Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENNET. Thank you, Mr. President. I say thank you to the Senator from Montana for his generosity. I will not take 10 minutes. I know the Senator from Pennsylvania is here.

Mr. President, I stand here today for the millions of Coloradans and American families who are sick and tired of the name calling, the bickering, and the partisanship in Washington.

I am here today for over 800,000 uninsured Coloradans who will now have a fighting chance to get the health care they need.

I am here for the 1.2 million Coloradan children who will never again be at risk of being denied coverage because they have a preexisting condition.

I am here for the 70,000 small businesses that will get a tax cut to provide health insurance, so they do not have to make the terrible choice between providing health care coverage for their employees and keeping their doors open.

I am here for the hundreds of thousands of seniors who depend on Medicare and expect us to protect and preserve it for generations to come.

We have passed a bill that makes our country more competitive, ends insurance company abuses, gives people more coverage, and starts putting our country on a more sound fiscal footing for the next 20 years.

I join those on this side of the aisle and on the other side of the aisle who have said this is not a perfect piece of legislation. No piece of legislation is perfect. But it is a great first step for the reasons I said.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has confirmed a $143 billion reduction in the Federal deficit over 10 years, as a consequence of our passing this legislation, and a $1.2 trillion reduction in the first 20 years.

Now we need to pass this reconciliation bill--a bill that gets rid of the special deals I spoke out against at the end of the year, a bill that makes sure our seniors can afford the prescription drugs they need, a bill that covers more people in my State of Colorado.

But the insurance companies and the special interests have not given up. The defenders of the status quo are still at it. Put simply, to amend the bill is to kill this bill. The only reason we are going through this process is because opponents of health care reform want to kill the bill. Now is not the time to play games with the lives of thousands of Coloradans and millions of Americans, and I will not do it.

There are also some who are well intentioned and want to amend this bill to include a public option. I am and have been a strong proponent of a public option and, like a lot of people, have taken a lot of heat for it. I am not sure why because everywhere I went in Colorado people said to me:

Michael, if you are going to require us to have insurance, we want as many choices as possible for our family. Please don't force us into this private insurance if there are other options out there.

A lot of us did all we could to convince the House to include it in this bill, and we were disappointed when they did not. We are going to continue to fight for it until we get a vote. We will have our vote on a public option. But I will not risk the well-being of Coloradans to do it, and I will not play into the hands of those who want to kill the bill.

So today I stand with many of my colleagues, with the American Diabetes Association, the American Hospice Foundation, the Autism Society, Doctors for America, Easter Seals, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, along with over 150 organizations that want us to pass this bill as well. I stand with AARP which knows that changing this bill now will put seniors at risk.

But more important than all of that, I stand with the people of Colorado who expect more from their government and who want more for their children and grandchildren than politics and name calling.

I urge all of my colleagues to pass reconciliation and send this bill to the President's desk.

I yield the floor.

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