Department Of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this is the bill that is before the Senate. It is 2,074 pages. It has been on the Internet now for 3 weeks in its entirety. You cannot only read it on the Democratic Senate Web site, you can read it on the Republican Senate Web site. So one might ask: Well, where is the Republican comprehensive health care reform bill? It is not to be found--not on the floor of the Senate, not on the Web site--because it doesn't exist.

After 1 year of debate about America's health care system, the Republicans in the Senate have failed to produce any legislation that has gone through the scrutiny this legislation has faced in terms of its impact on America, its impact on our budget. They are emptyhanded. What they bring to us on the floor of the Senate are speeches, press releases, charts, and graphs, and an occasional criticism. I say ``occasional'' because for 19 days on the Senate floor we have debated this measure--comprehensive health care reform--and let's take a look at the Record after 19 days of debate on the floor of the Senate.

The Republicans in the Senate--there are 40 of them--have offered four amendments to the bill in 19 days. Four amendments. Oh, and they have offered six motions to take the bill off the floor and send it back to committee. They have looked at this--and you heard the minority leader and his criticism of this measure--and found four things they are willing to bring before the Senate to change. It doesn't strike me that this is a good-faith effort to try to bring us to closure in a bipartisan way. Instead, what we hear from the Republican side of the aisle in addition to only four specific amendments over 19 days is: We haven't had enough time to offer amendments. Nineteen days, four amendments.

I guess some of us are reaching advanced stages in life and in age and maybe we don't have the energy we once did, but I honestly believe that even the Senate could come up with one amendment a day on health care reform, but the Republicans have come up with four over 19 days. It tells us one of two things: Either this is hard work and they are not up to it or they like the current system of health care; and if they do, I would like them to defend the current system of health care. I would like for them to try to explain in their States what I have found in my State. Instead of soaring rhetoric and abstractions, let's get down to specifics.

This is a gentleman who lives in Evanston, IL, named David Buckley. Evanston is a great town just north of Chicago. I enjoy going up there and I have a lot of friends there. David had insurance when he needed it, but it ended up costing him his financial health. He is a freelance videographer. He was paying $4,500 a year for health insurance when he was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 48. David Buckley had a prompt surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiation. He managed to rid his body of cancer. But that battle ended and another battle began.

David's insurance company agreed to cover his cancer treatment but only after 3 solid months of investigations of his application for health insurance to determine whether they could find in that application a preexisting condition which would eliminate any responsibility to pay for David's bills. They couldn't. After covering his cancer treatment costs, they did the next thing that insurance companies do: They raised his premiums, and they didn't just raise them a little bit. In the year following his cancer diagnosis, David's insurance rates went up 80 percent, and that was just the beginning. Within 7 years, David was paying $28,000 a year in premiums. He had gone from roughly $400 a month to more than $2,000 a month in 7 years. He had a $2,500 deductible, not to mention out-of-pocket expenses. He is self-employed, makes a decent living--about $70,000 a year--but imagine taking $2,000 out of your paycheck every month just for health insurance. He tried.

Incidentally, 12 days after his surgery, David, who is not lazy by any measure, flew into a war zone to shoot video. He was still wearing a chemo pump when he arrived for work. He pushes himself to pay his bills, but it has been a losing battle. What started as a $5,000 debt in the year 2000 grew to a $70,000 debt by 2003 and a large portion of it came from medical bills. David said:

I thought the point of having insurance was to keep you out of bankruptcy, not put you in it.

It is a valid point. Insurance is meant to be a promise of protection, but for too many people it isn't enough. For David, the high costs and ballooning debt led him to drop his health insurance last year. Think about that. He battled cancer and won, and you know once you have been through that life experience, you are always vigilant. You need the best care to make certain that anything that recurs is caught early, but David had to walk away from health insurance coverage because he couldn't afford it. He decided it was health care or saving for retirement or meeting the costs of living. He is in his late 50s and he is worried about the years when he won't be able to work.

Health reform is going to help people like David--people who have insurance but still find themselves vulnerable to financial ruin. It will stop insurance companies from running the rates up sky high when you get sick. For those with employer-sponsored, large-group coverage, it will provide access to a broader insurance pool where costs will be pooled and spread.

Health reform will hold insurance companies to annual caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses.

Think about the battle this man went through and won over cancer and then went to battle with his health insurance company. It is not unusual. It happens every day. This bill, which has been criticized by those on the other side of the aisle, will give David and others like him a fighting chance.

