Health Care Reform

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we were engaged in lengthy debate for months--maybe years--about health care in the United States, and I believe we passed a historic bill that addresses some of the most fundamental issues about health care: first, to address affordability because if you can't afford it, it doesn't matter how good medical care is; second, to make sure it was successful for people rich and poor alike; third, to make sure the basic health insurance policies being offered in America covered the most important things in a person's life. That was part of the debate, and an important part of it.

A fundamental principle of health care reform is to ensure Americans have access to a comprehensive package of health services--we call them essential benefits under the law--which includes maternity care, vaccinations, and preventive care.

Many years ago when I was a new lawyer working in the Illinois State Senate, someone approached me and said: Are you aware of the fact that you can buy a health insurance plan that covers a family and literally covers a newborn but exempts coverage for the first 30 days of their life in Illinois?

I said: No, that is impossible.

He said: No, that kind of health care is for sale, and it is a little cheaper because we all know that if a baby is born with a serious problem, the first 30 days can be extremely expensive.

They were literally selling health insurance plans that left that family and baby vulnerable for 30 days. We changed the law in Illinois and said: You can't offer a health insurance plan that covers maternity and newborns unless you cover them from the moment they are born. So it was written into the law as a protection against consumers who unwittingly would sign up for the cheaper policy that would never be there when they needed it.

When we talked about the Federal standards when it came to health insurance, we wanted to make certain that some of the most basic things--the essential services--were covered, and that includes maternity care, vaccinations, and preventive care for women.

There is an amendment we will consider this week offered by Senator Blunt of Missouri that I am afraid will threaten the vital consumer protections in the health reform law. These protections ensure that women, men, and children have access to basic health care. The amendment by Senator Blunt would allow any employer or insurance company to deny health insurance for any essential or preventive health care service they object to on the basis of ``undefined'' religious or moral convictions. That means an employer can not only deny access to family planning and birth control, but they could deny access to any health care services required under our new Federal health care reform law.

Many supporters of this amendment stress how the amendment will protect employers with religious objections to things such as coverage for contraception, but in reality this amendment goes much further: it would allow employers to deny coverage for any health service. For example, under the Blunt amendment, if an employer objects morally to vaccinations, then their insurance policy would not have to cover potentially lifesaving vaccinations for the children of that employer's workers or if an employer has religious objections to mental health care, their employees would not have access to basic health care services that we fought to protect. The Blunt amendment will have a harmful effect on all people and would undermine our Nation's effort to ensure that everyone in this country has access to a basic standard of health coverage.

Who opposes the Blunt amendment? It is not just women's groups, as you might expect, but the American Academy of Pediatrics, AIDS United, the American Nurses Association, and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Mr. President, I know your personal background and field of study has included theology and religious training, in that area, and I know this particular debate was brought on because of President Obama's decision when it came to the health care coverage offered by religious colleges, universities, and charities. The President's offer at this point says that no religious-sponsored institution, such as a college, university, hospital, or charity, will be forced to offer health services that violate their basic principles and values, their religious values. The President goes on to say, though, that the employees of that institution would have the right, on their own initiative, to a service not provided to them under the hospital or university policy that they could secure by going directly to the insurance company. It removes the church-sponsored, religious-sponsored institution from making the initial decision that might run counter to their values but gives the freedom to the individual employee to pursue the health care under the law which they consider to be essential, such as family planning. Some say this is unacceptable. I think it strikes the right balance--the balance between respecting the conscience and religious values of certain institutions while still protecting the freedom of individuals.

There has been a lot of talk in this Presidential campaign about religion, and much of it has come from a former Senator from Pennsylvania. I would like to remind him and those who have not followed it closely that there are exactly three provisions in the U.S. Constitution when it comes to religion. One of them says that we have the freedom of religion, religious belief, which gives us the right to believe what we want to believe or to believe nothing. That is guaranteed under the Constitution. Secondly, the government will not pick a religion. I have heard candidates say we are a Christian nation. No. We are an American nation, which includes many Christians but also others of different religious beliefs, and the Constitution says the government will never pick its religion. The third point that is often overlooked--and I would refer to the Senator from Pennsylvania--it is in the Constitution that there will be no religious test for office. In other words, we could not establish under the law, if anyone cared to, that only Christians or Jewish people could be elected to the Senate or the House. That is strictly unconstitutional.

Those three principles have guided us well, and it is important for us to make sure as we tackle the issues of the day that we apply the principles that have endured. In this circumstance, we have to understand that militant secularization is as intolerant as militant desecularization. We have to try to strike that balance.

I recommend to those who are following my remarks and would like to read more an article that was published in the New York Times on February 24 by Joe Nocera entitled ``A Revolutionary Idea.'' Mr. Nocera is a thoughtful writer, and he traces the history of this. His opening remarks include the following: ``Rick Santorum is John Winthrop''--referring, of course, to Mr. Winthrop who joined with the Puritans in trying to assert that our government needed to stand for puritanical values and beliefs. That debate, which even predates the Constitution, is one that molded our country and makes it what it is today. There emerged from that debate over the Puritans and what they would do a feeling that there had to be a separation between church and state, religious belief and secular administration of our government. That is the debate that continues today.

This generation, regardless of the issue of the day, needs to preserve the same basic values that led to this debate in the early Colonies and ultimately to our constitutional principles. As we find countries all over the world bitterly and violently divided over religion, we need to take care in our generation that we protect the basics.

The President's decision when it comes to health care through the insurance policies protects those basic values.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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