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Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, this morning President Obama signed a law that will guarantee meaningful insurance reform, such as coverage for people with preexisting conditions. He signed comprehensive health care reform into law. Many of us have dreamed of that day for years. Now it is a fact. Now it is law. Now it is history. Indeed, it is historic. He signed a law that will ensure that average people without insurance will get health insurance choices just as Members of Congress do. This morning, President Obama signed a law that will control the growth of health care costs in years to come.
Today, we have before us a bill to improve the new law. We do not have before us the whole health care reform bill. We do not have to reopen every argument we had over the last 2 years. We do not have to say everything we said about health care one more time. Rather, we have a bill before us that will do a few good things.
We have before us a bill that will improve affordability by increasing tax credits to help pay for insurance premiums--increase those tax credits. We have before us a bill that will help with out-of-pocket costs for lower and middle-income families; that is, to raise the assistance. We have before us a bill that will increase aid to States to help them shoulder the costs of covering Americans under Medicaid. We have before us a bill that will give additional help to States that took extra steps to cover the uninsured before reform took place. Together, these improvements will level the playing field among States under health care reform.
We have before us a bill that will make sure no State is singled out for special treatment. We have before us a bill that will completely close the doughnut hole; that is, the coverage gap for Medicare prescription drug coverage. It is closed by the end of the budget window. We have before us a bill that will start with a $250 increase in Federal assistance toward coverage of the doughnut hole right away, this year, 2010. We have before us a bill that will fight fraud and fight waste and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid.
That is the bill we have before us today. This is not the whole health care reform bill; this is a set of commonsense improvements to that new law signed by the President earlier today. I do not expect opponents of the bill to talk about these commonsense improvements. Frankly, it is pretty difficult to understand why Senators would want to oppose these commonsense improvements. Rather, if this debate is anything like the debate so far, opponents of this bill will try to change the subject. When people look at what health reform really does, they are more likely to support it, when they separate truth from fiction, separate the wheat from the chaff. So I expect that opponents of this bill will try to distract observers from what is really going on.
Rather than talk about commonsense improvements to this bill, opponents will talk about the process. Over the 2 years we have been working on health care reform, there have been many on the other side who have sought to make the debate about process--not about what is in the bill, what improves people's lives, but about the process, the legislative process. They have sought to emphasize how messy the legislative process is--and sometimes it is a bit messy--and, of course, criticizing how Congress works is a heck of a lot easier than improving health care for the American people. Many opponents of health care reform are obsessed with process and procedure.
I am much more focused on the people whom health care reform will help. I am focused on people such as Pat and her late husband Dan from Lincoln County in the northwestern corner of Montana.
Pat and Dan used to have a ranch in southwestern Lincoln County. Dan was the fourth generation of his family to run the ranch. He grew up on the ranch, and he worked very hard every day of his life.
In 2000, the doctors told Dan he had Hodgkin's lymphoma, but Pat and Dan did not have health insurance. Dan never took a handout, and Pat and Dan thought they could handle their bills on their own. That is the way they had always lived. That is the way a lot of people--I daresay most people--live. Then the medical bills started piling up. Swallowing his pride, Dan made what he called the hardest decision of his life: he filed for Medicaid.
The State told him the only way they could be eligible for Medicaid was to put a lien on their ranch. As Dan's medical bills piled out of control, Pat and Dan were forced to sell their land. Pat said the cancer ravaged her husband's body. But selling their ranch to pay for medical costs broke his spirit. That is why we need to enact health care reform.
Most bankruptcies in America these days are related to medical costs. Just think of that: Most bankruptcies in America today are related to medical costs. No one in America should have to sell everything they have, no one should have to go bankrupt just to pay medical bills.
But I am not going to let the opponents' charges about the process go unanswered either. The idea that health care reform has been some sort of rush job is a total myth. It is a myth that deserves busting.