Let me tell my colleagues about another person. This is an interesting story. Valerie, this beautiful young woman, is from Arlington Heights, IL. She is a student, a doctoral student studying biochemistry at Cambridge University in England. When she was 4 years old, Valerie was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She decided early in life that she wasn't going to let her diabetes stop her career ambition. She couldn't become an artist or an entrepreneur; she knew she needed a stable job because she always needed to have health care. She had diabetes. Now, at 24, this brilliant young scientist, this doctoral candidate, worries that her diabetes and what she calls the ``broken, insecure U.S. health system'' will keep her from returning to the United States from England and using her skills to help her home country.

To control her disease, Valerie needs a lot of medical service, including regular doctor visits and insulin shots. For most of her life, her medical care was paid for by her parents, but those of us who raise children know what happens next. Most health care plans we have for our families cut off our kids at age 24, and that is Valerie's age. However, Valerie is going to school in England. If you listen to some of the criticisms on the floor here about England and Canada and other nations that approach health care differently, you might have an impression in your mind about what that means to be living in a country such as that.

Valerie, because she is a student at Cambridge in England, receives free health care through England's national health service that she says is as good or better than anything she had in the United States. In addition to free doctor visits, insulin, and syringes, her care includes regular contact with a dietician and an endocrinologist, also free of charge.

These medical professionals have encouraged Valerie to take a more active role in managing her own disease and she is in better health now than she has been for years. Eventually she hopes to open her own laboratory where she can use her great education and skills to continue research in mitochondrial biology and develop treatments and cures for disease. Valerie worries about whether she will be able to do that if she came back to the United States, and here is what she said:

As long as the same broken, insecure health system remains in place, I see little incentive to come home to the United States with my talents and experience.

We can't afford to lose talented scientists such as Valerie who one day might find a cure for a disease such as Parkinson's. We are the only industrialized Nation in the world where people can die for lack of health insurance, and that is a fact: 45,000 a year. They can't get the care they need to stay healthy and they lose their lives. If we don't change this system, if we don't reform it, we stand to lose talented people and we also stand to lose valuable lives.

The last person I want my colleagues to see is a friend of mine, Dale Mizeur. Dale lives in Blue Mound, IL. The Mizeur family is well-known in my part of the world. I think I have met them all, and they are a big family. Over the years, I have visited with them in their homes and in their home towns. Blue Mound is a little town south of Decatur, IL, 1,100 people. Everybody knows one another. They are all neighbors and friends. Most of them go to church together and have their community picnics; a great small town in Midwestern America. There are a lot of farmers there. There are retired factory workers from the Caterpillar plants up in Decatur and a lot of folks who like living in a small town. This used to be a thriving area. It has struggled with changes in manufacturing and changes in our economy, but it is a close-knit community.

Dale Mizeur lives there. He was born in Owaneco 61 years ago. He was a hard worker at a Cat plant up in Decatur for 32 years. He decided to retire 11 years ago. Based on a simple calculation, he was told he would have a modest pension and his health care costs would be covered in his union contract.

In the time since he retired, his expectations haven't been met. A difficult economy and new contract negotiations up in Decatur have resulted in the erosion of Dale's union health care coverage. As a result, he now has to spend more of his pension on filling the gaps in his reduced health care coverage. His monthly premiums have skyrocketed from nothing when he first retired to almost $400 a month, and that is 20 percent of his pension check. In addition to these premiums, the quality of his coverage has gone down. What was once a generous health care plan has such high out-of-pocket costs that Dale questions whether he can afford to stay with it.

He is like most Americans; he doesn't worry about his health until he needs to do something about it. During the early years of his retirement when his insurance coverage was rock solid, he considered himself healthy and never saw the need to use it. But we all get a little older, our bodies aren't what they used to be, and things have changed for Dale. A few weeks ago he noticed some pain in his chest, some dizziness that was too noticeable to ignore. He saw his doctor who told him to go to the emergency room. He fretted about what this was going to cost him, but he went anyway. Thankfully, Dale is physically OK, but economically and emotionally is another story.

Last week, Dale received his bill from the ER. His own personal out-of-pocket expense: $600. He now has to figure out how he is going to pay that bill out of his pension. What other expenses will he have to delay? What about the mortgage and utility bills? He has to worry about the costs he will endure next time.

Dale and his wife live on a fixed income. As I said, he is 61 years old. The money that comes in each month is accounted for and there isn't a lot of wiggle room.

