Reconciliation Legislation

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, with so many issues to wrap up before the end of this year and so many enormous challenges facing our country, my view is the Senate ought to be embracing bipartisanship at every turn. In fact, earlier today the senior Senator from Iowa and I released an 18-month bipartisan inquiry into Solvaldi, which is the blockbuster drug to deal with hepatitis C, and the reason we did is because these specialty drugs are the drugs of the future for cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and defeating hepatitis C if people can afford them. Using the company's own documents, there were real questions about whether access and affordability were just kind of an oversight because all they truly cared about was maximizing revenue. A Republican, a senior Member of this body, a good friend of mine, and I as a Democrat came together because we thought this question of making sure the public can get access to breakthrough cures and that they be affordable was something that would require bipartisan effort. I am very proud that the senior Senator from Iowa and I joined in that effort earlier today.

We ought to be embracing bipartisanship. I come tonight to unfortunately talk about this reconciliation legislation because I think it is the antithesis of what Chairman Grassley and I sought to do earlier today, which was to take a bipartisan approach. The reconciliation legislation in my view is a rejection of bipartisanship. It is a rejection of bipartisanship because it would, for example, undermine women's health, it would mean millions more Americans go without insurance, and it puts at risk our ability to have affordable health insurance premiums. I think it is going to drive up these health insurance premiums.

So I am going to just spend a few minutes tonight talking about why I object to this legislation and again why it really is the antithesis of the kind of bipartisanship that we need.

My first concern is that the Senate is looking once again at a plan that would wreak havoc on women's health in our country by denying the funding for Planned Parenthood. It is important to recognize the horrific act of gun violence that happened at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic last week. It was another in a long stream of tragedies that have taken place across the Nation, including one in my home State in Roseburg, OR, in October. This time it marked an attack on the public and women's health.

Millions of women have sought routine, medical care in Planned Parenthood clinics just like the one in Colorado. More than 70,000 Oregonians are served by the 11 Planned Parenthood centers in my home State.

The bottom line is that Planned Parenthood is a bedrock institution for women's health care in America. In my view it is wrong to bring such a misguided, controversial proposal before this body in the wake of the horrible, tragic events in Colorado.

These are the services Planned Parenthood offers that would be at risk of disappearing with this reconciliation proposal: pregnancy tests, birth control, prenatal services, HIV tests, cancer screenings, vaccinations, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, basic physical examinations, treatment for chronic conditions, pediatric care, adoption referrals, nutrition programs, and more.

This seems to be the latest offering in what amounts to an ongoing, coordinated campaign to regrettably undermine the fundamental rights of all women in our country to make their own reproductive choices and attain affordable, high-quality health care. When you wipe out Planned Parenthood's funding, you dramatically and painfully reduce women's access to services that have absolutely nothing to do with abortion. And I want to repeat that; I have done that on this floor before. What I have talked about are all those important services: cancer screenings, gone; vaccinations, gone; basic physical exams, gone; treatment for chronic conditions, gone; pediatric care, gone. The list goes on and on and has absolutely nothing to do with abortion. So I hope that this campaign against women's health will come to an end.

The second objection I want to touch on tonight is the harm the bill threatens to do to millions of vulnerable Americans by repealing as much of the Affordable Care Act, frankly, as Senate procedure would allow. Based on the reports of the bill's contents, this is what is at stake. According to the nonpartisan experts at the Congressional Budget Office, this proposal would mean 14 million more Americans would go without health insurance. For people who shop for their own private insurance coverage, premiums would increase by 20 percent. That is potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars taken out of families' pockets. Emergency rooms would once again be the fallback for people without a doctor. Typical Americans with insurance would once again have to pay the hidden tax of higher premiums to cover the costs of those without coverage.

There have been more than 50 votes to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act, and there is still no viable plan to replace it. As a Member of Congress, you can object to a law and want to make changes, but America cannot and will not go back to the days when health care was reserved for the healthy and the wealthy. That is what this plan does.

Before I came to Congress, I was codirector of the senior citizens group, the Gray Panthers, and I remember what health care was like in those days. In effect, the system truly did work for people who were healthy and wealthy. If you were healthy, you didn't have any preconditions. You didn't have any of these pre-existing conditions. If you were wealthy, you could just pay the bill, but it was care that worked for the healthy and the wealthy.

