Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the month of April is set aside as Autism Awareness Month. This is a time when people and families affected by autism raise awareness about the challenges people with autism face. I am proud today to introduce with my colleagues Senators Casey, Menendez, Lautenberg, and Gillibrand the Autism Services and Workforce Acceleration Act of 2011, which authorizes federal funding for services, treatment, support, and research on autism spectrum disorders.

Everywhere I go in Illinois, I meet people whose lives have been affected by autism. My office receives hundreds of letters and phone calls each year from Illinoisans asking Congress to do something to help with the burden that autism brings, and we are hearing from more and more families every year.

Nationally, 1 out of every 110 children has autism. Autism affects children and families physically, psychologically, socially, and financially. It is often a major factor contributing to severe family financial difficulties, marital and family disruption, parental overburden that may lead to neglect and other developmental delays in siblings, as well as educational and employment challenges throughout the autistic person's life cycle.

Unfortunately, parents are not only worried about getting the services they need for their autistic children when they are young. Parents must worry about how to care for their children as they mature into adults. I met two concerned parents from Illinois whose 20-year-old son is profoundly affected by autism and has struggled with major behavioral problems. He was in a special education program at school, but his teachers didn't know how to deal with his behavioral problems and he was suspended on numerous occasions. Eventually, his parents found a school that was a better fit and his behavior improved. He is doing well now, but when he turns 22 he will no longer be eligible for services through the public school system. They are trying to find a place for him in a day program for adults with autism, but there are not enough of these programs, and the waitlists are long. These parents love their son, but worry every day about what will happen to him when they are too old to care for him.

Across the country people with autism confront a precipitous drop in services after early adulthood. We need to help people with autism achieve their full potential by ensuring they can access to vital services that enhance their quality of life. This bill includes a provision that helps youth and adults with autism access essential post-secondary education, vocational training, employment, housing, transportation, and health services.

During the 109th Congress, I cosponsored the Combating Autism Act, which was signed into law in December 2006. That bill called on the Federal Government to increase research into the causes and treatment of autism and to improve training and support for individuals with autism and their caretakers.

The legislature in my home State of Illinois has also listened to the voices of the 26,000 families in the state living with autism. In response to the overwhelming cost of autism-related services, the State passed legislation signed into law in December 2008, requiring health plans to provide coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of autism.

It is time now for the Federal Government to renew and build upon the commitments it has already made to help the millions of families across the nation struggling with autism.

My legislation would support these individuals and families in several ways.

First, the legislation creates a demonstration project to develop Autism Care Programs. These programs are designed to increase access to quality health care services and promote communication among health care providers, educators, and other service providers. Families who choose to access services through these programs would be able to designate a personal care coordinator as a source of contact for their family. This personal care coordinator would help to refer and coordinate a full array of medical, behavioral, mental health, educational and family care services to individuals and families in a single location.

Next, the bill authorizes a grant program to provide services to youth and adults with autism. These services include post-secondary education, vocational and self advocacy skills, employment, residential services, health and wellness, recreational and social activities, transportation, and personal safety. These services will help youth and adults with autism live as independently as possible and improve their quality of life. With the increasing number of children diagnosed with autism, these services will only become more important over time.

The bill authorizes grants to develop a national multimedia campaign to increase public education and awareness about healthy developmental milestones and autism throughout the lifespan. These campaigns will be targeted to general public audience and professional groups such as medical, criminal justice, or emergency professions.

Finally, it creates a national training initiative on autism and a technical assistance center to develop and expand interdisciplinary training and continuing education on autism spectrum disorders.

Taken together, these initiatives would go an enormous way in supporting and improving the lives of individuals with autism and their families.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Congress will soon debate the budget resolution for fiscal year 2012, and one of the issues under consideration is how to contain the cost of the Medicare program. While there is significant disagreement about some of the proposals already put forward, one part of the solution that members on both sides of the aisle agree on is cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse.

For several years, the Government Accountability Office has designated Medicare as a high risk program because its size and complexity make it a target for waste, fraud and abuse. Medicare pays 4.5 million claims per work day, so catching false or inflated claims is a challenge. As a result, every year an estimated $30-60 billion in Medicare spending is wasted on fraud and abuse.

Under President Obama, the Executive branch has stepped up its enforcement activities. The Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Justice joined together to form Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Teams to combat Medicare fraud. These strike forces have netted hundreds of potential criminals in the past couple of years.

Nongovernmental groups can also play a role in detecting fraud. Normally, individual Medicare providers' billing data is not available to the public as a result of a 1979 lawsuit that blocked disclosure of this information. But under a special arrangement, The Wall Street Journal and Center for Public Integrity were allowed access to a 5 percent sample of the Medicare payment data.

Even using just this small sliver of the data, the newspaper was able to identify suspicious billing and potential abuses of the Medicare system. However, based on the agreement with CMS, the paper could not name individual physicians.

I think that the exercise by the Wall Street Journal shows that outside group provide a valuable complement to the government's own fraud detection research. That is why I am introducing the Medicare Spending Transparency Act today.

The legislation would increase transparency of the Medicare program by providing two things.

First, it would provide access to aggregated claims data.

It would require CMS to annually publish on its website summary level information about how and what Medicare is paying to individual Medicare providers such as hospitals, physicians and home health agencies.

Information would the include the total amount paid, number of unique patients seen, total number of patient visits, and a summary of the services provided. This will provide a snapshot of Medicare spending to interested groups. It will also discourage fraudulent providers from overbilling Medicare.

Secondly, a complete set of Medicare data would be made available to qualified groups or individuals for the purposes of fraud detection and research. All patient identifying information would be protected, consistent with HIPAA and other privacy laws.

To access this information, the individual or group would have to demonstrate technical capacity to make prudent and productive use of the data. Any published analysis of the data must disclose the names, funding sources, employer or other relevant affiliations, and data analysis methods of the researchers.

This legislation would bring transparency to the Medicare program by providing basic information about how taxpayer dollars are being spent. If nongovernmental groups want to dedicate their own resources to rooting out fraud, we should welcome those efforts. I encourage my colleagues to support this common sense legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the RECORD.

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