Jessie's Law

Mr. President, in recent weeks, we have seen an astonishing series of revelations about Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 election in support of the Donald Trump campaign. Last week, the Washington Post reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with the Russian Ambassador in July and September during the campaign. Yet, during his confirmation hearing, the Attorney General said under oath: ``I did not have communications with the Russians.''

Last Thursday, the Attorney General announced he would partially recuse himself from any investigation into the Presidential campaign. I note that this was a partial recusal when it comes to investigations into Russia's influence on President Trump and his circle of advisers and associates. The scope of the recusal is still unclear. For example, Attorney General Sessions does not even appear to believe that his own meeting with the Russian Ambassador on September 8, 2016, was related to the campaign. The scope of his recusal will need to be clarified.

We also continue to learn of previously undisclosed communications between the Russians and President Trump's inner circle. For example, we learned last week that Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, had met in December with the Russian Ambassador in Trump Tower, along with the President's National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, who resigned on February 13. People across America are wondering when the next shoe will drop.

It is becoming clear that the President is desperate to change the headlines from these Russian revelations--so desperate, in fact, that in a series of tweets on Saturday morning, President Trump claimed that President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower in an act President Trump described as ``McCarthyism'' and ``Nixon/Watergate.'' Well, President Trump's tweets again made news but not in the way he had hoped. It quickly became clear that President Trump has no evidence to back up his claims. In fact, it appeared he got his information not from America's law enforcement or intelligence agencies but from rightwing talk radio.

On Sunday, the former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, denied the President's claims, and the Director of the FBI, James Comey, took an extraordinary step of calling on the Justice Department to publicly deny the President's claims. Even Republicans like House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy, chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, said they had not seen any evidence that would support what President Trump tweeted. Nonetheless, the President's spokespeople doubled down, saying that the President does not accept the contention of the FBI Director and he stands by his tweets.

Let's be clear. President Trump is playing games with the credibility of his Presidency. Donald Trump is destroying the credibility of the Office of the President 140 characters at a time. If President Trump had consulted with his adviser--any credible adviser--prior to his tweets, he would have learned something that is crucial, and it is as follows: The President of the United States does not have the authority to order a wiretap. Instead, such a wiretap can be granted upon a finding by a court that there is probable cause to believe the target has committed a crime or is an agent of a foreign power.

Clearly, there are more revelations to come. The only question: How long is it going to take? How much damage will be done to the credibility of the Office of the President and America in the process?

These recent events confirm yet again the need for an independent, transparent, bipartisan commission led by Americans of unimpeachable integrity to get to the bottom of this Russian attack on the United States. Russia attacked our democracy. We need to fully understand what happened. We certainly need to prevent it from happening in the next election or ever again.

This week, a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll found that Americans, by a margin of 58 percent to 35 percent, believe an outside independent investigation is needed into Russian involvement in our election. It is worthy of note that just a few weeks ago, only 30-something percent of the American people were aware of this controversy with Russia. Now over 55 percent of people want an independent investigation. America is listening.

We also need the Justice Department and the FBI to proceed with a credible, impartial investigation to determine if there may have been any criminal conduct involved.

Yesterday, the President's nominee for Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. If confirmed, Mr. Rosenstein would oversee any Justice Department investigation into the Trump administration's Russian connections after Attorney General Sessions has partially recused himself. So I pressed Mr. Rosenstein to clarify the scope of Attorney General Sessions' recusal commitment. I also asked, as did Senator Feinstein, whether Mr. Rosenstein had read the January 6 Intelligence Community assessment into Russian election interference. I cannot explain it, but in 2 months Mr. Rosenstein had not read this 15-page, unclassified report that is available on the internet. It focuses on the major issue he will face initially as Deputy Attorney General, and he told us he had not read it.

Let me add that I respect Rod Rosenstein. He served as U.S. attorney in Maryland, appointed first under a Republican President and held over under a Democratic President, and that says a lot about his professionalism as a prosecutor, his reputation, and his integrity. It is hard for me to believe that he could come before a hearing, which he knew would focus on the need for a special prosecutor to look into this Russian interference, and not have been briefed to read the 15-page public report that summarizes the conclusions of all of America's intelligence agencies when it comes to this Russian interference.

