Energy And Water Development And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 - Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes this afternoon to discuss the recent developments on the health care issue and particularly with Senator Bennett on the floor, my friend and colleague, and the effort to make sure health care reform is bipartisan. Also, Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley on the Finance Committee, on which I serve, are putting in killer hours now in an effort to come up with a bipartisan approach in the health care area.

I wanted to take a few minutes and talk about a particularly important part of the health care debate, and that is what the middle class is looking for in terms of health care reform. I think when you talk about middle-class folks, most of whom have health care coverage, they are looking for a way to be wealthier, they are looking for a way to be healthier, and they want to make sure that if they leave their health care coverage, or their coverage leaves them, they can get portable coverage.

Perhaps as much as anything, middle-class folks want choice. They understand--and this is a matter that Senator Bennett and I have talked about often--that if you are going to come up with a health care reform effort that is going to save money, create incentives for people to stay healthy and services to offer prevention, and coverage that is portable, you have to give everybody the chance to choose those kinds of health care plans and those services.

The President, to his credit, has made the matter of guaranteeing choice--what I have put up here on the chart--President Obama has said that is one of his bedrock principles for health care reform. The President has said every American must have the freedom to choose their plan and their doctor. He clearly is on target when he talked about choice being one of the best ways to hold health care costs down, reward people for staying healthy and getting coverage that is portable.

For example, every Member of Congress has the capacity to choose a plan that is more affordable for them. When the sign-up period comes in the beginning of each year, you get a menu of various health services, and you want to choose the one that is the most economical for you, the one that rewards you for staying healthy. All Members of Congress have the opportunity to do that. The President is absolutely right in saying that choice ought to be a bedrock principle of health care reform. Clearly, that is what middle-class folks in Colorado, Utah, and Oregon are looking for; they want to make sure they have choices. Frankly, they wish to have as many choices as we have in the Congress.

So Americans want these kinds of choices. But for too many of our citizens, under the health care reform bills that are now being considered in the Congress, lots of people won't have the kinds of choices that Members of Congress have, or any choice at all. There are proposals in the Senate to create what is known as firewalls, to keep people from being able to go to what is a ``farmer's market''--they are called insurance exchanges--where people could get these kinds of choices, and these exchanges are to be created in the reform legislation.

As odd as it sounds, Congress is going to be creating these insurance exchanges, designed to help people shop around for their insurance, but then limit who can shop at these exchanges. If you have coverage, for example, and somebody in the government says you ought to consider it affordable, you ought to like it, you are not going to be able to go to this ``farmer's market,'' this exchange, and shop for a plan that is better for you and your family. You aren't going to be able to enjoy more choices; you aren't going to be in a position to get more for your health care dollar. You aren't going to be able to get an affordable package, because only some people will be allowed at these exchanges.

I think everybody ought to be able to shop for their health care insurance like Members of Congress do today, and like our esteemed colleague Senator Kennedy called for in a very fine essay last week.

I have been able, working with colleagues, to come up with a way to do that. I call it the Free Choice proposal. Our Free Choice proposal lets workers who like what they have keep it. But it also lets workers who don't like what they have choose other plans. Half of those fortunate enough to have employer-sponsored insurance today don't have any choice of health plans at all. Think about that. Most Americans don't have the capacity to choose, like we can here in the Congress.

Unfortunately, under the health care reform plans that are being considered in the Congress, we are still going to leave millions and millions of Americans without a choice of health services and health care plans. Under our Free Choice proposal, everybody who has employer coverage is going to have new choices. They can certainly keep what they have. But if they choose, they can take what their employer now pays for their insurance and go to the ``farmer's market'' and buy a plan that is a better fit for them and their families.

It also gives employers more options. If the insurer isn't going to sell them an affordable plan, the employer could then take the whole group to the exchange and get a discount.

What the distinguished Senator from Utah and I have been talking about these many months is something that would give more clout to workers and more clout to employers on day one. It would give employers and workers the ability to save money at the get-go, largely through an old-fashioned concept that is about as American as we have, which is choice and freedom, and the ability, when you shop wisely, to benefit financially and, particularly, our employer approach, where the employer could take the worker to the exchange on day one and get a discount. That the employer could get a discount is one that, in my view, is going to give employers the bargaining power in negotiating with insurers that they don't have today.

This is a proposal we can do without making any adjustments to the Tax Code. The independent analysis Senator Bennett and I got a few days ago indicates we could save consumers $360 billion over the next decade. Those are savings to our people. Those are savings in the health care system. It is an approach that is very much in line with what the President has identified as a bedrock principle for health reform.

