think it is fair to say a great many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle look to him for counsel on health care.

Those who know Governor Sebelius best, such as Senator Bob Dole, have, in my view, said it better than any of us could. They know her, they have worked with her, they have watched her try to forge coalitions. As insurance commissioner, she has been a leader nationally in the insurance field with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. I think she is going to be a pragmatic coalition builder who is going to work with a very specific focus toward trying to bring the Senate together to tackle this critical issue.

We know there are some particularly important challenges ahead of us. I have said one of the first priorities in health reform is to make sure those who have coverage today--in Colorado and Oregon and across the country--see that health reform works for them. Some writers have called that group the ``contentedly covered,'' the people who already have health care coverage in America today.

I think there are four important priorities for the Congress to address in making sure those who have health care coverage today see that the system works for them. Those priorities are, first of all, making sure they can keep the coverage they have. We have written it into the Healthy Americans legislation. Chairman Baucus has it in his white paper. It has to be a matter of law. Sometimes people joke about it: We can put it in the Pledge of Allegiance. It is vitally important that people be able to keep the coverage they have.

The second factor that is so important is to make sure people who have coverage have options to save some money on their health care in the future. They want to contain costs because they know right now they are not even getting an increase in take-home pay because health care gobbles up everything in sight. So let's make them wealthier in the process of health reform, and let's say that, if you want to have one of the additional choices, the private sector choices that are offered in health reform, and you can save some money by choosing one of those choices rather than keeping what you have, you get to keep the difference. That is something I think will be attractive to those who have coverage.

The third area we ought to zero in on is making sure folks with coverage have the opportunity to be healthier. I think it is well understood that much of American health care is more sick care than health care. So let's get some incentives in place so everybody has a new focus on wellness. I personally would like to see those who are on Medicare who lower their blood pressure and lower their cholesterol get reduced premiums. It is called Outpatient Care, Part B premiums. Let's give them a lower premium when they lower their blood pressure and lower their cholesterol.

When there is a parent in Oregon or Colorado or across the country who enrolls a youngster in a wellness or prevention program--let's say for a weight problem--let's give the parent a reduction in their premium, again, to reward prevention. So we let people keep the coverage they have. They are going to be wealthier and they are going to be healthier.

Finally, one last big challenge for those who have coverage. If individuals want to leave their job or their job leaves them, let's make sure their coverage is portable, that they can take it from place to place to place. I think we understand that this economy is real different than what we had in the 1940s, when somebody went to work somewhere and stayed put for 30 years until they received a gold watch and a big retirement dinner.

The typical people in our States, Western States, now change their job 11 times by the time they are 40 years old, and they need portable health coverage. So let's make sure that coverage is something that fits the modern economy--again, consistent with an approach that let's them keep what they have and puts more money in their pocket and gives them the opportunity to be healthier.

I think that is a vision for bipartisan health reform. It certainly has been largely shared by Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley, and Senator Bennett and I have talked about it in our efforts as well. But it is going to take somebody with the kind of talent that Bob Dole just described, in the words I have offered today, once again, before the Senate Finance Committee.

There is a reason that after 60 years of debate on health care reform in America that it has not actually gotten done. This is hard work, in terms of building a coalition. I put 6 years of my life into just the most recent effort and have visited with most of the Senate on it. I think there is a clear desire, given the importance to our economy.

The fact is, we cannot fix the economy unless we fix American health care. Most of the experts are saying a lot of these budgets we are dealing with right now, the various bailouts--those bailouts are going to look like a rounding error compared to American health care if we don't get on top of these escalating costs. It has to be done, both in terms of fixing the economy, ensuring quality of life for our people, and because now the country is looking to the Congress to work in a bipartisan way. They have watched a lot of the past squabbles, they have watched a lot of the bickering over issues in the past, and here is an opportunity, as Senator Dole has described, of having a person who wants to work in a bipartisan way around a number of the ideas that I have mentioned this afternoon.

I hope colleagues will support Governor Sebelius. I hope they will reflect on the words of Senator Dole because I think he said it best when he came before us on the Senate Finance Committee. I think there is an opportunity now for the Senate to show a country--and a country that is legitimately skeptical about Washington's ability to tackle big issues--the Senate now has an opportunity to show that on health care, Democrats and Republicans can come together. We are going to come together with individuals, leaders such as Governor Sebelius, who have shown the talent to work in a bipartisan fashion; and I, particularly, having listened to many of our Republican colleagues on the floor today talking about the Sebelius nomination, want to assure them that I agree with much of what they have said with respect to the need to avoid approaches that are partisan and jam one side or another.

In fact, I have devoted much of the last 6 years to making those kinds of approaches irrelevant, to making reconciliation irrelevant.

I think Governor Sebelius will work with us in a constructive way toward exactly that kind of result. Bob Dole has spoken about her ability to do just that before the Finance Committee, and I hope this nomination will now be approved expeditiously and Democrats and Republicans can work together tackling the premier domestic issue of our time: fixing American health care.

I yield the floor.

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