The facts are, the Finance Committee and the HELP Committee--committees with jurisdiction on health care reform--each went through a full and transparent process to consider health care reform legislation. By that I mean fully open, totally open to the public at all points. This has been the fullest and most transparent process for any major piece of legislation in memory.
I might say, a journalist once approached me about a year ago and said: Senator, are you starting a new trend with such openness and such transparency, putting all the amendments on the Web, 8 days' notice; is that a whole new approach the Senate is going to pursue from now on?
I said: I don't know, but I think it is the right thing to do today. From the start, I wanted us to develop a bipartisan consensus package. I wanted to work together. When someone gets ill or gets cancer, he or she is not a member of one party or the other. It is personal. We have to work together. That is what the American public wants. That is what I tried so hard to do. I wanted a bill that would have broad political support across the political spectrum.
There has been a long tradition in the Republican Party in favor of comprehensive health care reform. That tradition stretches back to Theodore Roosevelt, to Richard Nixon, to Bob Dole, and to John Chafee. I believe what we set out to do and what we have done fits comfortably within the tradition of what those Republican leaders sought to do.
We began almost 2 years ago. On May 6, 2008, we held our first hearings in a series on health care reform. In fact, the Finance Committee held 11 hearings in a series in 2008 alone. We held those hearings to help Senators come to a commonsense understanding of the health care crisis; to help explain why we are in such a crisis, what needs to be done, how the various parts of our health care system work, and what parts do not work. I held these hearings purely from an educational point of view, not an ideological point of view. I held them to educate all of us on the committee to get us ready for 2009. It was clear to me this Congress was going to work very hard and pass health care reform. We sought in the last Congress to lay the groundwork for passing the bill in this Congress.
On June 16, 2008, nearly 2 years ago, Senator Grassley, my good friend and ranking member of the committee, and I convened a bipartisan health reform summit at the Library of Congress. We called it ``Prepare for Launch, Health Care Reform Summit of 2008.'' Chairman Ben Bernanke was there. Other notables were there. It was a full-day conference with members of the Finance Committee from both sides of the aisle to help us better understand how to solve our health care reform crisis. I was very impressed that all day long most Senators stayed. Late in the afternoon, I counted a majority of Senators on both sides still there asking questions of experts.
Senator Grassley and I have brought some of the best minds in the country together to discuss health care reform. Senators from both sides of the aisle have engaged in open and constructive discussion.
Then right after the 2008 election, on November 12, 2008, this Senator released an 89-page blueprint on health care reform. I have it right here. We named it ``Call to Action: Health Reform 2009.'' It was a comprehensive framework for health care reform. We posted that blueprint on the Internet for all to read.
The ideas in that white paper reflected the broad consensus of thinking among health care efforts. We searched far and wide. What is the best thinking; what do other countries do. While looking at what other countries do, we clearly wanted to come up with a uniquely American solution. We are America. We are not Canada. We are not Great Britain. We are not Ireland. We are America. We spent about $2.5 trillion on health care in America with public Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children's Health Insurance Program and private, commercial health insurance. I wanted to maintain that same balance with a uniquely American solution. They are reflected in this white paper.
The ideas in that white paper remain the foundations of health care reform that became law this morning. That is a strong statement to make, but it is true--almost all the ideas all committees on both sides of the Congress have enacted and what are in the bill the President signed today.
Of course, there are changes here and there. But the basic foundation in that white paper--this white paper right here that was put together in November 2008--remains the foundation of the health care bill that became law this morning.
The ideas behind our health care reform legislation have been available for all Senators and the public to consider for more than 16 months.
The Washington Post called our white paper ``striking in both its timing and scope.'' The Washington Post said:
Rarely, if ever, has a lawmaker with his clout moved so early--eight days after the election of a new president--to press for such an enormous undertaking.
Then in April and May of last year, Senator Grassley and I released three bipartisan health care reform policy papers on the three major areas of reform. What are they? First, delivery system reform; second, insurance coverage; and third, options for financing. Once again, we made these papers public and posted them on the Finance Committee's Web site.
