Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009--Continued

Floor Speech

SERVICE MEMBERS HOME OWNERSHIP TAX ACT--Continued -- (Senate - December 22, 2009)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee, who, I remember, months ago, with a smile on his face, said we can get this done. We are on the verge, and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude. So I thank the Senator very much.

As this debate now moves forward, it has become apparent that some of our colleagues are losing sight of what we are working on. What should be a robust debate about a critical issue that is facing all of our families and businesses is being bogged down by distractions and political gimmicks and obstructions and a lot of delay while American families watch and wait and wonder where they exactly fit into this conversation. So I want to be clear with my colleagues and with Americans across the country today: This bill is about you. It is about your loved ones. It is about the people just like you across the country to bring down your premiums, expand your options, and increase your stability.

It is about helping our economy and creating jobs by reducing the drag that has been created by the skyrocketing premiums and unlocking the potential for new health care careers. It is about supporting the doctors and the nurses, the hospitals and the clinics that work every day to take care of you. It is about helping you or your father or your mother, your grandfather or your grandmother, by increasing benefits, cutting waste, and strengthening the Medicare on which you depend. And it is about Katerina.

Katerina is a woman from Redmond, WA, and she is one of my more than 10,000 constituents from my home State who have sent me their stories about their experiences with our broken health care system. Katerina is a single mom. She has a good education, she told me, and she has a good job and a solid middle-class lifestyle. But like a lot of Americans this year, struggling in the toughest economy since the Great Depression, she was laid off from her job, and she lost her employer-provided health care. She was able to scrape enough money together to pay for COBRA coverage, but she told me she didn't dare go to the doctor because she knew she wouldn't be able to afford the copays. So though she was technically covered right now, in practice, neither she nor her child have access to true health care or preventive services. She found that living that way had some real consequences.

Last month she told me she got an eye infection and eventually had to go to the doctor for treatment. She said after all of her out-of-pocket costs and still with no job and no income, she had to make some very serious and very tough choices about her family's food and clothing budget. Who knows what would have happened if Katerina or her child got seriously ill.

Our broken health insurance system is failing Katerina, and she is not alone. Millions of people have lost jobs in this current recession.

Millions of families have been tossed out of their employers' plans--families who had health care, who felt secure, all of a sudden understand how broken the system really is and how few options they actually have today for affordable care. That is why we need health insurance reform for Katerina and millions of Americans in similar situations and the hundreds of millions of Americans who may switch jobs or move or start small businesses or who just want more options for high-quality affordable health care.

Mr. President, let me talk for a minute about how this bill will specifically help Katerina and many others. Our plan sets up a market where people can shop for and purchase insurance, where insurance companies would have to compete for your business, and where people such as Katerina would be able to choose a plan that fits her family best from among a range of options in an open marketplace.

It would inject competition into the insurance market, it will lower costs, and it will give families, such as Katerina's, more choices. That means instead of just having one choice when she is laid off, which was to purchase high-priced COBRA, Katerina will be able to compare the price and performance of plans and make a decision for her family with the benefit of true options.

That will increase stability and keep insurance companies accountable. Never again will insurance companies be able to drop a family's plan simply because somebody got sick. No longer will losing your job mean losing access to affordable coverage, and no longer will people such as Katerina have to choose between food, clothing, and health care for herself and her child.

It will also keep families secure by ensuring that all insurance plans offer an adequate level of coverage, including free preventive care that will keep them healthy and ensure that minor, inexpensive medical issues can be treated before they become major, expensive medical problems.

Our plan will increase options, enhance security and stability, and it will reduce costs for people such as Katerina by providing credits and premium assistance. So families will no longer have to worry about their coverage if they lose a job, switch jobs, move, or get sick.

Mr. President, that is what this plan is about. It is about Katerina, it is about her child, and it is about the millions of Americans in similar situations.

If the status quo wins out, things will only get worse. If some of my colleagues continue to play politics with this issue, Katerina will continue to struggle.

If we continue to have delay and distraction and obstruction, families will pay more for less, they will lose coverage, and they will be denied treatment and continue to have to fight insurance company redtape to get the care they deserve.

That is what this is all about. I am going to continue to stand up and tell the stories of families and small business owners from Washington because they are counting on us to fix this broken system. I urge my colleagues to focus on their States' families and join with us to pass true health insurance reform.

Before I yield, I want to take this opportunity to make an additional point. As everybody knows, we have been working incredibly demanding schedules in recent weeks. Senators have seen this floor at every conceivable hour--late at night, early in the morning, in the face of a blizzard. Far too frequently, we forget that every time we are here, there are literally hundreds of staff forced to be here along with us. In fact, they are often here long before we arrive and long after we leave. This body could not function without the tireless dedication of these men and women.

Many of them are here now: the clerks, Parliamentarians, cloakroom
staff, doorkeepers, Capitol Police officers, and the maintenance workers. They work very long hours, nights, mornings, and weekends--with no regard to a government closure, dangerous snowstorms, or the need to complete their holiday shopping. If we are here, they are here. They deserve our thanks.

I want to express my gratitude to every one of them and to my own staff as well. It hasn't been an easy time. You should all know we are deeply appreciative of your service.

I, for one, am strongly supportive of bringing this debate to a close so that each one of you can be home with your families enjoying some well-deserved time off for the holidays.

I yield the floor.

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