Addressing America's Priorities

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I wish to commend my colleague from Rhode Island for his statement on the unemployment situation facing our country and also join in his remarks with some concern and dismay over the opposition of the Republican Senators to extending unemployment benefits.

Tens of thousands of people in my home State of Illinois and all across the United States have been unemployed for long periods of time and have now reached the end of their eligibility for unemployment compensation. They are still unemployed. They are still trying to keep their families together, pay the rent, put food on the table, pay for some medical bills, and they need unemployment compensation for that to continue. So we have proposed extending unemployment compensation benefits--the safety net for America--while they look for jobs and while this economy starts ever so slowly to turn around.

The opposition comes from the Republican side of the aisle. They oppose extending unemployment compensation benefits. You think: How could they rationalize that in an economy where there are six unemployed people for every available job? Their answer is: We have other, more important things we want to debate on the floor of the Senate.

Well, let's take a look at what those are. First, they want to return to the debate over an organization known as ACORN. ACORN is an organization that has not been in business in Illinois for 8 or 9 years, so I don't know any of the leaders in that organization personally. I can't say that I can recall working with them on any major issues. But you remember the videos a few weeks ago, those alarming videos of some ACORN employees who were apparently conspiring with people on how to break the law. Those employees have been fired, as they should have been. They should be investigated, and if they are guilty of criminal activity, they should be prosecuted. That is clear. But that is not enough for those who listen to the rightwing cable and TV shows. There has to be more.

Well, I have called for a full investigation of ACORN. I want the Government Accountability Office to find what Federal monies have been spent with that organization and make sure it was spent honestly and spent well. An investigation is appropriate. It is known as due process. But that is not enough for some on the Republican side of the aisle.

One Senator from Louisiana wants to go further. He wants to offer another amendment to flog ACORN, and he is holding up unemployment benefits in Louisiana and Illinois and across the Nation until he gets his amendment, until he can make his speech, until he can beat on ACORN again. Well, that may be his idea of serving the public need. It is not mine. Let's save that debate for another day, if we have to have it at all. Let's not make thousands of people in Louisiana and Illinois--currently unemployed, desperate to keep their families together and a roof over the heads of their children--suffer because a Senator here wants to debate whether we can think of some new way to punish ACORN. You know, for most people, as President Obama said the other day in an interview, there are many more important things in life than this organization and the sorry conduct of a few employees. But for this Senator, it is enough to hold up unemployment compensation for literally hundreds of thousands of American people. That is the reality.

In addition, there is a program called E-Verify. E-Verify is a way to try to establish that a person applying for a job is actually a citizen. They want to use computers, accessed through telephones and computers, to determine whether the identity and the Social Security number given to the employer are, in fact, valid or illegal. It has been a tough program to get up and running. In fact, it is loaded with enough uncertainty and error that some question whether we should pursue it until we have worked out the details. Innocent people were caught up in the E-Verify early days and identified as not being legal when in fact they were. So what we have done is to extend this program for 3 years while we work out obvious problems with it.

One Senator on the other side of the aisle said it is not enough. I am going to hold up unemployment benefits, he says, until this program is extended permanently. Well, that is a worthy debate and topic, but is it worthy enough to deny unemployment compensation benefits to thousands of people out of work while we debate whether E-Verify should be extended 3 years or permanently? Doesn't seem to rise to the same level of importance, in my estimation.

That is what is holding up unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands of people--amendments like that from the Republican side of the aisle which, to my way of thinking, don't really measure up to the gravity of the issue we are considering.

I wish those Senators from the States offering those amendments would go back home and meet some of these unemployed people, maybe sit down and buy them a cup of coffee, talk with them about what their lives have been like being out of work for 2 or 3 years, what it means to have no health insurance because you lost your job, folks who have exhausted their life savings and now don't know which way to turn. I get e-mails and letters every day from them, people across my State. And these are not folks who have drifted in and out of work; many of them have worked uninterrupted for 25 or 30 years and now find themselves out in the street through no fault of their own. They are trying their darndest to find a job, to improve their skills so they are more marketable, and we should give them a helping hand.

Incidentally, the money that pays the unemployment compensation benefits comes from a fund to which they contributed. While we work, we put a little money away in a fund on the possibility that someday we will be out of work, and if it ever happens, then we are given at least enough money to get by while we look for a job, from that same fund. It is a basic insurance policy. These folks who are caught up in a tough recession need an extension of their benefits for some additional weeks--20 weeks is what our bill provides.

So for those who argue that this is some form of welfare, I would like to correct them. These are benefits paid out of funds paid in by workers across America and employers, and it is a fund that needs to be exercised right now, to be used right now for their benefit.

Mr. President, I am also concerned about some of the debate I have heard on the floor this morning from the other side when it comes to health care reform. I would like to stand here and compare the Democratic proposal for health care reform and the Republican proposal for health care reform. Now, that would be a good debate. But unfortunately I can't because there is no Republican proposal for health care reform.

One of the elements of our Democratic approach in the Senate will be something called opt-out. To put it in a nutshell, we are trying to create a not-for-profit health insurance company to compete with private health insurance companies so there will be actual competition--to keep them honest--and we try to bring costs down. We know private health insurance companies are exempt from antitrust laws. They can fix prices, they can allocate markets, they can jam through increases in premiums, and there is not much you can do about it since there is no competition. So a public option, a not-for-profit health insurance company, would be competitive.