He is contemplating coming out of retirement after 11 years, primarily because he can't make ends meet and because of medical expenses. This isn't a very good economy for a 61-year-old retired factory worker to look for a job. He is one of the many early retirees who have found that health care costs threaten their financial stability. The unlucky ones lost their health care coverage completely, perhaps because their employer has gone bankrupt. Even those such as Dale, who still has coverage, are finding themselves in a much more precarious situation than they expected.

I tell these stories because they are real-life stories of people I have either met or come to know because they have contacted our office. I listened to the minority leader come and say: Stop the presses, stop the debate, stop moving forward in this effort to have real health care reform in America. The minority leader, from Kentucky, said we need to start over.

We have been starting over on health care for decades. We have never reached the finish line because there are always obstacles in our path. Right now, the obstacle is bringing this matter to a vote. Why were we in session at 1 a.m. this morning casting a vote? Because the Republican side of the aisle is determined that, regardless of the issue, they are going to stop us from bringing this matter to a debate and vote. They don't want us to have a vote on this. They don't want us to make a decision. They don't want to be on the record.

That is unfortunate. The bill they have chosen to filibuster--the one before us in the Senate--is a bill that should have no controversy whatsoever. It is a bill to fund our troops. It is the Department of Defense appropriations bill. Can you imagine, in the midst of a war, when the bravest men and women in our Nation are risking their lives at war, the Republicans are filibustering the bill to pay their salaries, the bill to pay for the equipment they need to stay safe, the bill to pay for the medical care of these soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and their families. It is unthinkable.

This is a bill that passed over in the House of Representatives overwhelmingly. I think the number was 394 to 35, and 164 Republicans voted for it because we want to stand behind our troops.

Last night, only 3 Republican Senators out of 40 would step up and say we should go forward on this bill--only 3. The rest of them, led by the minority leader and the minority whip, said we will stop this bill if this is the only way we can stop the health care debate. Why did they pick this bill of all bills--a bill where we should be standing in solidarity behind our troops, and we now have split into partisan camps.

There is nothing partisan about standing behind our troops. That vote early in the morning, unfortunately, was very partisan. There is also a provision in the bill that deals with the unemployed in America.

We want to go home. I want to go home. I called my wife this morning. I have been here 3 straight weeks now, and it looks like there is another week to follow before the holidays and Christmas. I don't like this. You give up a lot in this job. There are certain pieces of my family life I hold dear, and this is one of them--to be back home for Christmas, not just at the last minute but to be there, and it doesn't look like we will be able to do that. The Republicans decided they will use every political and parliamentary device possible to delay this vote. So we will do nothing today because we are running the clock out under the procedures of the Senate, and then we will meet at 7:30 tomorrow morning and have several votes on this Department of Defense appropriations bill, which should have been passed instantly when we received it from the House of Representatives. Then we will start the clock running again to move toward a vote on health care reform.

Why? Let's be honest. We ought to bring this matter up for a vote and see if we, in fact, have 60 votes on this side of the aisle. I hope we do. We are working on it. The reason I am here and the majority leader is not is because he is working, at this very moment, to bring those 60 votes together. Instead, the Republicans have said they are going to do everything possible, including asking Members to stay here Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, in order to stop this vote on health care reform. That is unfortunate.

Let me tell you the bottom line of what this bill does for America. This bill is not perfect, and no bill we ever consider is. This bill, first, is the biggest deficit reduction ever introduced on the Senate floor. If we bring down health care costs, it not only will help families and businesses but even our Federal Government. As we bring down the increase in the cost in health care, Medicare for seniors will cost less to the government. The same thing is true of Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and disabled.

First and foremost, CBO tells us this bill, at a time when we have great national debt, will actually bring down America's debt $130 billion in the first 10 years and $650 billion more in the next 10 years. So it is a fiscally responsible bill. That is what President Obama challenged us to do: If you are going to pass health care reform, don't do it at the expense of the next generation. Pay for it.

We do. We more than pay for it. We also reduce the cost of government in the process. The second thing the bill does is start to bring down health care costs. It does it in a variety of different ways. I wish it were bringing it down faster. I commend the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner, who joined with a group of freshman Democrats, and they introduced cost-containment amendments to the bill--to be part of the managers' amendment--which have been heralded by the major business and manufacturing groups in America--a thoughtful amendment that addresses the core issue of how to bring down health care costs. They rolled up their sleeves and went to work and made an amendment.

