Default Prevention Act of 2013 - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. I am pleased to have this exchange with my colleague because he comes to the floor repeatedly and says things which aren't altogether accurate. This is why I wanted to speak to him today. He yielded for a question and I thank him. I am sorry he has left because I would like to further engage in dialog. There is a reason he left. There are questions he can't answer. If he tries to answer them, his whole case explodes in front of him.

We created these insurance exchanges for 40 or 50 million Americans who have no health insurance or have rotten insurance. They were paying a fortune for bad health insurance policies.

When the Senator says 8 million people were forced into these exchanges, this is what the Senator was saying--8 million people had health insurance policies that were so bad that those policies, frankly, had to be rewritten.

This is what we said and is the law under ObamaCare. Offer health insurance to my family or the family of the Senator from Connecticut. They cannot discriminate against a person applying for health insurance because of preexisting conditions of anybody in your family. Does anybody in your family have preexisting conditions? We all do.

We decided that was fundamentally unfair. If one has a child with asthma, wife with diabetes, mental illness in your family, for goodness' sake, people shouldn't be discriminated against. That is one of the provisions of ObamaCare which many on the other side of the aisle want to repeal.

Secondly, we said there can be no lifetime limits on your health insurance policy. What does that mean? In the old days people would buy a policy that said they would give up to $100,000 and then the policyholder is on his own--$100,000. That ought to be great until one ends up in the doctor's office the next day or someone in your family has a serious cancer diagnosis. With surgery, chemo, and radiation going on for a long period of time, it can be way over $100,000. It can happen.

I had a routine surgery 3 years ago, and it turned out well. It cost over $100,000. If I had one of those limited policies, I would have had to start paying out of my pocket. We eliminated that and said there can't be a cap on insurance policies. They want to repeal that. They want caps on insurance policies.

It turns out that 60 percent of insurance policies in America did not cover maternity benefits. How about that? Do we love families and love children? How about making sure health insurance covers them? That is in ObamaCare and they want to repeal it.

The list goes on. This is a point I wish to get to. Members of Congress are now going to be covered by the same insurance policies offered by ObamaCare and our staff will too. That is acceptable to me. I have taken a look at what is available. It is as good as anything Members of Congress receive today. I am not worried about the quality of coverage for myself or my wife. It will be fine. I can live with that.

Currently, the Senator from Louisiana and every other Senator, when it comes to health insurance, has the same health insurance as Federal employees, 8 million Federal employees and their families. It is the same basic coverage. I think it is pretty darn good. I have said that on the floor. People have corrected me, saying: Senator, you may have a policy worth $15,000 a year. There are people with policies worth $40,000 a year.

I will leave it at this. I think I have good coverage for myself and my wife. I can match that coverage in terms of the quality of coverage on the insurance exchanges without fear of interruption in service and protection for my wife and me, and I feel good about that.

This is what the Senator from Louisiana is upset about. When I go on the insurance exchange, which is required by law--not voluntary, required by law--the Senator doesn't want the employer to make any contributions for myself or my family and says our staff should be under the same restriction. People who get their health insurance through their employer across America, virtually all of them have employer contributions. This is common. There is nothing sinister or sneaky about it.

The Senator calls it a government subsidy, the employer contribution. All I ask is this: I will go on the government health insurance exchange and happily do so. Treat me the same way when it comes to employer contribution for my health insurance and my staff health insurance as every other Federal employee. It is that simple. The Senator says: No, that is special treatment for Members of Congress. The Senator from Louisiana is just plain wrong, stands on the floor, and talks about special privileges for Members of Congress.

I will tell what you I am prepared to do. I am prepared to put a specific provision in the law which says no Member of Congress or Member of any congressional staff shall receive any special privileges or additional rights not available to every other person under the SHOP or insurance exchange program.

How is that? I could live with that because, as the Senator almost acknowledged, currently employer contributions can be made for those who run the insurance exchanges. It is there. We are not getting anything too unusual. It is already there. This argument about some special treatment for Members of Congress--no way. I will state what bothers me the most about this is it doesn't take an act of political courage to take money away from somebody else, in this case away from our staff people.

