Unemployment Compensation Extension Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Finance Committee. He will be discussing a matter of grave importance in Illinois and all across the Nation, the extension of unemployment benefits, which we have been trying to bring to the floor for 27 days. Our Republican colleagues have opposed it, stopped it, delayed it, and demanded every vote they can think of to stop the extension of unemployment benefits, even though there are millions of Americans out of work and desperately looking for jobs. Many of them have exhausted their family savings trying to avoid foreclosure, to feed their families, and they need these benefits desperately.

But we have been held up time and again because several Republican Senators have insisted on amendments that have nothing to do with unemployment and nothing or little to do with the economy. I hope today we can break through that. I hope we can find bipartisan support to extend the unemployment benefits.

I thank the Senator from Montana for yielding a moment to me.

I wish to respond to my friend--and he is my friend--my colleague, Senator Grassley of Iowa, my neighboring State. He and I have worked on many things together. Our political views differ, that is for sure, but I believe he is a hard-working, good representative of his State. In fact, when I said that once on the floor, he ended up quoting it in one of his campaign brochures, which got me in trouble with the Iowa Democratic Party. But so be it. I like him, and I hope he feels the same.

We have worked together on many issues, but for the Senator from Iowa to come to the floor and be critical of a bill saying it is too many pages--that is what I have heard over and over again from the Republican side. They have argued that health care reform in the Senate is going to run over 1,000 pages in length, and they say it over and over again.

I don't know historically what major legislation considered on the Senate floor is comprised in the number of pages, but we have had some pretty big bills in the past--in the Senate Appropriations Committee and other places--because those bills take on big issues and big subjects. Nothing is bigger than our health care system in America. To talk about 1,000 pages really does not do justice to the enormity of the task we are tackling, to try to bring costs under control so people and businesses across America have secure and stable health care.

We ought to make sure as well that the health insurance companies stop exploiting those who have health insurance policies. We want to eliminate preexisting conditions as an exclusion. We want to make sure when you are sick, your health care will be there; that when you change jobs, you can take your health care with you. We want to make sure your children are covered for longer periods of time than they are now under current law. It takes a few pages to put that together. You cannot put it in a few sentences if you want to change the law and make it work.

So to come here and criticize the bill which has not been presented in a final form as I stand here I don't think makes a very strong case.

I asked the other day for the Republicans to tell me how many pages their health care reform bill is. The Senator from Tennessee said they were working on several different bills but they would be shorter in length. The closest we can come to the Republican health care reform bill I hold in my hand. It is 2 1/2 pages long, and it consists of a press release from Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader. That is as far as the Republicans have gone in writing health care reform for the American people. It is a press release. In this press release, there are no positive things they stand for, only criticisms of our efforts to write a health care reform bill.

To my right is the Senator from Montana, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He has spent the better part of a year--at least a year--trying to put together a health care bill. He has engaged others in trying to bring them into this conversation. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, only one Republican Senator, Ms. Snowe of Maine, joined Senate Democrats in voting for health care reforms. So far, she is the only Republican in the House or the Senate who has voted for health care reform even at the committee level. The Republicans have been standing on the sidelines while we have been trying our best to put together good legislation which will bring the cost of health care down, protect those beneficiaries who are denied coverage under their health insurance plans, and extend the reach of competition and choice so more Americans have places to turn. When the Senator from Iowa complains about so-called rationing, I think he overstates the case.

We know there is too much money spent on the current health care system. There is duplication, waste, and fraud, and we want it to come to an end. If Medicare is going to be on sound financial footing, if we can say to seniors today and for years to come that they can count on Medicare being there when they need it, we have to cut out unnecessary spending.

One of the areas in that particular program that is highly controversial is called Medicare Advantage.

Medicare Advantage was proposed by the insurance industry. They said years ago: The government has tried to run Medicare for 40 years, but they haven't done a very good job. Why don't you let the private insurance companies offer a Medicare plan. We will show you what you can do when you use the genius of the insurance industry in America to offer Medicare.

We took them up on their challenge and said to them: Present the insurance policy to seniors that will provide Medicare benefits.

They called it Medicare Advantage, and there are literally millions of these policies all across America today.

We stepped back after a number of years and said: How did they do?

They challenged the government and said: We can do it better.

Some did. But we also found Medicare Advantage plans that were overcharging the government 14 percent more than the cost of basic Medicare the government offered. So instead of bringing the costs down, the costs went up 14 percent. We were creating a subsidy to private health insurance companies to offer Medicare plans. That is a waste of dollars. The health insurance industry, although they used those dollars to their own benefit, are not helping Medicare, and they are not helping the taxpayers of this country.

The recent news about profits of the insurance giant Humana explains why the major health insurance companies and most of the Republicans oppose health care reform and why they have gone to such great lengths to defeat our efforts.

Last quarter, Humana saw their profits rise 65 percent, mostly due to the participation in the Medicare Advantage Program, the subsidies the taxpayers are sending them. This one company made $301 million in profits in the last 3 months alone, and they did it, by their own admission, on the backs of Medicare and Medicare Advantage beneficiaries.

The insurance industry is making billions by gaming the Medicare Advantage system at the expense of seniors' traditional Medicare coverage, and taxpayers are picking up the bill. For some reason, the Senate Republicans feel the need to defend them at every turn. When you hear the opposition to health care reform, it is inspired not exclusively but to a great extent by the opposition to health care reform from the private health insurance companies.

Why are these companies opposed to health care reform? Because it means competition. A public option plan that is available around this country will create in many parts in our country the first real competition for health insurance. It means consumers have a fighting chance to get a lower monthly premium because there will be a not-for-profit company there offering health insurance benefits. It is a company that is not focused on the bottom line of showing profits for shareholders. It will be a company that is not marketing and spending a fortune on advertising. It will be a company that is not spending so much on administrative help to say no to those covered by insurance policies. This will lower costs, and this is what drives the private health insurance companies wild.

Secondly, they hate to hear two words--McCarran-Ferguson--because they refer to a law passed by Congress 64 years ago which exempted the insurance industry and health insurance industry from antitrust regulations. Currently under the law, health insurance companies can legally conspire and collude to establish the premiums they will charge all across America. There is no real competition. When they set premiums, they have sat down and agreed on what they are going to charge. And they can allocate markets. They can make sure they dominate markets so there is no real choice there for consumers.

I think McCarran-Ferguson is outdated. It is a travesty under the law to allow it continue, and it should end. You will not hear one single Republican Senator say that--at least I haven't yet. I hope they join us in calling for real health insurance reform, in ending McCarran-Ferguson protection and exclusions based on preexisting conditions, for example, and giving real choice to consumers across this country. Instead, what we hear from them is the language of the health insurance companies opposing fundamental health insurance reform.

The American people have run out of patience with those who tolerate and encourage the current system--a system that fails us, as premiums go up even as wages do not; a system that, unfortunately, is not offering health care protection for millions of Americans working for businesses that even last year offered health insurance protection but they just cannot afford to do it anymore.

We are going to keep pressing forward. The Republican plan consists of a three-page press release. It will take more than that to bring meaningful change to health care in America.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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