Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, there will be very little time later
today when we start voting for there to be full explanations of any of
these amendments, which I think is very unfortunate. I do want to let
my colleagues know about some of these amendments, and I am proud to
say that, for the most part, the amendments I have filed and have now
called up are bipartisan amendments that enjoy support on both sides of
the aisle.

For example, my amendment No. 427 would create a deficit-neutral
reserve fund to support sufficient investment in Alzheimer's disease
research to achieve the goal set by the national plan to address
Alzheimer's disease--of having the means to prevent and effectively
treat that disease by the year 2025.

This amendment is cosponsored by Senator Moran, Senator Warner,
Senator McCaskill, Senator Toomey, and Senator Donnelly. It is modeled
very much on a bill that Senator Klobuchar and I have introduced to
increase funding for Alzheimer's research.

Just yesterday the Special Committee on Aging, which I lead along
with Senator McCaskill, held an extensive hearing on Alzheimer's
disease. We listened to preeminent researchers and individuals such as
B. Smith, who unfortunately has been afflicted with early onset
Alzheimer's. We listened to a caregiver and to a geriatric physician
from Portland, ME. We had testimony from the Mayo Clinic and testimony from the individual who heads the Institutes on Aging at the National Institutes of Health. To a person they pointed out that we are spending $226 billion a year caring for
people with Alzheimer's, yet we are investing less than $600 million in
this disease.

The experts tell us that if our investment were at the level of $2
billion a year, we could explore the promising breakthroughs, the
therapeutic targets that are needed to develop a means of prevention or
better treatments or, ultimately, even a cure for Alzheimer's. Think of
that. That $2 billion figure that is recommended by the expert advisory
council, headed by Dr. Ron Peterson from the Mayo Clinic, is less than
1 percent of what we are spending caring for people with Alzheimer's.

This disease is going to bankrupt the Medicare and the Medicaid
Programs. We are currently spending $154 billion from those two
programs for care of patients with Alzheimer's.

That is one of the amendments I will be proposing.

I see the Senator from Illinois is on the floor, and he has been
another real leader in this area.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague and friend
from Illinois for his comments. I happened to catch his speech
yesterday. There was a sea of purple at our hearing--purple
representing the Alzheimer's cause. I hope one day purple will
represent Alzheimer's survivors. Wouldn't that be wonderful.

This is a high priority for me. And I agree with the Senator from
Illinois, I believe we should be increasing our investment in
biomedical research, particularly for Alzheimer's, but in many other
areas as well. The irony is that, ultimately, it will reduce not only
human suffering but the cost of health care.

The trajectory of Alzheimer's is such that if we do not develop
better treatments, a means of prevention, or a cure, by the year 2050
the estimate is we are going to be spending more than $1 trillion
taking care of people with Alzheimer's.

For all of us in the baby boomer generation, the estimates are that
by age 85, nearly 1 out of 2 of us will be afflicted with Alzheimer's,
if the current trajectory is unchanged. Frankly, we are going to be
spending our golden years either with Alzheimer's or taking care of
someone with Alzheimer's. So this is a crisis, and it deserves our
attention.

I know Senator Moran also has a broader amendment on biomedical
research, which I am proud to be a sponsor of, and this is an area
where I hope we can come together in a bipartisan way, as my colleague
has suggested.

Mr. President, there are other amendments I would like to briefly
discuss, seeing no one seeking the floor immediately, I don't believe.
I will have my staff check on that.

I am also going to offer an amendment to create a deficit-neutral
reserve fund to increase access to higher education for low-income
Americans through the Federal Pell grant program, including an
innovative idea that I am very interested in, and that the chairman of
the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Senator Lamar
Alexander, is very interested in, which would allow for year-round Pell
grants so that individuals could complete their education more quickly.

Before I was elected to the Senate, I worked at a college in Maine--
Hudson University in Bangor, ME--and I saw firsthand the difference
that Pell grants made in the lives of these students. Indeed, on my
staff today there are highly talented individuals who were able to go
to college solely because of the existence of Pell grants. Their
families did not have experience with higher education and could not
afford higher education. Pell grants made possible a bright future for
these two women on my staff.

This is the kind of opportunity that should unite us and that all of
us should rally behind. Allowing year-round Pell grants would allow
students to complete their education more quickly and join the
workforce more quickly, which would help them financially as well. So I
hope this is something we can pursue and that will be adopted as well.

Another of my bipartisan amendments, No. 442, would establish a
deficit-neutral reserve fund to change the definition of full-time
employee under ObamaCare so a worker could work for more than 30 hours
per week before the employer mandate penalty would be triggered. This,
too, is bipartisan. Senator Donnelly, Senator Murkowski, Senator
Manchin, and I have all been working on this.

I hear from workers who are telling me their hours have been cut to
29 hours a week because of these penalties their employers simply
cannot afford. It is not just in the for-profit hospitality industry,
it is also in school systems, community colleges. So that is yet
another of my amendments that I hope will enjoy support later today.

Mr. President, I see a number of my colleagues on the floor, so I
yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I offer this amendment on behalf of
myself and Senator Hirono. Our amendment would create a deficit-neutral
reserve fund to expand access to higher education for some of our
neediest students through the Pell grant program.

The amendment would allow for year-round Pell grants so students who
want to accelerate their degrees by taking additional courses,
including during the summer, can receive an additional Pell grant when
they need it and complete their education more quickly without having to wait for
the next academic year to begin.

I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan amendment.

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