I started out here as an intern a long time ago when I was in college. I worked around the Hill all of my life. There are some extraordinary people here. People go to work every day to make me look darn good, to answer the phone, try to satisfy the needs of the people of Illinois, and to deal with some pretty serious cases that involve life and death sometimes or Federal benefits. They work long hours and do great work. Because of their great work they cover me in glory with regularity. I can't thank them enough.

What a thanks this is to say to them: We are going to eliminate your employer's contribution for your health insurance. You are on your own. That is what the Senator from Louisiana wants to do. If the Senator thinks an employer's contribution for health insurance is something that is sinister and shouldn't be allowed for Members of Congress and their staff, hang on tight because we have 150 million people in America who have health insurance through their work with an employer contribution.

Is that the Senator's next target? Is the Senator going after them? Then there will be a fight because people can't afford health insurance without employers helping to pay. We put it in the Tax Code, we have to protect it in the Tax Code. We have to beat the Vitter amendment.

Think about this for a minute. We started this debate 2 weeks ago. A Senator from Texas took the floor for 21 hours, stayed up all night. His goal: Let's defund ObamaCare.

What happened? The Senator's side ended up shutting down the government and is putting us within 36 hours of defaulting on our national debt for the first time in history over the issue of defunding ObamaCare. Haven't heard about that recently. They stopped talking about it because something has happened. Over 12 million people are now going on the Internet trying to find whether they are eligible for a health insurance policy. The popularity of ObamaCare has gone up as Republicans have criticized it because there are a great many people who don't have health insurance or they have health insurance they can't afford.

I am not going to make excuses for the problems with the computers and the Internet as the program kicks off. It better improve and it will. It shows us what happens when we are overwhelmed with people who want health insurance. The system broke down. We have to get better.

During this period of time when the other side was railing against ObamaCare, the numbers for approval of ObamaCare were going up across America. It didn't work. They gave up on defunding ObamaCare. I haven't heard that phrase in a long time, 2 weeks ago from the Senator from Texas but not since. They have now decided that instead of defunding ObamaCare, they are going to follow the Senator from Louisiana--who wants to take health insurance away or make it prohibitively expensive for Members of Congress and their staff. That is it. That is what this has been all about?

We have shut down the government, and we have run the risk of defaulting on our debts for the first time in history over whether our employees, the people on our staff, are going to get a Federal Government contribution for paying health insurance? It is pathetic we have reached that point.

I believe health insurance is a right. It isn't a privilege. I believe employer-sponsored health insurance is a good thing that we ought to protect. I believe Members of Congress ought to play by the same rules as everybody else in the insurance exchanges and our staffs should as well.

If he accepts those as premises, the Senator's amendment goes away, disappears. But if the Senator is out to get the employer contribution on health insurance, maybe that is the goal, have at it. I think the Senator is going to find it is a very lonely battle. Most Americans, Democrats and Republicans, value health insurance. They need to have it in their lives to give them peace of mind and give them the best care.

This war on health insurance for individuals, the uninsured, even Members of Congress and their employees, is mindless. It is mindless and petty.

We have to do better. We need to expand the reach of health insurance across America. We will. This effort to defund ObamaCare and now the Vitter amendment, we must defeat both of those efforts.

Once this program is in place and Americans have this protection, we are never going to take it away. Once people have that peace of mind with affordable health insurance, then 6 out of 10 people who go on the health insurance exchanges will pay less than $100 a month for health insurance. It is less than a cable bill.

Finally, they will get health insurance. That is what it is all about. Once it happens, once it moves forward, it will become one of the basic concepts in America that we count on to protect ourselves and our families.

We have to defeat the Vitter amendment. It is pathetic that we have reached this point with the shutdown of the government and the idea of defaulting on the debt, that it has come to this amendment. It is very sad.

It doesn't speak well for those on the other side who started off with this lofty goal to defund ObamaCare. Yet in the end all they want to do is to raise the cost of health insurance for the people who are working night and day for them in their offices across America.

I hope the people in this country understand what this debate has finally descended into and will join us in defeating this Vitter amendment.

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

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source