FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act

Floor Speech

FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I can't say with any certainty anything about the critics of the government's affordable health care plan, except one thing: Each of the critics on the Republican side of the aisle of what they call government-administered health insurance--every single Senate Republican critic is currently protecting his or her family with government-administered health care. In other words, what is good enough for their families should not be good enough for the rest of America.

As a show of good faith, I think the Republican Senators should come to the floor today and say: Not only are we going to vote for repeal of health care reform, we are going to show our personal commitment by walking away from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, a government-administered health insurance program. I would admire them so much if their actions as Senators reflected their speeches on the floor. But they don't. They are denying to the rest of America what every single Member of Congress has available today to protect their families. That, to me, is indefensible.

A judge in Florida this week decided that this Affordable Health Care Act was unconstitutional. Before we get carried away with that decision, step back. This law has been challenged 16 times in Federal courts. Twelve courts have dismissed the challenges on procedural grounds, saying the person who filed the suit didn't have standing in court. Four of the Federal courts decided it on the merits. Two of the Federal courts decided it was a constitutional law, and two said it was unconstitutional.

You say to yourself: Wow, two Federal district courts said this law was unconstitutional. Aren't you worried? Well, I don't take anything for granted, but I do understand a little bit of history. What other laws in America were found unconstitutional by lower courts and then constitutional by the Supreme Court? Anything significant? Social Security was found unconstitutional; then the Supreme Court said, no, it is constitutional. The Federal minimum wage law was found unconstitutional by a lower court, and the Supreme Court said it was constitutional. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was found unconstitutional by a lower court, and the Supreme Court said it was constitutional.

Let's not get carried away with lower court decisions that are clearly split on this issue. We had a hearing in the Judiciary Committee today that I chaired where we had constitutional experts from across the United States. There was a lot of difference of opinion between Democrats and Republicans. I think the case is clear and strong that we have the power, under article I, section 8 of the Constitution--the enumerated powers of Congress--to regulate commerce.

Is there anybody on the Republican side who will stand here and argue that the health care industry, which represents 18 percent of the economy of America, is not commerce? Of course it is. Then, of course, we have the authority in that same section to pass laws necessary and proper, to carry out the responsibilities and authority given us.

Here is what we are trying to do. We are trying to make sure everybody in America has health insurance. We say to the 83 percent of Americans who currently are insured: You don't have to worry about this argument. You already have health insurance. For the 17 percent who are uninsured, many of them are people who have preexisting conditions and have been denied coverage or they can't afford it. Some are people who, frankly, cannot afford coverage even if they don't have a preexisting condition.

This law moves us to a point where more Americans will be covered with health insurance. We say those who can afford health insurance, and don't buy it, will pay a tax because of that decision. Is that heartless? Is that a Federal mandate on people who want to be left alone? If they were just being left alone, that is one thing, but human experience teaches us that these people who want to go it alone--don't bother me, I am on my own--will get sick someday. When they go to the hospital, they will be treated. When they can't pay for their treatment, do you know who will pay? All of the rest of us. Everybody else paying health insurance premiums has to absorb the cost of those who are freeloading on the system. It is not fair.

It used to be that conservative Republicans preached personal responsibility. When we put personal responsibility in this law, all of a sudden they don't like it. I think personal responsibility still counts. I believe it is clearly constitutional to include it. I have listened to some of the arguments about repealing this law. I heard the Senator from Mississippi say how bipartisan the support is for it. I would have liked to have asked him how he explains the fact that four out of five people in America--80 percent of Americans--oppose repeal. They don't think the law is perfect. Many say improve it if you can, but 80 percent oppose repeal.

The signature issue for the House Republicans, and now the Senate Republicans, is the repeal of affordable health care. It would be devastating if we did. The first thing you will notice, if you read the amendment--three pages--filed by Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, is that on the second page he manages to include the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, as passed and printed by the House of Representatives.

Unless you are a person who follows closely what is going on around here, you may not know what that says.

What it says is that Senator McConnell wants us to ignore the fact that repeal of the Health Care Act will add $230 billion to our national deficit over the next 10 years and more than $1 trillion in the decade after that. A party that comes to the floor every single day telling us of their passionate determination to end our deficits and address our debt with the McConnell amendment will add $230 billion to our national deficit over 10 years and $1 trillion more in the next 10 years.

This is a budget buster amendment. This will add more to the deficit in one fell swoop than any single thing we have done in Congress in the time I have served. And it is being offered by the party of so-called fiscal responsibility.

When we talk about premium increases currently taking place under health insurance policies across America, I understand it. We have all lived through it. We have seen it. Businesses see it all the time. There is a provision in our Affordable Health Care Act which addresses that issue that would be repealed by the McConnell amendment. The provision is called medical loss ratio. It says a health insurance company has to spend 80 to 85 percent of premium dollars on actual health care. They cannot take it away in advertising, in administrative costs, in salaries and bonuses for their CEOs.

One of the things that will happen if the Republicans have their way and repeal health care is that health insurance companies will be allowed to raise premiums at any level as quickly or as much as they want without being held to this medical loss ratio.