I am sure he is an excellent lawyer who wouldn't enter a courtroom or stand before a judge or jury without complete preparation to the best of his ability, but yesterday, time and again, he told us he didn't take the time to read this report. I urge him to do so as quickly as possible, and when he reads it, he will see that our intelligence agencies are unequivocal in their statement that Vladimir Putin was setting out to elect Donald Trump and to defeat Hillary Clinton. This is not a report from the Democratic National Committee; it is a report from our intelligence agencies. And whomever Putin was trying to help, that is secondary to the fact that he was hacking into the internet, disclosing materials, and trying to become a material player in our Presidential election.

Mr. President, 3 weeks ago, I went to visit Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine. They are watching this carefully because they have been the victims of Vladimir Putin and Russia's attempts to interfere in their elections, and now they hear the United States has been victimized by Putin, as well.

One of the scholars in Poland asked me what I thought was a very clear question, and I can't answer. He said: If

the United States will not take the interference of Putin in your election seriously, how can the people of Poland believe you will take your NATO commitment to protect us from Putin seriously? Important question. Valid question.

There are exceptions on the Republican side of the aisle, and I would like to point out one of them. My friend, my colleague, and the chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of Appropriations, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, made an extraordinarily forthright statement yesterday about the need for an investigation into this Russian interference. Thank goodness he is stepping away from party loyalty and stepping up when it comes to defending this Nation. I salute my Republican colleague for his leadership on this issue.

It is important to step back from the daily dysfunction we have when it comes to the Russian investigation and the White House and lack of governing and remember what is really at stake.

Five months ago, our intelligence services disclosed evidence that a foreign adversary--one ruled by a dictatorial former Communist KGB agent--was trying to help its preferred candidate in the U.S. Presidential election. Think about that for a moment. An adversary of the United States--a country which has imprisoned millions of Europeans in the Communist system for almost half a century and which today rigs elections and silences or murders members of the media and opposition-- committed what I believe is akin to a cyber act of war against America in trying to elect someone they saw as more sympathetic to their interests.

Since those early reports, we have been provided with damning evidence by our intelligence agencies on the depth and sophistication of this operation--so favorable to its nefarious goal that it had Russian intelligence operatives boastfully celebrating after the outcome of the election.

We also know that members of President Trump's campaign met with those thought to be Russian intelligence; had suspiciously timed communications with the Russian Government just after the Obama administration placed sanctions on Russia; and in the case of top Trump advisers Michael Flynn and Jeff Sessions, refused to disclose those meetings, both in public and in one case to the Vice President and in another case to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

No candidate would or at least should want help from a foreign dictator to help win political office in the United States. So in a situation like this, the response is obvious: Help in any way possible to clear suspicions and concerns. Go forward and serve the American people with an investigation. It seems so obvious.

Leon Panetta was on one of the Sunday morning talk shows. Leon Panetta is a friend. I served with him in the House of Representatives. He was the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, President Clinton. He served as Secretary of Defense. He headed up the Central Intelligence Agency. He is an extraordinarily gifted and well- thought-of person who has a record of public service that is enviable. He was asked about what the Trump White House should do about this allegation of Russian interference in the election and the suggestion that they might have been complicit.

He said: Get out in front.

The President of the United States should say: I have nothing to hide, and we will fully cooperate with an independent commission to get to the bottom of what happened in that election. But instead, what do we have? Fanciful--in fact, patently false--tweets by the President, alleging a wiretap by the former President. President Trump, if he has nothing to hide, should help us clear this up once and for all.

To my Republican colleagues, so many patriots and champions of American national security, it is time for more to join Senator Graham and others to step up and speak out even on the floor of the Senate about this situation.

Each one of us in the Senate swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against enemies foreign and domestic. Clearly, the Russian attack is a call for all of us--of both political parties--to step up. This issue is not going to go away. We are going to continue to pursue the truth.

