Unemployment and Cobra Extensions

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, right now, families across my home State and the entire country want nothing more than to see us come together and pass meaningful help for the people they see struggling every day. They want to see help for people such as their neighbors and friends and family members who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves out of a job and who, despite their best efforts, are unable to find one today. They want help for the seniors in their communities who are being turned away from doctors because of devastating cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates, or all those who are struggling to afford health care because they lost a job and are now facing the impossible task of affording care on their own.

Americans understand that during these difficult times people need help to make ends meet. They understand there needs to be a lifeline for people who never thought they would need assistance from the government but who now have nowhere else to turn. But what Americans and those in my home State of Washington do not understand is why Washington, DC, cannot seem to deliver; why, when they make hard choices every day in their own lives to support their families and help those in need, Washington, DC, cannot do the same; why, at a time when needs have never been greater, the only words they hear out of Washington, DC, are ``gridlock,'' ``stalemate,'' and ``standstill.''

Today we have a clear-cut example to show the American people what is wrong with Washington, DC; that is because today one single Republican Senator is standing in the way of the unemployment benefits of 400,000 Americans. One single Republican Senator is blocking an extension of COBRA benefits for 500,000 Americans. One single Republican Senator is forcing doctors to take a 21-percent cut in Medicare reimbursement rates that could force seniors to be turned away from the Medicare coverage on which they rely. One single Republican Senator is blocking an extension of critical highway funds that has construction workers and transportation employees at home today and that has cut critical payments to struggling States. One single Republican Senator has put posturing before people, politics before families, and point scoring before the needs of struggling Americans.

The legislation we are trying so hard to pass is very straightforward. It is aimed at helping real families with real problems they face every day, and the consequences of it being blocked by one single Republican Senator are just as real.

The bill we are trying to pass includes an extension of unemployment insurance that, by the way, in my home State hundreds of thousands of individuals rely on to buy groceries and to pay their mortgages and to help pay for school for their kids. For years, these benefits have been routinely extended in tough times. And times, by the way, have rarely been tougher than they are now. But today families in every single one of our States are sitting around their kitchen table trying to figure out how they are going to make it through the weeks and the months ahead without these payments.

This package we are trying to pass also includes an extension of COBRA, health care for workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and health care benefits that come with it. In my home State, thousands of unemployed workers have the ability to see a doctor solely because we have provided this important assistance. It is a provision that is critical because health care is often the single biggest cost that unemployed workers face. In fact, you should know on average a monthly health care premium payment to cover a family costs over $1,000, which represents about 80 percent of the average unemployment check.

Another vital health care measure included in this bill we are trying to pass is a provision that would overturn a staggering 21-percent cut in payments to doctors who accept Medicare patients. Just yesterday my office heard from a doctor in a small community in my State, Poulsbo, WA, who is one of very few in the region who is taking new Medicare patients. He said he feared just what this cut would mean for him and his practice. He told my staff this cut would limit his ability to continue serving the needs of seniors in his area.

He is not alone. In Washington State that cut will affect over 60,000 employees, 700,000 Medicare patients, and nearly 350,000 TRICARE patients.

Finally, this bill also includes an extension of the Federal Transportation Funding Act, which is known as SAFETEA-LU. Allowing SAFETEA-LU to expire, which has now happened, not only hurts construction workers and contractors who are working on these major Federal highway projects in my State and across the country, it leaves our State governments bearing all the burden for the costs of these projects.

In Washington State, a reimbursement payment of $13.5 million for federally sponsored projects that is due tomorrow--tomorrow--is now in limbo, again, all because of one single Republican Senator.

Last October, I was out on this floor fighting for an extension of unemployment benefits, and I told the story of a woman from Seattle whose name is Kristina Cruz. At the time, Kristina had been unemployed for 20 months after spending over 10 years in human resources. Kristina had just written to my office and talked about going above and beyond in her job search, a skill, by the way, she picked up in her career in HR. Even with all her experience, interviews for her have been few and far between. Kristina talked about how she was not interested in living off the government long term and how, in the midst of this economic crisis, she did not have any other choice.

Since I talked last October, Kristina has stayed in touch with my office, and, unfortunately, today she is still having a hard time getting back to work. She recently wrote an e-mail to my office and said:

It's truly devastating to me that I've made choices in my life like getting good grades in school and getting my education, and building up professional experience only to find that I'm unable to get a job.

I thought I had made decisions to help ensure my success in life, and many times, I barely had enough money for food.

My family isn't rich and can't afford to support me. I literally do not know what I'm going to do.

Kristina went on to voice the frustration of so many about the needless holdups in getting this bill passed on providing assistance to struggling Americans. She said:

I find it to be really egregious that we live in a democratic society and yet a few misguided, outlying voices, despite overwhelming bipartisan majority support, can hold up and block a much needed unemployment extension. It really flies in the face of all the things I've learned about in my history books.

I'm not sure how I can survive many weeks and weeks of needless holdups when I have rent and bills to pay. Sometimes I feel that if some of these Senators were forced to walk a day in our shoes, then maybe they would have a sense of how it is to try and survive in this economy.

That opinion is not unique to my State, to one political party, or to an issue. Every evening, families across the country turn on the nightly news and hear another story about gridlock in our Nation's Capital. Oftentimes they have spent their days scanning through the classifieds, going to another job fair with long lines and few job opportunities, or working many times multiple jobs to meet their families' most basic needs. When they get home, they wonder just how we have spent ours.

What they see is this entire Congress forced to spend time fighting with one Republican Senator; a Congress that is forced to jump through procedural hoops and endure endless delay tactics to get meaningful and, by the way, largely bipartisan legislation passed; the obstruction of a single Republican Senator who, by the way, voted to extend these same benefits in 2008 but who has now suddenly changed his mind.

The entire Republican Party, except for a few who have been out here courageously, sit idly by as one of their members brings this entire body to a halt. The American people are sick of this, and the backlash to the blockage of this bill is evidence of that. It is time for all of us to stop and think. Think about Kristina and all the other Americans who sent us here to go to work for them; the people who will watch the news tonight and think: What about me? What about all of us?

Kristina wrote to me again recently to say it seems as though government is broken. I know that sentiment is something we hear all the time now. But the truth is, it is only broken if we allow it to be. It is only broken if we allow stunts such as is happening now to rule the day. If we can come together and put an end to shortsighted political point scoring that says obstruction is good politics and partisanship trumps progress, then we can help struggling families.

If we can join the way we did to pass the Children's Health Insurance Program or fair pay for women in the workplace, we can then restore the faith of the American people. Until we put an end to delays such as the one we face by one Republican Senator today, Americans are going to continue to have every right to be fed up.

I come to the floor of the Senate today to ask the Senator from Kentucky to allow us to finally move forward with consent on this bill so that Americans can get access to the help they desperately need in these very tough economic times. This is critical. Families across our States are hurting, through no fault of their own, through an economic recession they did not make happen.

We all want our country to get back on its feet. We all want to be strong again. We all want this lifeline for our families so that when our country begins running strong again, they can use the skills they have been holding in abeyance and go back to work; so they can get the health care they need for their children and their families until they can get that job and get moving again; so these construction projects across our country do not come to a slamming halt causing more Americans to sit at home without a paycheck, more Americans who cannot go to the store and buy things; so more stores start to fail because they do not have the income they need, and restaurants where people cannot go because they do not have a paycheck.

We are asking that the Republican colleagues who worked with us on this bill come to the floor and urge one Republican Senator to work with us to get consent so we can move past this and get to the job we have come here to do: to get people back to work, to make sure families have health care, to make sure we do the business of this government in a way that works for American families.

I yield the floor.

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