Senator Grassley and I convened three open, televised bipartisan roundtable discussions with experts on those subjects. We held several day-long meetings of Finance Committee Senators to discuss the topics of those policy papers.
On April 20, 2009, the New York Times reported:
In setting forth detailed ``policy options'' and inviting public comment, Mr. Baucus and Mr. Grassley set a precedent for openness.
On May 18, 2009, the newspaper Politico reported on our efforts to build consensus. Politico said that my ``frequent progress reports to reporters always include some discussion of keeping peace in the delicate alliance of Republicans, Democrats, industry, labor, physicians and consumer advocates.''
That is so true. From the outset, I worked hard to keep all the groups talking to each other. That was a shortcoming back in the early nineties when health care reform fell apart, when the groups proposed the bills. By ``the groups,'' I mean consumer groups, hospitals, labor, medical device manufacturers, nursing homes--all the groups. I called up their CEOs and kept talking with them constantly: What do you think? A problem here? Let's make an adjustment. Stay at the table. Don't walk away from the table. Suspend judgment for 5 minutes. Let's find a way to put this together that is in everybody's best interest, America's best interest, if this passed.
I had more than 142 meetings, both one on one and in groups, to discuss health care reform with Senators on both sides of the aisle. In all, those meetings added up to more than 150 hours of discussions.
I tried to work out a bipartisan package with the Finance Committee. I started, as I always do, with the ranking Republican member of the Finance Committee, my good friend, Chuck Grassley. Since the Finance Committee and the HELP Committee share jurisdiction over health care, Senator Grassley and I agreed we wanted to include the ranking Republican member of the HELP Committee, Mike Enzi, and our colleague, Jeff Bingaman, who is also a member of both those two committees. As well, we reached out to the chairman of the Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, and the ranking Republican member of the Small Business Committee, Senator Olympia Snowe, both of whom are also members of the Finance Committee. Both Senators Conrad and Snowe have a long history of working across the aisle to reach a consensus. We also reached out to Senator Kennedy, then-chairman of the HELP Committee. We had meetings with him, all the relevant chairmen and ranking members together, meeting over in the other part of the Capitol with Senator Kennedy. How gracious he was and how he wanted to work together. He was not trying to do it for Ted Kennedy but for people who needed health care. It was very touching.
It ended up we had a group of six Senators--three Democrats and three Republicans. We worked hard. We rolled up sleeves and plowed through the issues. We met 31 times for 63 hours over the course of 4 months.
Many have said we met too long. Many said I should have broken up my discussions with my colleagues. But I wanted to go the extra mile. I wanted to try. I wanted to bend over backwards. I wanted to do everything I could to reach a bipartisan consensus. Why? Because that is the right thing to do.
That group of six Senators came very close to an agreement. We did not end up reaching an agreement among all six of us, but I took the product of those bipartisan discussions, areas of tentative agreement, and made them the starting point for our committee markup; that is, the group of six helped forge through immense hours of discussing major improvements on our thinking.
We converted that product into a committee mark. I made that mark public and posted it online on the Finance Committee's Web site on September 16, 2009. That was a full 6 days before the markup and 4 days longer than committee rules require.
For the first time in history, on September 19, the Finance Committee
posted online every amendment submitted to the clerk. We posted the full text of all 564 amendments. Members of the committee and the public had 3 days to review the amendments and prepare for the markup.
Our Finance Committee markup stretched over 8 days. They were fully public. We worked well past 10 p.m. on most of the those days. The markup was the longest that the Finance Committee has conducted on any bill in 22 years.
Prior to the markup, I accepted 122 amendments as part of a modified chairman's mark; 26 of those amendments incorporated into the mark came from Republican colleagues.
During the markup, the committee considered 135 amendments. The committee accepted 41 amendments and rejected 55.
On October 2, 2009, a full 11 days prior to a committee vote on the bill, I posted online the mark, as amended.
On October 13, 2009, the Finance Committee ordered the bill reported by a bipartisan vote of 14 to 9.
