Fiscal Responsibility and Retirement Security Act of 2011
Floor Speech
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Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I tell you what's as plain as the nose on your face, what's as plain as the nose on your face is that the Republicans are getting rid of a plan for long-term care without offering any alternative plan in its place. They're just stripping what's there without saying here's what we're going to do.
But I have a memory, Mr. Chairman. What I remember is that for long stretches of time in the last decade, Republicans had both houses and the Presidency, didn't do anything on health care other than do a big giveaway to Big Pharma. When the Democrats get in, we do a plan. We pass the Affordable Care Act. Does it need tinkering? Probably so, like all bills do. But instead of trying to work with us and do something good for the American people, Republicans say we're just going to strip the Democratic plan for long-term care. And this is too bad, because it seems to me that long-term care, Mr. Chairman, is a legitimate issue for us to work together on. But we're not working together. One side passes a bill; the other side just tries to get rid of it. I think it is high time that we start trying to work together, but we don't have a cooperative partner. Washington Republicans have proven once again that they would rather try to embarrass President Obama than help American seniors.
Last year, Republicans' first order of business was to eliminate the Medicare guarantee for America's seniors. This year it's the same old story, Mr. Chairman. No health care, no Medicare, no long-term care for millions of Americans.
Instead of a plan to create jobs or to extend middle class tax cuts or to address unemployment assistance or to fix the Medicare physician pay rate, Republicans are wasting time on divisive and pointless bills.
I do respect the gentleman's desire to have me yield, but I must very, very respectfully decline to yield because I have limited time. But if I have any extra time, I will be happy to yield to the gentleman, but it will have to be when I'm done.
Today, we could be dealing with the real issue--fixing the long-term care crisis. And I'm sure that everyone in this whole body, Republican and Democrat, ought to be concerned about it because all of us, no matter what our ideological beliefs may be, have people who need long-term care. So we've got to be about this business.
You know what, Mr. Chairman? Ten million Americans currently need long-term care, and the problem is only getting worse. The number of Americans 62 years and older is 20 percent higher than it was 10 years ago. Long-term care is a huge burden on families. An estimated 62 million--let me say that one more time, Mr. Chairman--62 million unpaid family caregivers provided care valued at $450 billion in 2009, more than the total spending in Medicare that year.
But Republicans are offering no solution to the long-term care crisis. They may say anything that they want, but they're not coming here with a bill that we can debate. They're just attacking what has already been done, which is so easy to do. Way better to be a critic than to be someone who produces solutions.
So, Mr. Chairman, I want to tell you a little bit about somebody in my district, Mary. Mary says: My mother is 90 and seriously ill and now in a nursing home. Her bill is over $6,500 a month. Mary goes on to say she will soon run out of money, referring to her mom. Why do people have to become indigent before they receive help?
That's a good question, I think. That's a question warranting our attention, but our Republican friends have no plan to protect families like Mary's. They're not here with a plan. They just want to strip and rip and take down what Democrats have already done. And people are in need of help.
So, Mr. Chairman, repealing the CLASS Act will not help Mary's family. We need to make the CLASS program stronger, not get rid of it. We need to amend it, not end it. We need to improve it. And that's why 56 national groups wrote to Congress saying please don't repeal the CLASS Act, including AARP, SEIU, and the National Council on Aging, people who really know what they're talking about when it comes to long-term care.
So I urge our Republican friends on both sides of the aisle to come together with us to make a strong long-term program for seniors rather than just tearing down and stripping down. It's as plain as the nose on your face, Mr. Chairman: Americans need long-term care.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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