Health Care Reform

Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I rise this evening to address the issue of health care in our society, and specifically the public option. Earlier today I had a chance to listen to some of my colleagues defend the status quo system. They wanted to argue that health care reform should not occur now--maybe sometime later. I guess the 100 years we have spent as a country, working to have affordable, accessible health care for every citizen, the 100 years we spent in that debate isn't enough.

There is a novel by a couple of ladies who were turning 100. They titled their novel ``The Second Hundred Years,'' or ``Our Second Hundred Years.'' That was a beautiful glimpse into the possibility of a life well-filled and a life of anticipated fulfillment as they went into their old age post-100.

We are in a different situation with health care. This 100-year debate should not go on for another 100 years; another 100 years for us to consider the possibility, the principle that every single person in America should have affordable, accessible, quality health care.

I heard earlier today a lot of scare words thrown out to defend the current system and encourage citizens to be afraid of reform. Those scare words are very unnecessary because citizens in America know our health care system is broken. They know it from their personal experience. So opponents of reform, they don't want to have a plan, they simply want to scare citizens into sticking with the broken status quo.

Indeed, sometimes there is a certain concern about change, what change will bring. Well, let's look for a moment at what the status quo is bringing us. Our health care costs are doubling every 6 to 8 years. That means a lot of folks who could afford health care just a few years ago cannot afford it today. A lot of small businesses that could afford health care 6 to 8 years ago cannot afford it today. A lot of big businesses that are competing internationally were more competitive 6 to 8 years ago than they are today.

I would like to be able to tell you that the rate of increase in the cost of health care has declined but, if anything, it has increased. We are looking at another doubling over the years to come, over the next 6 to 8 years.

I do not know about anyone else, but given how high health care costs are today for the American family, do we want a system, a broken system, that is going to double those costs again in the very near future? Is that a good future for America? Is that affordable health care? Is that accessible health care? Is that an ability to acquire quality health care, which I think every American citizen knows in their heart that, indeed, that is not affordable or accessible or quality health care, to have a system that is doubling every 6 to 8 years.

The other thing we know about health care in America is that folks who have insurance still have a lot of challenges. Well, the first is getting insurance in the first place because our current system allows insurance companies, as incredible as this might seem, to say: No, we do not want you. You have a family history of diabetes. You have a preexisting condition. It might simply be a skin rash. It might be anything. People are turned down for health care day and night in our country.

Well, those are a lot of American citizens who do not get to participate in our health care system. What about those folks who do get insurance and they go along paying their premiums year after year, 10 years, 15 years, and then they finally have a health care problem and they get a letter from their health insurance company that says: We are dumping you off your health care plan. Now that you are sick, we do not want to cover you anymore.

What kind of fairness is there in that for the American citizen, that companies can dump you off your plan when you finally need health care, after you have been paying your premiums month after month, year after year, or decade after decade, and finally you have an illness that needs to be covered and, whoosh, your health care coverage is gone. That is not a fair system for those who have health issues in our Nation.

So we need to reform this system. It starts by ending the unfairness for those who have it. It is called insurance reform. No more blocking folks from being accepted into health care--universal guaranteed access. No more dumping of folks off health care insurance once you become ill--an end to dumping, an end to preexisting conditions.

In other words, health care reform for those who have insurance is all about fairness. There were some other words thrown out earlier today, words such as ``deficit,'' ``government takeover,'' ``increases in premiums.'' All those are scare words designed to mislead the citizens from following the logic of their own experience, their own common sense about the broken health care system we have in America.

But let's consider some other words. How about ``competition.'' It may surprise some to find out we do not have much competition at all in health care here in America. Why is that? It is because the health care insurance industry is exempt from competition. They are allowed to work together as an exemption for antitrust. They are allowed to coordinate and to compare. That works to the benefit of the companies, but it does not work to the benefit of the citizens.

In addition, a lot of markets in this country have a single dominant provider, often 80 percent of the market. That does not work toward competition. What do you get here in America in a market where you have no competition or very little competition? What you get are extraordinarily high costs that are doubling every 6 to 8 years. That is not a system that works for citizens.

So how about we introduce competition. That is as American as apple pie. How can we do that? What we can do is have a health care competitor dedicated to healing, not dedicated to corporate profits. That health care entity, that publicly created structure of health care, indeed healing, they are not trying to maximize their profits at the expense of citizens; they are trying to invest in the citizens to maximize wellness.

It is a completely different model. It is a model about prevention. It is a model about disease management. It is a model about healthy choice incentives. That is the competition that a public option or a community health plan will introduce with health care all over our Nation.

I think lower costs and competition are good things. I think giving citizens more choice is a good thing. Here are some brilliant aspects of this. If you do not have competition right now due to the antitrust provisions or due to the dominance of a single payer, then the citizens can look at the possibility and go: Well, they are all about the same. That is not real competition.

But now, if you introduce a player that is not there to maximize profits, is there to maximize wellness, that is real choice. Nobody would be asked to take a public option or community health care plan choice over a private insurance company. That is why they call it choice. That is why they call it an option. You would get to choose.

Let us empower our citizens through choice in the marketplace. Again, this is red, white, and blue American competition to benefit consumers of health care services.

We have had a lot of conversation about health care this year. It has certainly been an intense conversation since January. We have five bills that have come out of committees. Many folks like to stack up all those bills and say: Look how complicated it is. Look how complicated health care reform is. Well, it is a bit complicated because we have multiple health care systems in our country.

We have a Veterans' Administration system. We have a Medicare system. We have a Medicaid system. We have private insurance companies in the system. We have another system for all those folks who cannot qualify for any of the first ones. It is this: Save your money and hope you have enough when you get sick. If you do not, then I am sorry, you are in trouble.

There are some statistics on this: 45,000 Americans a year die because they do not have access to health care, 45,000. That can be compared to just about virtually anything else that happens in this country. That is a pretty big total. That is a lot of suffering. That is not just folks who get sick and suffer, all those folks who get sick and suffer and die.

We had a gentleman in central Oregon who had a tumor growing on his spine. His doctor asked the private insurance company for an MRI, permission to do imaging so they would understand what was happening. The insurance company, the private insurance company, turned him down. So the patient and his doctor found a second expert. The second expert went over the man and said: He needs to have an MRI. They sent a request to the insurance company. The insurance company turned him down, again.

He died from that tumor on his spine. He actually had health insurance, but he had health insurance with a private insurance company coming between him and his doctor. Some of my colleagues like to say under a public plan the government gets involved. Well, not really. It is you and your doctor. Right now we have insurance companies that come between you and your doctor every single day. Why not give the American citizen this choice to have a different system, a system dedicated to healing, a system that will create competition, a system that will hold the private insurance company's feet to the fire.

That is the community health care plan or the public option. I will conclude with this notion, that competition that lowers costs, increases choice, and improves service is a wonderful direction for health care reform to go. We have made many steps in that direction. But we have not gotten that bill to the President's desk. Let's do that. Let's get that bill that increases choice, improves service, and lowers costs, let's get that bill to the President's desk by Christmas.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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