The majority leader then melded the Finance Committee and HELP Committee work products into a single bill. The majority leader moved to proceed to the bill on November 19 of last year. We had a full and open debate on the bill on the Senate floor, and on December 24 of last year, Christmas Eve, more than a month later, the Senate finally passed health care reform.
I have taken some time to detail the long legislative history of this effort, and I did so because I believe that any fair observer of this legislative history will draw three conclusions: One, we tried mightily to work with our Republican colleagues to reach a broad consensus bill. We went the extra mile. We bent over backwards, and for a variety of reasons, our Republican colleagues simply did not want to be part, in the end, of this effort.
Two, nobody rushed this bill. This has been a full and deliberative process--about 2 years. There is no way that health care reform was ``rammed'' through the Congress. No way. Not true.
Three, we have conducted a process more open than for any other major piece of legislation in the modern Senate. But opponents of the bill have tried to raise as many charges as they can. They have tried to throw as much mud at this effort as they can, hoping that something sticks.
Their latest attack has been to criticize the use of the budget reconciliation process for the bill before us today. Some have charged that using reconciliation is somehow unusual. They argue that using budget reconciliation for health care is somehow unheard of. And they argue that we never use reconciliation for major bills. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Is reconciliation unusual? The answer is clearly no. Budget reconciliation is a pretty common process in Congress. Since Congress began using the budget reconciliation process in 1980, some 30 years ago, Congress has passed some 23 reconciliation bills--23 in the last 30 years. Thus, most years have seen reconciliation bills. It is an exceptional year that Congress does not pass a reconciliation bill.
What about health care? Is health care something unusual for reconciliation? Once again, the answer is no.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service took a survey of the 22 reconciliation bills that made it through Congress to the President's desk. Of those 22 reconciliation bills, CRS, the Congressional Research Service, identified 12 of them with titles or other major legislative components pertaining to Medicare or Medicaid Programs. In other words, most reconciliation bills have addressed health care. Once again, it is the exceptional case where a reconciliation bill does not contain health care matters.
What about major health care legislation? Is major health care legislation in reconciliation unusual? No. Once again the answer is no. CRS counted the number of pages in the law books on health care that the reconciliation process has put there. It was not a small number. CRS found that bills enacted using the reconciliation process contributed some 1,366 pages on health care to the Statutes at Large. CRS found that the average reconciliation bill with health care in it contributed some 124 pages to the Statutes at Large.
Pages in Statutes at Large have more words than bills do, so these pages reflect far more pages than in bill text.
Let's consider some of the major changes through health care that Congress has enacted in the last 30 years. There is COBRA, a health insurance program for people who lose their jobs. Congress enacted the COBRA health insurance program as part of a reconciliation bill. COBRA stands for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act--reconciliation. A Republican-controlled Senate passed the COBRA health insurance program as part of reconciliation in 1986. Since then, three later reconciliation bills have amended the COBRA continuation coverage rules. Congress changed COBRA in reconciliation bills in years 1989, 1990, and again in 1993.
Another one of the largest health care expansions that Congress enacted in the last 30 years was the Children's Health Insurance Program, otherwise known as CHIP. Once again, we enacted it--you got it right--in reconciliation. Congress enacted CHIP as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Once again, it was a Republican-controlled Senate that passed the Children's Health Insurance Program as part of reconciliation in 1997.
Then there is the Medicare Advantage Program. Medicare Advantage, or Medicare+Choice they called it then, was a major change in Medicare, introducing private insurance companies into the system. Once again, a Republican-controlled Senate passed that in reconciliation in 1997.
It is hard to think of a major health insurance expansion that has not involved reconciliation. Sure, there were some. But it is an exceptional case where Congress enacts major changes to health care outside of reconciliation. When you think about it, that makes more sense. Congress created the budget reconciliation process to affect the budget, and any competent budget economist will tell you that health care cost growth is the biggest financial challenge facing our Nation. The President and other commentators on our fiscal plight make that statement repeatedly.