You cannot say the same, I am afraid, for the other side of the aisle. Their amendments have not been as constructive as the one I just described. They have tried to stop this bill rather than improve it. Senator Warner of Virginia and his freshman colleagues have taken a more constructive and positive approach.

Bringing down costs of health insurance and making it more affordable is job one for this health care reform. But it does something else. This bill extends the coverage of health insurance in America. Currently, there are 50 million Americans who don't have health insurance. They are people who have lost their jobs. They are folks who work for small businesses and cannot afford health insurance. They are people who have tried their best, but they can't get health insurance. There are 50 million of them. Imagine, if you will, going to sleep tonight, if you are a father or mother with a sick child, and you have no health insurance. Imagine, for one frightening moment, waking tomorrow morning to face a diagnosis from a doctor of a serious illness or to be involved in an accident that requires medical care and having no health insurance. One out of every six Americans--50 million--have no health insurance.

This bill will change that. Thirty million Americans will be covered with health insurance who currently don't have coverage, and 15 million in the lower income categories--the working poor and lower income folks--will go into Medicaid at the State level; 15 million will go into private health insurance. At the end of the day, with this bill, 94 percent of Americans will have health insurance. That has never happened in our history--ever; 94 percent will have the piece of mind of having health insurance.

There is something else this bill does. It goes back to my illustration. It says to the health insurance companies it is over; the way you have been mistreating the people who pay your premiums is going to come to an end. We are not going to allow you to ``fly-speck'' applications for health insurance to find a preexisting condition. We are going to make sure those with preexisting conditions have a real opportunity for health insurance coverage and will not be denied when they need coverage. We are going to also make sure that when you get sick, the health insurance company cannot cut and run, as so many do. We are going to extend that coverage for young people through ages 24 and 25. This is all good and positive. It will mean the Patients' Bill of Rights, which former and late Senator Kennedy and even Senator McCain worked for, will be part of the law of America.

There are critics of this health insurance plan, for sure. We saw them come out at townhall meetings and protests and so forth. Some don't want to change the system; they like the system. They fear government or whatever it may be. Their motive is to stop this. There are also critics who say this bill doesn't go far enough. It doesn't go as far as I would like to go. I think there ought to be a public option. We ought to have a not-for-profit plan that competes with private plans. The realities of the Senate don't make it possible to do that in this bill at this time.

When the Republican leader comes to the floor and says so many people oppose it--some oppose it because they may want to do nothing; others don't think it does enough--that is the nature of this process. I have been around long enough to know you can't satisfy everybody. Is it better if this bill passes or not? I think the answer is overwhelmingly it is.

Howard Dean is my friend and a former Governor. He said he would vote against this. I say to Dr. Howard Dean: Don't you believe 30 million Americans with health insurance are worth the effort? I think you do. I think most people do. We can do better, and we will work to improve the bill.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. McCAIN. I would be more than happy to engage in a colloquy with my friend from Illinois, if he requests to do so or just has a question--either way.

Mr. DURBIN. I have a question. When we were here at 1 a.m., bleary-eyed and voting, there were two unanimous consent requests made to pass the Department of Defense appropriations bill immediately. Does the Senator from Arizona remember the objections to passing the bill immediately so we could get the money to the troops came from his side of the aisle when we tried to pass this bill?

Mr. McCAIN. I do recall that, I say to my friend, and I also recall I was only allowed 10 minutes--10 minutes--to talk about this bill and the 1,720 earmarks such as the telescope in Hawaii and--I have a list here somewhere. But I was allowed 10 minutes, and I need a long time to talk about this.

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Mr. DURBIN. I see the Senator from Oregon is here. If I could have a few minutes to respond and then turn the floor over to him for as much time as he would need--I thank the Senator from Oregon.

First, a history lesson. Sometimes facts are tenuous, difficult, sticky things you can't get rid of. Let's look at the facts. When William Jefferson Clinton left the Presidency, America's budget was in surplus. For the first time in 30 years, we were generating more revenue than we were spending. We were adding life and longevity to the Social Security system, to Medicare, and many others. We did this with a prosperous, booming economy, one of the most prosperous we had seen in modern history. We created new jobs, new businesses, new home opportunities. When William Jefferson Clinton left office, we had a national debt of $5 trillion.

In came the Republicans, billing themselves as fiscal conservatives. They were going to do it better, get government off our backs, reduce spending, and show us how they could manage. They took a $5 trillion national debt, and over the next 8 years more than doubled it. In other words, when George W. Bush left office, America had more debt, twice as much, as was the case when he took office.