Yet with the Affordable Care Act, that changed. Unfortunately, what this destructive reconciliation bill would do would be to take us back to those days when health care was reserved for the healthy and the wealthy.

The fact is, despite raising costs for families, causing turmoil in insurance markets, and raising the number of uninsured Americans by 14 million, this bill doesn't even manage to repeal the Affordable Care Act fully. That is because of the reconciliation process, because of the way it works, which brings me to the final issue I wish to raise today.

Reconciliation is a sharp departure from the usual procedure for Senate debate. Usually bills being considered on the Senate floor are subject to an unlimited debate and unlimited amendment. Further, it typically takes 60 votes to pass a bill, assuring that there is at least some measure of bipartisan support. These regular-order procedures give the Senate its unique character. The reconciliation procedure is an exception to this usual approach. Reconciliation imposes tight limits on debate and on amendments, and it allows a vote of a bare majority of Senators--51--to pass a bill. The reconciliation procedure originally was created to facilitate the passage of budget-related bills which can be particularly important and particularly hard to pass. But reconciliation shouldn't be a free pass that allows the majority to pass anything it wants on a fast track. That would undermine the fundamental character of the Senate.

I am concerned that the reconciliation process is being misused here. Everybody in the Chamber knows what is happening. This bill is not designed to address budget-related issues; it is all about repealing the Affordable Care Act to the maximum extent possible. Repeatedly, the bill's advocates have proposed to repeal ObamaCare--to dismantle ObamaCare.

A few weeks ago, the Parliamentarian advised that the reconciliation process could not be used to repeal the individual and employer mandates. The Parliamentarian said that would violate what is known as the Byrd rule against extraneous amendments because the budgetary effects of the provision would be dwarfed by the health policy effects.

In response, the majority has proposed to formally retain the mandates but to completely repeal the penalties enforcing them. That is not a straightforward way to legislate. It is a very cynical approach, and that is not this Senate at its best.

The complete elimination of all penalties is tantamount to repeal of the mandates. A mandate without an enforcement system is not a legal requirement; it is a mere recommendation. It is like having speed limits but not fines for violating. By deleting the penalties, the proposal fundamentally alters the character and operation of the law.

Finally, I think this would set a very dangerous precedent for this body. These penalties can be eliminated in a reconciliation bill. The door is going to be open to all kinds of proposals to strip away penalties in a future reconciliation bill. For example, you could keep an environmental law on the books, but you could just say: Let's strip away the penalties for violating. That would allow a majority to fundamentally undermine a nonbudgetary law in a reconciliation bill.

I have enormous respect for the Parliamentarian and her staff. They work diligently to serve the Senate, and they have to make some tough calls. I will say that this one leaves me disappointed and perplexed.

With so many issues--as I touched on earlier--I would hope that the Senate would spend more time doing what Chairman Grassley and I did somewhere in the vicinity of 9 hours or 10 hours ago. We said there was an important issue. It happened to be a health care issue as well--prescription drugs. We spent 18 months with our very dedicated staffs, Democrats and Republicans working together, to try to find some common ground. It is a hugely important issue, important to the people of Colorado, Oregon, and everywhere else. In effect, we said it was important because it was about the future. The drugs of the future are going to be specialty drugs, exciting drugs with the opportunity for real cures. People are going to have to be able to afford them, and using the companies' own documents, this morning Chairman Grassley and I pointed out how affordability and accessibility weren't actually the issue; the issue was maximizing revenue.

But most important--whether you agree with the two of us or not--it was bipartisan. It was Democrats and Republicans coming together on a hugely important issue.

This reconciliation proposal we will deal with on the floor of this Senate is a rejection of the kind of bipartisanship that I was part of something like 8 hours or 10 hours ago. It is part of what I believe the Senate is all about--what the Senate is at its best--as an institution that functions in a bipartisan way. That is why I felt compelled to come to the floor tonight and lay out my concerns about a very troubling precedent, and that is the one that is being set with the reconciliation bill.

With that, I yield the floor.

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