Health Care

Floor Speech

HEALTH CARE -- (Senate - July 07, 2008)

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I just spent a week at home listening to Oregonians describe their concerns, virtually all of which include the word ``bill.'' As we have heard today on the Senate floor, it is sure to be ``gasoline bill.'' But it might also be ``medical bill'' or ``food bill'' or ``credit card bill'' or ``tuition bill'' or ``tax bill'' or ``housing bill.'' Taken together, it is obvious these bills are hitting millions of our people like a wrecking ball.

In addition, millions more Americans see themselves walking an economic tightrope. For example, many of our people try each month to pay off the interest on their maxed-out credit card while still paying those huge and skyrocketing gasoline bills. Our people are deeply worried that the cost of paying for essentials is just going to keep soaring and they are going to fall off the economic tightrope I have described into a no-man's land where they cannot support themselves or their families.

On Independence Day, I was in Canyonville, OR, to speak at a wonderful supper honoring veterans that was organized by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians. In my talk, I reflected on how important it is for Americans to be independent of foreign oil, independent of those crushing and escalating medical bills, and independent of the economic insecurity that has kept so many unemployed for months and months.

After my talk, a veteran stopped me and said: Just do what is right for the country. Forget the politics. Country first. That, of course, is what our veterans have always done: country first. Do what is right. Never forget. That is what makes America so special.

I do not have enough time to outline a prescription for all of the economic challenges our country faces that involve solutions built on that veteran's prescription of country first. I do want to report that we have heard what that veteran has said with respect to health care and fixing health care in the Senate.

Sixteen of us in the Senate--eight Democrats and eight Republicans--have now come together behind legislation to rein in health care costs while providing quality care to all our people. With Senator Bennett from the other side of the aisle in the lead for Republicans, we hold down health care costs by ensuring all our people are part of a large pool so they have more bargaining power in the marketplace.

We institute insurance reforms so it is not possible to discriminate against someone who has been ill. We lower the administrative costs of covering health services. We reform the Tax Code to take away the tax breaks for the Cadillac health care plans and use those dollars for middle and lower middle income folks who are hurting. We have written into our proposal the opportunity for employers who want to keep offering health coverage and for workers who want to take that coverage to always be able to do so. But we also offer to both employers and employees more choices, more alternatives to hold down costs because today, for too many employers and too many workers, there are no alternatives to these 15-, 20-, and 25-percent rate hikes we are seeing again and again across this country.

What our bipartisan group of 16 Senators does is, we modernize our health care system because in many respects some of the key features of our health care system in 2008 are not very different than those of 1948. Back in 1948, when there were wage and price controls, people would go to work somewhere for 30 years or so until you gave them a big steak retirement dinner and a gold watch. Today, the typical worker changes their job seven times by the time they are 35, and employers are having difficulty competing in global markets. That was one of the considerations in the Boeing-Airbus competition, that Boeing paid a lot more for health care than did Airbus.

Our group of 16 Senators has been able to get a favorable review of our proposal by the Congressional Budget Office, the agency that keeps track of the financial underpinnings of major proposals. They have found that our proposal is revenue neutral in the short term, so it will not take big tax hikes on middle-income people to fix health care. They found in the third year, as a result of what we do to change the incentives, change behavior, we actually start holding down the rate of growth in health care, and we start generating a surplus for the Federal Government.

Now, we understand as part of this legislation that both political parties have had valuable contributions to make with respect to the cause of fixing health care. Democrats have been right on the coverage issue because unless you cover everyone, those who are uninsured shift their bills to the insured and costs continue to soar. But those on the other side of the aisle have made a great contribution in terms of saying we must not discourage innovation; we must not discourage the availability of choices. There needs to be a role for the private sector.

So what our group of 16 Senators has said--and I note the presence of Senator Specter on the Senate floor. He has been an extraordinary advocate of improved health care services, and he and I have had many discussions on this topic and will have many more in the days ahead.

I close simply by saying, what our group of 16 Senators--this is the first time in the history of the Senate, going back 60 years to Harry Truman, where there has been a significant bipartisan group of Senators in favor of universal coverage--what our guiding principle has been in this effort, on a topic this big and this complicated--and it surely will go through a host of modifications and changes. In my committee, I intend to work very closely with Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley, two great leaders who work in a bipartisan fashion. We are going to have to work in a bipartisan fashion to fix American health care.

But given that litany of concerns I have described, with six or seven top issues being ones where the second word is ``bill,'' starting with ``gasoline bill''--we have to come together on a bipartisan basis to deal with those concerns. That is what Senator Bennett and I have sought to do as part of our health care legislation. That is what we are going to have to do to tackle the premier economic issues of our time.

As that veteran said to me just a couple of nights ago in Canyonville, OR, putting country first is what public service and public service in the Senate is all about.

Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source