How did we reach a point where our debt mushroomed and more than doubled in 8 years? Because these fiscally conservative, flinty-eyed, styptic-hard Republicans engaged in a war they wouldn't pay for. Some of the Senators who just spoke this morning voted for us to go to war and not pay for it and just add it to the debt.

Secondly, President Bush did something no President had ever done in history. It was counterintuitive. It made no sense, but he did it. What was it? He cut taxes in the midst of a war. It has never been done because you can't explain it. You have the ordinary expenses of government that still continue, and now you have a new expensive war. And instead of doing what Franklin Roosevelt did in World War II, saying we are going to sell bonds, we will do our best to pay for this war, they said just the opposite: We will go into debt even deeper to not pay for the war. That is what they did. They went into debt by cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

Unpaid for wars, tax cuts in the midst of wars for the wealthiest people, and then to add insult to injury, they passed the Medicare prescription Part D Program--a needed program, for sure--and didn't pay for it, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt too. So at the end of 8 years, George W. Bush, who inherited a surplus from Bill Clinton, gave us twice the national debt, gave us the largest annual deficit we had ever seen, and left the economy in shambles.

Witness the recession we are currently in just starting to inch away from. That was the record of the fiscally conservative, let's-get-tough-on-debt Republicans for 8 years, and many of those years they controlled Congress. All of those years the President had a veto pen.

When I come to the Senate floor and hear my Republican colleagues relate how they have a better vision of America--and their vision is in many respects a good one, to reduce debt for future generations--the record speaks for itself. They failed.

Now comes President Obama, and he says to Congress: We have to get the economy moving again. Some Republicans are criticizing him saying it is a mistake for us to put money into our economy. The President said we have to put people back to work, give working families a tax cut, create jobs building highways and infrastructure, do the things that help small businesses expand their payrolls. It costs money for sure, and I know we are in debt, but if we don't get that engine of the economy churning and moving forward, then we will never get out of this hole and more suffering will be the lot of the American people.

Not a single Republican would support that, not one. We didn't get one Republican vote for that in the House of Representatives. Over here, we had three--the two Senators from Maine and the Senator from Pennsylvania who has since crossed the aisle and joined the Democratic party. That was the reality. As a party, the Republicans opposed stimulating the economy in the midst of the deepest recession.

Now comes health care. President Obama says to us: Before you pass this health care bill, there is one basic rule--do not add to the deficit. Find a way to reduce health care costs for individuals, families, and businesses. Do not add to the deficit. The Congressional Budget Office took a look at this bill--it took a year to prepare it--and said it is the biggest deficit cutter in the history of the United States because over 10 years, this bill alone will save the Federal Government $130 billion and over the next 10 years, $650 billion. If we continue without changing the current health care system, it will mean more debt for everyone, higher premiums, higher costs, and more deficit. That is the fiscal choice we face.

I hear Senator McCain, who is my friend--I respect him. We served the same period of time together in the House and Senate, and we disagree on a whole lot of things. But I like him. I think he likes me a little bit some days--come to the floor and say: Do you know what is wrong with this Department of Defense appropriations bill? In his words, the Democrats have ``larded it up.'' They have larded on things.

What is the lard in this bill? The extension of unemployment benefits for millions of Americans out of work. Last time I came to the floor of the Senate it passed 97 to nothing--not exactly a hotly controversial issue. Sadly, it took us 1 whole month to get to a vote. Then it passed 97 to nothing.

We larded it up with food stamps. In the State of Michigan, one out of six people is on food stamps. Food stamps in this economy are a lifeline for people to feed their children when they are out of work and don't know where the next meal is coming from. Is that the kind of squandering of taxpayers' dollars that we often hear from Senator McCain. I don't think so. He is not a hardhearted man. He wants to feed children. He wants food stamps.

How about COBRA? COBRA is an acronym for a program that allows people to pay for health insurance. One of the first casualties when you lose your job is your health insurance. We want people to keep that health insurance. We help them pay the premiums. That is in here. I don't think we are larding it up when we include that.

The extension of the PATRIOT Act for a few months. Of course, if we are going to be vigilant against enemies, we want to extend it. We can debate what should be in it, but an extension of the PATRIOT Act is going to mean that America will be safer. The alternative is unacceptable.

Money for the Small Business Administration--that is where jobs are created. If we don't give money in loans to small businesses, we will see people losing their businesses and cutting back on employment. This is just fundamental. There is no credible, respectable, mainline economist who argues that the way to get out of a recession is to cut spending at the Federal level. Exactly the opposite is true. You have to help people with the safety net. You have to try to create a catalyst for more job creation. That means spending money.