If you want to address the budget in a significant way you need to address health care. Health care is exactly what the budget process was designed to address.
Why did Congress create the budget process this way? Simple: Congress created the budget process so that Congress could make fiscal policy with a simple majority vote. The Congress that created reconciliation wanted to ensure that future Congresses could vote budget matters up or down, yes or no. Is it unusual for anything this large to have been passed in reconciliation? Once again, the answer is no. In terms of dollars and cents, the biggest reconciliation bill by far was the 2001 Bush tax cuts. The 2001 reconciliation bill worsened the deficit by more than $550 billion over the first 5 years. That was a reconciliation bill.
Not far behind was the 2003 Bush tax cut. That reconciliation bill worsened the deficit by more than $430 billion over the first 5 years.
In terms of policy changes, it is hard to match the two Bush tax cuts. But another measure that came close was the 1996 welfare reform bill. Once again, that was a reconciliation bill. The 1996 welfare reform bill was the most sweeping revision of poverty programs since the Great Society. Once again, that reconciliation bill was passed by a Republican-controlled Senate.
It is hard to say that we have not done big things in reconciliation. In sum, it is not as though we sneaked health care reform through the Senate. We passed it with an exhaustive open process and the Senate passed health care reform with a supermajority. We passed it with 60 votes.
Now all that remains to be done to complete health care reform is an up-or-down vote on this final bill. This last step in the health care reform deserves to get a simple majority vote. That is all that needs to be done to finish the job of reforming health care.
Let me return to what this bill would do. This bill would help to make health care more affordable for people who do not have it and improve upon the Senate bill which the President signed this morning. We do it for people such as Carmen and her daughter Merilee, from Paulson, MT. Carmen had insurance, but she still had problems with coverage and costs. Before March 2008, Carmen had insurance with a $5,000 deductible. She found herself avoiding care because of the high deductible. She and her daughter Merilee waited until they knew they needed help before they went to a doctor--certainly, with a deductible that high, $5,000. At one point Carmen's daughter contracted a urinary tract infection. Wanting to avoid the high deductible, Carmen and her daughter decided to wait a day and see how it goes, but her daughter did not get better. She needed to get care. Since it was Saturday and there was no urgent care open for 50 miles, the only option was to go to the emergency room. The hospital bill to Carmen was for $500, but her insurance company refused to pay it. Carmen appealed, asking them to pay the $70 insurance would normally pay for urgent care and Carmen would pay the remaining balance, but her insurance company still denied her claim.
When Carmen broke her fingers, her insurance company refused to pay for treatment. The insurance company paid only for x rays, even though Carmen was entitled to $650 of first-dollar coverage for accidents. Carmen paid for her own treatment, but she gave up on the therapy because it cost too much. Carmen's fingers will never fully heal.
In March 2008, Carmen switched to another insurance company and lowered the deductible to $2,500. Remember, the last policy was a deductible of $5,000. Last month, Carmen received notice that her premiums would go up by about 32 percent. Carmen will have to keep her premiums down by decreasing her coverage. It is a strategy she has been using for years.
We fight for health care for people such as Carmen and Merilee. We fight for health care for people such as William and Erinn, from Red Lodge. Erinn lost her father William when he was only 59 years old because their insurance company denied and delayed his bone marrow transplant until it was too late. William taught school for more than 30 years. He thought he had good insurance through his retirement package. The doctors told William he had leukemia, but the doctors were able to treat it with oral chemotherapy for a long time.
In 2002, the doctors determined that William would need more advanced chemotherapy. He underwent chemotherapy as long as he could and then the doctors determined he would need a bone marrow transplant. The insurance company paid for all the preparations, testing, and treatment leading up to the transplant, but the insurance company denied the procedure itself.
Mr. President, I note I am running out of my half hour here. Let me say I will conclude here by noting that this is why we fight for people. This is why this health care bill is before us, for people such as Carmen and Merilee, Pat, and many people across this country who deserve much better. We are at the very end here, about to pass this legislation. The President signed the bill this morning. This is just to make it even a little bit better. It is a normal process, an open process. I urge all my colleagues to quickly pass this and help a lot of people and get on to other matters.