I have talked about the value of choice, particularly this August in Colorado, North Dakota, and around the country being able to tell all middle-class people they are going to have more choices. But what I think is particularly useful about the Free Choice proposal, it is one of the pathways to getting more affordable coverage because once you have these choices, just like Members of Congress--if at the beginning of the year the Senator from Colorado does not like one particular plan, he can go to one of the other plans that is a better fit for him and his family. We are talking about using the same principles that have worked for Members of Congress for many years.

I believe that middle-class folks, as they try to sort through this debate, are going to be looking at a handful of fairly straightforward principles. They are going to want to be wealthier, they are going to want to be healthier, they are going to want coverage they can take with them from job to job.

We have had 7 million people laid off since this recession; 3 million of them do not have health care. What happens to them is they go into a program called COBRA. COBRA is the only Federal program named after a poisonous snake. Given how hard it is for people to afford that coverage and all the bureaucracy for employers and employees, we can do better by both workers and employers. Let's make coverage seamlessly portable. Senator Bennett and I have included that in our Free Choice proposal. On day one, more choices for the middle class. On day one, the opportunity to save money. If you don't like the first plan, choose one of the other plans. On day one, coverage that is portable. That is what I think middle-class folks are looking for.

That kind of market competition is what the Congressional Budget Office has scored as actually producing savings in the private sector, not in 10 years, not in 15 years, but in a matter of 2 or 3 years. It actually bends the cost curve downward without exploding the debt and the deficit.

I hope my colleagues on the Finance Committee and here in the Senate and on the HELP Committee--I had a very constructive conversation about the Free Choice proposal with Chairman Dodd recently. I hope colleagues will see this is an approach that can win bipartisan support.

The guarantee of choice is a bedrock principle in President Obama's agenda. For the middle class who is asking now how this is going to work, this is the path that is going to let middle-class people be wealthier, healthier, and protected when they lose their job or if they want to get another opportunity. I am very hopeful that this bedrock principle of President Obama's agenda for fixing health care can win the support of colleagues on both sides of the aisle because I think that is the pathway to responding to the question middle-class people are asking all over this country today: How we are going to make this work for them?

I hope colleagues who have additional questions about it will see my friend from Utah or me. We will be happy to discuss it with them further.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I wish to take an additional minute. I thank my friend from Utah.

What is striking about this debate is the opportunity to bring both sides together. As I outlined the Free Choice approach and the pathway to savings for middle-class folks--portable coverage, incentives for prevention--it could work its way into a variety of different bills that are being considered. Obviously, Senator Bennett and I feel very strongly about our legislation, the Healthy Americans Act, but I was very pleased with the discussion I had the other night over dinner with the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, the chairman of the HELP Committee, who has some good ideas as well.

What I hope we will do, what Senator Bennett and I have sought to do lo these many months, is focus on some bedrock principles. I cited the three that have been important to President Obama: the question of holding down costs, ensuring choice, maintaining quality.

I believe--Senator Bennett and I have worked together on this--that our approach with Free Choice in particular making sure we don't have all these firewalls that would prevent choice for millions of Americans would--would actually reward Americans for shopping wisely.

I was very glad that both Chairman Baucus, who said he would look at our Free Choice proposal, and Chairman Dodd, the same openness at looking at our proposal, captured that this would be a way to carry out the President's agenda for addressing the questions middle-class people are talking about all over the country.

Obviously, Senator Bennett and I--and I am very pleased the distinguished Senator from Delaware has joined us. He is certainly a veteran of the Senate and what it takes to come up with bipartisan coalitions. I am very pleased to be on the floor with two good friends who know a lot about health care and what it takes to build bipartisan coalitions.

What I wanted to do was to say that in addition to our legislation, which we obviously feel strongly about, this concept of Free Choice and making sure you reward individuals, as we do in so many areas of American life, could really pay off quickly for middle-class people in terms of savings and access to quality health care.

I am very hopeful that as we go into these last couple of weeks before the recess--and we have offered this proposal to Chairman Baucus, the chairman of the committee on which I serve--Democrats and Republicans can come together so that before the August recess, we will have at a minimum identified some ideas.

Our Free Choice proposal is just one that will allow us through the month of August to show middle-class people that we are serious about their concerns.

Right now they are trying to sort this debate out. Suffice it to say, they see a lot of arguing in Washington, DC. They hear a lot of the discussion about health care, which almost sounds like gibberish when you listen to all the technical lingo. If we can come back with ideas such as Free Choice and say: Look, middle-class people, you and your family can be part of a system that is very similar to what my family enjoys--and it has paid off for my family at the beginning of the year when I was choosing a plan that is more economical for me, or rewards prevention--then we get behind proposals that bring Democrats and Republicans together. I point out this is one area that the budget office has indicated will actually score substantial savings--not in 10, 12, 14 years from now, but in the second year after it is fully implemented.

I thank my colleague from Utah for all his support and counsel.

I yield the floor.

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