I don't think this is lard and earmarks and porkbarrel. We are talking about the basic necessities of life. The Department of Defense appropriations should not be filibustered as the Republicans are currently doing.

Before I hand the floor over to the Senator from Oregon, I salute him. He has given more hard thought as an individual Senator than almost anyone in this Chamber about what to do with the system. The Senator's premise in health care is the right premise--more competition, more choice. We may disagree on some concepts. That is what we are here for. But I want to salute the Senator from Oregon and tell him this underlying health care bill is going to do things for America that need to be done. It is going to start--not as much as we would like--to bring down the increase in costs and provide affordability for families and businesses. It will extend the reach of health insurance to 94 percent of the American people. It is amazing. It is historic. It is going to create a Patients' Bill of Rights which gives every family in America the legal tools to fight back when the health insurance company says no to their doctor and no to what they or their families need. It has a lot of positive things in it.

I want to salute Senator Wyden, as well as Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, for one particular provision in the bill. We don't have the details yet, but we believe this will result in the most dramatic expansion of health care clinics across America. Those of us who represent communities such as Chicago and even downstate Illinois know these clinics are the first line of defense for medicine. Men and women can walk through the front door and find primary care and have their needs taken care of even if they are poor. Some of the most dedicated, hardworking professionals in medicine are in those clinics.

I have walked into many in Chicago, such as the Alivo Clinic where my friend Carmen Velasquez is the director. I have said: Carmen, if I were sick or my wife were sick, I would feel confident walking in the front door of your clinic. You have the best people on Earth who are doing dramatic things.

I ask unanimous consent there be printed in the Record an article from the Chicago Sun Times that talks about the terrible health care disparities in the United States, particularly between African Americans and White Americans.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record

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Mr. DURBIN. In heart disease deaths in 1990, there was an 8-percent difference between African Americans and White Americans. Today it is 24 percent. Female breast cancer deaths, there was a 20-percent difference between African Americans and White Americans in 1990. Today there is a 99-percent difference. Prenatal care during the first trimester, there was a 119-percent difference in 1990. Today it is 199 percent; tuberculosis, 310 percent difference in 1990, 497 percent today.

These gross health care disparities are the result of the lack of primary care in the neighborhoods and towns of America. Senator Wyden and Senator Sanders, thank you for leading the fight to expand that.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, for those who are keeping score and following the Senate, you may wonder what we are doing. We are in the middle of a filibuster, which is an attempt to stop legislation from moving forward. It is a filibuster inspired by the Republican side of the aisle. The bill they are filibustering and trying to delay is the Department of Defense appropriations bill. This is the bill that funds our military. It is the bill that funds our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is a bill that, almost without fail, passes overwhelmingly with a bipartisan majority in the Senate and the House each year. It has passed the House of Representatives with a substantial vote of about 394 to 35, with 164 Republicans voting for it over there. There was no controversy associated with it. Yet when it came to the Senate, the Senate Republicans announced they were going to filibuster the Defense appropriations bill.

Why? Do they disagree with any of the contents? I have yet to hear--aside from Senator McCain and Senator Coburn, who went through two or three provisions in the bill they disagreed with--anyone say we shouldn't fund our military. We certainly should. Now some have come to the Senate floor and argued the reason we are in this predicament is because the Democrats, who are in control, have waited too long to bring this bill to the floor. But that statement fails to acknowledge the reality of what this calendar year has meant because day after day and week after week, month after month, with very few exceptions, the role and strategy of the minority--the Republicans--in the Senate has been to slow down and stop the consideration of important legislation.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, would my friend and colleague yield?

Mr. DURBIN. Pardon me?

Mr. ROBERTS. Would my friend and colleague yield?

Mr. DURBIN. Only for a question.

Mr. ROBERTS. Only for a question.

Mr. DURBIN. I will be happy to yield for a question.

Mr. ROBERTS. I just want to assure him--in the form of a question--if he were asking me, am I filibustering, that is not the case. The problem was, as I see it--and I am asking the distinguished Senator whom I have known for a long time and whom I respect--what would he think about the response--this is the question--where we have only had seven amendments that have been allowed on this bill? I have one on the Medicare advisory board. We have the one on CER here--rationing--and I had another one in regard to a tax matter--about four amendments--all of which have been considered in the Finance Committee.