I thank the Chair.
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Mr. BAUCUS. Senator Harkin wishes to speak, but allow me to make a few points clear. The amendment offered by the Senator from New Hampshire is a killer amendment. It kills the bill. It is that simple. It basically is an amendment that kills the health care bill that just became law that the President signed this morning. This is a debate we had when we were on the bill. The Senate has already considered the arguments made by the Senator from New Hampshire and others. The Senate decided against those arguments. The Senate has decided to pass health care reform, as has the House of Representatives, and the President signed it. So this, in a certain sense, is a stale argument. This is an argument after the bill has already been passed. It makes more sense to make these arguments beforehand, not after.
Second, what is the effect? Let me read from the amendment. It says: The Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Health and Human Services are prohibited from implementing any spending increase/revenue reduction provisions in the bill just signed by the President unless certain conditions occur. That means no spending to fill the doughnut hole. That means seniors will still have to spend more on drugs. That means no spending to help States cover Medicaid expenses for the expanded population. That means States will be left high and dry. That means no primary care payments to primary care physicians, whether it is Medicaid or Medicare. That means no tax credits for Americans who are struggling to buy health insurance. That means no payments to help struggling Americans make the out-of-pocket costs. It makes no sense. This is an example of why this is a killer amendment.
I strongly urge my colleagues to recognize we have had this debate already. This is not new. They have not said anything new. This debate occurred while we were considering health care reform. The Senate has considered those arguments, has listened to those arguments. We debated this amendment already back and forth. The Senate decided by a vote not to accept those arguments. So we are talking about something that is history. It has already passed. In a certain sense it is irrelevant.
On the other hand, this amendment is relevant on reconciliation. This amendment is an attempt to kill the bill. I strongly urge my colleagues to reject this amendment.
Don't forget, our bill includes financial incentives for doctors and hospitals to collaborate and coordinate care for seniors. I thought that is something we wanted. This amendment says: No, you can't do that. We can't come up with financial incentives for doctors and hospitals to collaborate. This does not happen often enough in Medicare today. We need to have more collaboration. We need doctors and hospitals to work better together. We need some demonstration systems. We need pilot projects to help us find ways to better pay doctors and hospitals based on quality of care and less on quantity of care. There is nobody who disagrees with that statement, at least nobody who has given a lot of thought to health care reform. This amendment would stop that. It would prevent us from trying to find a way to reduce health care costs which are eating us alive, eating up family budgets, eating up company budgets and also public budgets, in terms of Medicaid and Medicare, unless we get health care costs under control. The way to do that is to change the delivery system.
I think that is the game changer in the bill; frankly, one of the most important parts of the bill. But--no, no, no--this amendment says you cannot do that. You cannot begin to take the steps necessary in the long term to start reducing health care costs.
Our bill also--the underlying bill, which this amendment would kill--reduces Medicare spending by reducing hospital readmissions. I thought we wanted to do that. I thought we wanted to reduce the hospital readmissions. This amendment would, in effect, say: No, you cannot do that.
Better coordination of care again means patients do not have to come back to the hospital because of complications, because of allergies and problems post surgery. What else does the underlying bill do? It keeps more money in the Medicare accounts by making smart reforms to the program. Fewer funds will be spent simply by paying doctors for quality of care and not quantity of care--by cutting out wasteful overpayments to providers and private insurance companies that do not add value to patients, and by creating an innovation center within the Medicare Program so that groundbreaking ways to deliver health care better are discovered more often and put in place without delay.
That is a very important point. We need to have, by creating an innovation center within the Medicare Program, groundbreaking ways to deliver better health care. We have to spend some money on these new demonstration and pilot projects so we can have a much better health care system.
Mr. President, I now yield the remainder of the time in this half hour to the chairman of the HELP Committee. I yield time under control on the bill.