There are some who argue against that and say that goes too far. Even though it is not government-run health insurance like single payer--it is a not-for-profit option--they say it goes too far. So the Democratic approach to health care reform says that individual States can decide whether they want to have a public option available to the people who live there. If the State of Iowa, whose Senator came to the floor this morning, decides they don't like a public option, they can opt out of the public option. It is their choice. Each State can make that choice. That is what opt-out is all about.

Opt-out is also what the Republicans' strategy on health care is all about. They have opted out of this debate. Take an example: The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee considered over 500 amendments to health care reform. Among the amendments adopted were 150 Republican amendments, accepted in the committee. Some were technical, some were substantive, and in good faith they were debated and agreed to. Once 150 amendments were added to the health care reform bill in the HELP Committee. The vote was called, and when it was called, not a single Republican Senator would vote in favor of the bill they had just spent weeks amending.

It turns out there is only one Senator--Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine--who joined in the Finance Committee to report out a bill. She is the only Republican Member of Congress, House or Senate, who has actually voted for health care reform. All of the other Senators who have come to the floor criticizing what we are putting forward as our draft proposal on health care reform have not voted for it and have not produced an alternative.

The need is still there, and the need is very serious. Let me give an example, if I can, about the need in terms of a real-life story back in my State of Illinois.

There is a young man named Marcus Evans. Marcus reached a point in life where he couldn't walk upstairs without losing his breath, and he knew something wasn't right. He is 17 years old, and he began suffering from shortness of breath, which kept him out of pickup basketball games but even made it difficult for him to walk around his house. He went from doctor to doctor trying to figure out the problem, but he was uninsured--one of 47 million Americans uninsured.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's 10 minutes has expired.

Mr. DURBIN. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DURBIN. So Marcus Evans, being uninsured, couldn't find a doctor to diagnosis his problem.

At the time, Marcus's mom was a working mother of two. She worked as a part-time dental assistant. She didn't receive health insurance through her job and her family did not qualify for Medicaid, which is health insurance for poor people.

For 3 years, Marcus tried to get medical care without success. He was repeatedly told that more tests couldn't be done. He was told they were just too expensive, and he was basically told nothing was wrong. In fact, something was very wrong. Marcus Evans was suffering from t-cell lymphoma, a form of cancer that affects the lymph nodes. Do you know how he received the diagnosis? After Marcus's aunt called 911 because her nephew literally couldn't breathe, he was rushed to an emergency room where he received, finally, an MRI--his first MRI after years of visits to doctors with no diagnosis. That test revealed a significant malignant tumor pressing on his esophagus, which explained the symptoms he had been complaining about for more than 3 years.

Marcus said:

I nearly died before I got the proper health care. It took a lot for them to actually do the test.

Well, that is the situation that is familiar to millions of Americans--people who either don't have insurance or don't have much insurance. They are unable to afford health care premiums for preventive care out-of-pocket, and it takes a severe complication and a trip to an emergency room before they receive any appropriate medical care. They earn too much money for public aid and too little money to afford private health insurance.

For Marcus, a disease that could have been caught and treated when he was a high school student went undiagnosed for years as he tried and failed to get quality treatment. Instead of going away to college after graduating from high school, Marcus found himself stuck at home too sick and too scared to leave home.

Today, after chemotherapy and successful surgery, Marcus is in remission and working to put his young life together. His struggles aren't over. Most of his friends have debts from student loans; Marcus owes more than $100,000 in medical bills at the age of 21--$100,000--even after the hospital forgave him $40,000 for his hospital stay.

Still, he is trying to move forward. He is enrolled as a part-time student at Chicago State. He has a little job with the city, a job that provides him at least some health insurance. It could have made a difference in his life many years ago.

Here is what he said:

I see the difference when you have insurance and when you don't. It's like night and day. When I didn't have insurance, they just pushed me aside.

Marcus doesn't blame the doctors who told him he was suffering from nothing more serious than asthma. He said he understands doctors were faced with an impossible choice caused by our Nation's dysfunctional health care system.

He said:

Doctors shouldn't have to worry about whether a patient has insurance. No decision should have to be made except let's take care of this person.

It is simple logic, common sense. That is what health care reform is all
about, and it poses very fundamental questions for us in this country: Who are we? What do we stand for? Are we going to change the current system?

There are those fighting change in the system, and those leading the fight are health insurance companies. They are making plenty of money under the current system even though causes such as Marcus Evans' end up being untreated, and young men end up suffering as a result of it.

That is why this health care debate is so important. I hope at some point, a couple, maybe even three Republican Senators would step up and say: We want to be part of this historic debate. We don't want to stand on the sidelines and complain about the plays that are being called. We want to be into the actual field of battle to help craft a bipartisan bill.

So far they have turned us down every step of the way except for one Senator, Ms. Snowe of Maine. I hope that can change, and I hope those who come to the floor every day and complain about health care reform will take 1 day to propose their suggestions. What do they want to do? If they want to stick with the current system, if they do not want to change health care as we know it today, have the courage to stand up and say just that. But, unfortunately, they have said over and over again: We want to criticize. We want to opt out. We don't want to be part of this debate.

That doesn't solve the problems our Nation faces.

I yield the floor.

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