All were defeated by a party-line vote, so I knew where it was headed, but I thought it certainly deserved some debate and some consideration on the Senate floor. To all of a sudden limit a bill of this size--the health care bill, not the Defense bill--to seven amendments seems to be very untoward and showing a lack of comity in regard to a bill of this size.

The defense bill has the doc fix in it, and so, as such, I think you can pivot into the problems doctors face and at least have an opportunity to talk about it. But this is the first time I have had 10 or 15 minutes to talk about anything about health care. It is not that I would choose to do it when we are considering a Defense appropriations bill. I have served on the Armed Services Committee, the Intel Committee, as the Senator knows. There is no person stronger for our warriors and our men and women in uniform, and they will get their money.

This bill is going to pass. That is not the issue. The issue is we haven't had enough time, and I would ask the

Senator to comment on my comments and tell me if I am wrong.

Mr. DURBIN. I would say in response to the Senator from Kansas, he has a grievance with the consideration of this bill--the health care reform bill--a 2,000-page bill, which I will address in a moment. But I would say to the Senator from Kansas that we are considering this bill--the Department of Defense appropriations bill. And because of a grievance over the consideration of this bill, the Republicans are filibustering the Department of Defense appropriations bill. They are trying to slow down as much as possible the passage of the Department of Defense appropriations bill.

Many of us think that is unfair, particularly when we have our best and bravest young men and women at war, that we would somehow make the bill funding their effort and funding the things they need to protect themselves the center of a political debate over another bill. And it is a filibuster. Twice last night on this floor, early this morning--I should say in the early hours of the morning--I made a unanimous consent request that on a bipartisan basis we fund our troops. I offered it on the floor and twice it was objected to--the last time by the Republican leader and the Republican whip in the well of the Senate. They had a chance to pass this bill.

Now, the funding for our troops runs out at midnight tonight. We are going to come in at 7:30 tomorrow morning because the Republicans insist on this delay, and we are actually going to fund the troops. I really believe when push comes to shove, we will. I hope we do. I will be voting for it, and I hope the Republicans will join me. So I don't understand why the Republicans are holding the Department of Defense appropriations bill for our troops hostage to their anger or frustration over health care reform.

Then let me address health care reform. I would say to the Senator from Kansas, we have been on this bill for 19 days. Do you know how many substantive amendments have been offered by the Republican side to this bill in 19 days? Four--not even one a day. And six amendments--or I should say motions--were made to this bill to send it back to committee and start over. So if the Senator has substantive amendments--and others do--the obvious question is, Where have they been? Nineteen days, four amendments.

It appears to me that when a decision was made several days ago on the Republican side to order the reading of an 800-page amendment, it was very clear that this had nothing to do with debate and voting on amendments. It was all about slowing things down and stopping them, and they tried and couldn't on the reading of this bill. Now they are trying, as best they can, when it comes to an unrelated bill.

You know, there comes a point when, I would say to the Senator from Kansas, there has to be a vote. I mean, we are here to vote. Let's get on with it. We either win or lose. You either win or lose, and we have to go forward. I know you don't support this from what you have said. I do. I may prevail; you may prevail. But at some point, don't we owe it to the American people to take a vote? Unfortunately, this delaying tactic that has been going on is just postponing what I think we are here to do, and it is doing it at a time of year when I have to tell you--and I always say, at least they told me when I ran for the House, if you don't like this job, you know, don't run for it. And if you get this job, don't complain about it.

Well, I am not going to complain, but I do have to tell you, most of the Members of this Senate would like to be home with their families for Christmas, and we may not be.

Mr. ROBERTS. Will the Senator yield to allow me to answer the Senator's question?

Mr. DURBIN. I will yield for a question, otherwise I would be yielding the floor. But I will certainly yield to the Senator from Kansas for a question.

Mr. ROBERTS. You could go for it, yield the floor, and see what happens.

I think the question the Senator asked of me--and I will defer it back to him in the form of a question was, Was I taking part in the filibuster? The only reason I am here to talk about rationing--and I had that rationing amendment ready, along with the Medicare advisory board, along with several others, is because we have not had the time or opportunity to offer them. Why are we rushing and not allowing time to consider amendments?

Consequently, I have four amendments sitting on my desk waiting to at least talk about them, as opposed to bringing them up. I don't think that is filibustering. I think I am taking advantage of whatever time we have to at least talk about these amendments, certainly on the health care bill.