That may not be the worst thing, though. Any person in America who has been raised in a family where someone in the family suffers from what is known as a preexisting condition knows that you always live in fear that you will not have health insurance and fear that if you have to go out and buy it on the open, public market, you will never be able to afford it.

This law that Senator McConnell and the Republicans want to repeal today says no health insurance company in America can discriminate against anyone under the age of 18 who has a preexisting condition. That is something any parent would appreciate. You never know if that beautiful son or daughter of yours is going to have problems with asthma, diabetes, cancer, or mental illness. And you certainly want that child, that love of your life, to have health insurance coverage.

Senator McConnell and the Republicans want to repeal the protection for families who have children with a preexisting condition. That is fact. It is not as though they are offering exclusions and saying: No, no, we will keep that. They eliminate the entire law with this 3-page amendment. They eliminate the protections.

How about protections for those who get diagnosed with a serious illness and health insurance companies cutting them off completely, putting a cap on the amount of money they will spend to provide for medical services and treatment, saying at some point they are going to eliminate their policies altogether because they failed to make a disclosure on the application form? It happens too often.

In my State, we sadly lead the Nation in what is called rescissions--health care insurance companies that cancel coverage when people get seriously ill. How would you like to be in that predicament? How would you like to face a serious illness that keeps you awake at night tossing and turning about whether you are going to live or die and then fight the insurance company in daylight hours in the hopes they will cover the prescriptions and treatment you need to stay alive?

That is a reality addressed by the Health Care Act, a reality that will be repealed by Senator McConnell and the Republicans' efforts today. Those are the real results of what they want to do. It is not about who wins the political debate and has the largest cheering section when it is over. It is about real life changes.

How about senior citizens under Medicare? Many of them struggle to pay for prescription drugs. Even with the Medicare prescription drug plan there is a gap in coverage called the doughnut hole. We start to close that gap and say to seniors: If you have expensive prescription drugs, we are going to make sure ultimately they are covered completely from the first of the year to the end of the year. Now there is a gap in the coverage.

The Republicans and Senator McConnell want to repeal that provision of the Health Care Act which provides for seniors not only more coverage for their prescription drugs, but also an opportunity for an annual physical and the kind of preventive care they need to stay healthy, strong, and independent in their homes for a longer period of time. That is what Senator McConnell and the Republican Senators want to do with the repeal of this law.

What about job creation? The Senator from Mississippi talked about one company cutting some employees. I am not sure of the particulars in that company, but one of the things we did in this law was to take a look at tax subsidies to medical device and pharmaceutical companies, if they were duplicative or overly generous, to make sure they got closer to a reality of what a company needs in incentives to grow. It is true some of those tax subsidies were eliminated and some of the companies were not happy about it. The bottom line is we were trying to make sure that health care is affordable. We cannot afford to provide massive subsidies to profitable companies on an unlimited basis.

This bill the Republicans want to repeal will crack down on fraud in Medicare and Medicaid. It will simplify paperwork for private insurers, it invests in prevention, it creates a pathway for generic biologic drugs, and tests new ways to pay health care providers to reward value rather than volume.

If the law is repealed, we will have fewer jobs and higher costs for families and businesses. The No. 1 complaint of Illinois small businesses across our State is the cost of health insurance. If the Republicans have their way and repeal this law we passed, the cost of health insurance will grow, the cost to businesses will grow, the number of employees will shrink.

A 1-percent or 1.5-percent growth in health care costs above the rates under the new law will prevent employers from creating 2.5 to 4 million jobs over the next 10 years. Talk about a job destroyer.

The Republican repeal amendment does just that. Repeal means going back to the same broken system we have had for so long with insurance companies once again free to overcharge families and businesses to protect their corporate profits and CEO bonuses; the same broken system with workers seeing their paychecks shrink as more and more of their hard-earned wages are deducted to cover skyrocketing premiums; the same broken system with seniors being forced to shoulder the full cost of prescription drugs in the doughnut hole; and the same broken system with small businesses closing their doors and laying off workers because they cannot afford the crushing cost of health insurance.

The Republican claim that this health care bill is a job killer is just plain false. The economy has been gaining private sector jobs since President Obama signed the bill a year ago after losing jobs for a long period of time before. Since the President signed the bill, we have created more than 1.1 million private sector jobs. By contrast, in the 10 years before health reform was enacted, we lost 3.3 million private sector jobs.

Average real incomes for Americans are back on the rise after years of being stalled under the old health care system. Just this week, the Commerce Department reported that average real disposable income has risen 1.3 percent over the past year, after falling one-tenth of 1 percent in each of the previous 2 years.

I will close by saying that our hearing today before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the constitutionality question makes it clear to me that the Supreme Court, if it follows the clear precedents that have been handed down for decades, if Supreme Court Justices who have spoken eloquently and directly on the commerce clause will view this Health Care Act in the same context, they will find it constitutional. Then perhaps we can move on. Perhaps at that point the Republicans will stop beating this drum on repealing health care, will join us in making it an even stronger bill, and will focus on creating jobs instead of killing jobs as this McConnell amendment would do.

I yield the floor.

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