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Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes to speak on the motion.
I wish to make clear that this bill reduces taxes in the amount of about $460 billion for Americans who will get tax credits for buying health insurance. That is a huge, big tax reduction: about $460 billion in tax credits to people buying insurance. I don't think I have heard much about that from the other side of the aisle, but it is a fact.
In addition, small business gets very large tax credits for offering health insurance--large, very large incentives. It is up to 35 percent, if I recall correctly, the first couple years, and then it moves up to a 50-percent tax credit for the employers' half of the health insurance that the employer will be providing. Those are huge, big tax cuts.
One other point that I think is very important to make. It is true, in certain cases, taxes will go up for some Americans who may be making less than $200,000. But why? Because they have more money in their pocket. When you earn more money, your taxes go up, and you can earn more money because health insurance is going to be less expensive. Companies are going to compensate you with health insurance that is less expensive and reward you with more wages. That is what CBO says. Don't take my word for it. That is what the Congressional Budget Office says. So when wages go up, guess what. Sometimes taxes go up when wages go up. On a net basis, Americans are going to be better off. They are going to be wealthier. Their health insurance is going to be less expensive. For those, we are finding that because health insurance is less expensive, their employers want to compensate the employees, so they compensate them with higher wages, and higher wages will mean some increase in income taxes. So I wish to be very clear, that is what is happening.
Also, I wish to make a third point, basically that gets lost esoterically, but the reconciliation bill lowers the high-premium excise tax in the underlying bill. By doing so, that means those wages will not increase as much as they otherwise might but, rather, it is offset with an increase under an income but only for Americans earning above $200,000 individually and families above $250,000. I wish to make it clear this is a big tax cut for Americans.
CBO has also said--not directly on point--but CBO also said there will be a big reduction in deficits and debts this decade and the next decade.
The other side likes to make it sound as if it is a big tax increase. It is not. It is a tax cut. It is a tax increase for some Americans, but those Americans in the main earn more than $200,000.
I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Vermont from the time on the bill.
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Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I would like to speak a few minutes on the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona with respect to the declaration of a public health emergency.
Under the 1980 Superfund law, an administration has the authority to issue a public health emergency whenever it determines based on science that there is a certain part of the country for which that declaration makes sense. It applies to anyplace in the country. An earlier administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, was about to declare a public health emergency in Libby, MT, because the conditions were so dire. Frankly, I read the e-mail traffic between her office--HHS--and the Bush administration in the White House.
The White House put the kibosh on that declaration. The EPA, based on the science, was going to make that declaration. Administrator Jackson has now made that declaration based on the science.
There is more asbestos contamination in Libby, MT, on a per capita basis than any other place in the country. It is appalling. People are dying of asbestos-related diseases and mesothelioma. Tremolite is the form of asbestos that is present. It is so sad. It is a small town, a poor town. The company, W.R. Grace, has left them high and dry. There was a criminal trial against its officers for intentionally contaminating Libby. Frankly, that did not result in a successful criminal prosecution but, in my judgment, having read lots of transcripts of hearings, it is clear a declaration of a public health emergency is not only valid, but this is a company, frankly, that should have been brought to justice. In fact, they moved assets off the books so they would be judgment proof. W.R. Grace is a very bad company, in my judgment.
Anyway, this law applies to all States in the Nation--all States--where, based on the science, the EPA Administrator thinks a public health emergency should be declared at a certain site that is then required by the law. Screenings are then allowed and medical treatment is allowed to people who would otherwise not get any, or get very little because the company has cut back on any health care benefits they had.
So this is, in a sense, health care reform. These are people who don't get health care. They have been left without health care. There is no coverage, frankly. They have this so-called preexisting condition because they have asbestos-related disease. I think it is only proper these people in Libby finally get their due.
My time has probably expired, but I could go on and on and on about this sad situation and how much these people deserve to have at least some health care that they would otherwise not receive.
Mr. President, I believe now the time is to be allocated to the Republican side.
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