On the Defense appropriations bill, it is very unfortunate this situation has developed, but I want to assure the Senator, and my good friend, that I am not here trying to hold up anything. One other thing--is it not true there is a bill out there but nobody has seen it? More especially, the managers' amendment, which will be combined with what came over from the House, and we do not have a score. So whatever you have there, if that is the bill, I would sure like to get it up on the Web or something so we can take a look at it and also have the score.

We keep talking about the bill. I would ask the Senator: Is that the bill? Is that the final bill with the score?

Mr. DURBIN. I would say to the Senator from Kansas that it is not the final bill. There will be a managers' amendment offered tomorrow, and it will be considerably smaller than this. It will have specifics in it that have been reviewed by the Congressional Budget Office. That is underway. It will be introduced, I hope, tomorrow morning, and it will be up for consideration for a procedural vote early Monday morning, and then the remainder of the week, as long as the Republicans want us to stay.

It is your decision whether we will be here for Christmas, and we are prepared to stay, if necessary, to get it done, if that is what it takes.

But it is true there is a managers' amendment coming. It is also true the Congressional Budget Office--maybe one of the most powerful agencies of the Federal Government--can literally stop the Congress in its tracks while the people who work there pour through these bills and try to make some estimate as to whether they are going to add to the deficit; whether they will, in fact, reduce health care costs.

The good news for all of us is they took a look at our bill--the Democratic health care reform bill--and concluded it would, in fact, reduce the deficit $130 billion over the next 10 years and $650 billion beyond that.

It is also true this is the only bill that has been brought before us--the Democratic bill--which would expand the coverage of health insurance to 94 percent of Americans.

There has been a lot of talk about rationing in other countries. Senator Kyl of Arizona speaks about England and Canada and rationing and waiting in line and how unfair it is--and there is a fundamental unfairness to waiting in line when a doctor says you need some medical treatment. But keep in mind there is rationing in America. Fifty million Americans have no health insurance. That is rationing. Many Americans have health insurance policies that are not worth anything. That is rationing.

We know more and more people are filing for bankruptcy in America because of medical bills because they do not have the out-of-pocket money for medical care they need in America, and that is rationing. In the developed world, which America certainly leads, we are the only Nation on Earth where a person can die for lack of health insurance, and that is rationing and that is our current system.

Some say these reforms are too complex--2,000 pages. I defy anyone to take 2,000 pages and write down and describe the current health care system in America. They cannot. It is much more arcane, complex, and bewildering than this bill itself.

Also, I think this bill, it is critically important to note, is going to give people an opportunity to fight the health insurance companies who consistently turn down the requests of doctors and patients for care, saying they are not covered by the policy or the person failed to disclose everything they should in their application for health insurance.

We take them on. It is about time we did. These health insurance companies make a fortune. Their CEOs are paid a fortune, and they have created a situation which rations care to Americans today. I have seen it firsthand. I know friends who are going through it, people right in my office. And anyone who is listening to their constituents back home knows this is true.

There is also one other element I will mention before yielding the floor to the Senator from Minnesota. We will dramatically expand the Community Health Care Clinics in America with this bill. If you are aware--and you should be--of these clinics in your community, you know these are the clinics with the medical professionals, doctors, nurses, dentists, radiologists, who provide basic primary care to people who are not wealthy. They provide care at a fraction of the cost to people going into a hospital or emergency room for a fever or a child with an earache, and they do it well. They do it in Chicago, do it in Springfield, and do it all over my State--and we will expand it. You will see after this bill passes a dramatic change in primary care in America, more and more primary care physicians' costs being brought down with quality care at a local level.

We need more of it. This bill does it, and there is nothing coming from the other side that even matches it. I am prepared at this point to yield the floor to the Senator from Minnesota for the remainder of the time until 4 o'clock.

Mr. ROBERTS. I have one other question to ask of the Senator.

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Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator from Minnesota will yield for a kind of question?

Mr. FRANKEN. Certainly.

Mr. DURBIN. I would like to ask the Senator from Minnesota if he is aware of the fact that we have been debating health care reform for 19 days on the floor of the Senate, and in that period of time there have been four amendments offered by the Republican side of the aisle to change the bill and six motions to commit the bill back to committee, stop the debate on the floor, and that is the sum total of all of the effort on the Republican side to date? We do not choose the amendments, the leadership chooses it on the Republican side of the aisle.

I ask the Senator from Minnesota, is he aware of that?

Mr. FRANKEN. I am now. I was aware of the general shape of things, which is the sort of dearth of substantive amendments offered and the delay--yes. That I am aware of. Thank you.

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