Nomination of Seema Verma and the Republican Healthcare Bill

Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about the recently released Republican healthcare repeal bill and to speak on the nomination of Seema Verma to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

CMS is an agency touching the lives of 125 million people, and 34 percent of Americans receive their health insurance under one of the three Federal programs run by that agency--Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program. These programs are vital to the health and well-being of seniors, children, persons with disabilities, and low-income families. Yet, with those vows to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Trump, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, and congressional Republicans are sadly attempting to gut the Medicaid program and to jeopardize the future of Medicare.

The head of CMS should be someone who believes in these core programs and is willing to fight to preserve them. Instead, Ms. Seema Verma's record--as well as comments she made during her confirmation hearing-- indicates she is more than willing to take dramatic steps to force people to lose their health insurance or dramatically increase out-of- pocket costs.

From her refusal to disavow efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act to her willingness to cut the Medicaid Program, I do not believe Ms. Verma is the right person for this job.

When it comes to the Affordable Care Act, our constituents-- Republicans, Democrats, Independents--are angry and frightened about what the Trump administration and congressional Republicans might do to healthcare. Based on what has finally been released, they have good reason.

In over 2 months, Republican leaders in Washington have taken numerous steps to change and even sabotage our healthcare system, jeopardizing patient access to care and throwing the system into chaos.

Before President Trump took office, congressional Republicans rammed through a budget bill, laying the groundwork for a quick, silent repeal of the Affordable Care Act, despite the fact that they had no replacement. Then, on his first day in office, the President signed an Executive order to weaken the Affordable Care Act, instructing Federal agencies to stop doing their job under the law. The President then acted hastily to stop Federal outreach efforts--TV ads, radio spots, and emails intended to encourage more Americans to sign up for health insurance.

I watched yesterday as the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, said that the Affordable Care Act is collapsing. Well, I can tell you, it needs help and it should be bipartisan. Instead, the Republicans are doing everything they can to jeopardize it.

Last week, the President met with big insurance companies to discuss what they want for healthcare. But where were the patients, the hospitals, the doctors, the nurses, the community health centers in these conversations?

It is clear that congressional Republicans want to move full steam ahead on repealing our healthcare law. The problem has always been and still is that they can't agree on how to move forward. They don't have a plan to protect people. Some Republicans just want to repeal. Others want to repair. Others want to rebuild. They can throw out all the ``R'' words they can find in the dictionary, but at the end of the day, they don't know what they want to do. These disagreements are becoming even more obvious in the last week.

For the past few months, House Republican leaders have been meeting secretly to craft a repeal bill. Well, they finally unveiled it. No wonder they wanted to keep it secret.

Incidentally, this bill, which has been authored by the Republicans-- a party that claims a commitment to fiscal soundness--has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. We don't know, even as it is being considered by committees in the House of Representatives, whether it is going to add to the deficit or not. You would think that the party of fiscal integrity--the Republican Party--would ask that question early on. As yet, they have no answer, and they are proceeding full steam ahead.

The bill, first, would end Medicaid as we know it, cutting $370 billion from the program and limiting care. Who are the beneficiaries of Medicaid? The largest group of beneficiaries are kids and mothers. The second most expensive group are seniors, many of them in nursing homes who, without Medicaid and Medicare, could not even continue in a good nursing home environment.

Keep in mind that one in five Americans currently depend on Medicaid for their health insurance--65 million people nationwide. That includes 35 million children, 7 million seniors, 11 million people with disabilities.

We used to say: Well, Medicaid is for poor people. Well, it certainly is for lower income Americans, but many of them are working low-income Americans who still qualify for Medicaid.

My friend, who has worked in the motel-hospitality industry all of her life, in her sixties, sadly, is a part-time employee, despite her hard work. She can't afford health insurance, but she qualifies for Medicaid. She is part of the working poor, and she is one who needs this benefit. If the Republicans have their way and reduce Medicaid coverage, she could certainly lose it.

In my home State of Illinois, 650,000 people have gained healthcare coverage under Medicaid, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. For her and others I have met, it is the first time in their life that these men and women--often in their sixties--for the first time in their life have health insurance.

Of Illinois' 18 congressional districts, not a single one has less than 71,000 Medicaid enrollees. Nearly half of all the kids in Illinois, 1.5 million children, get their healthcare through Medicaid, and the Republican repeal bill is going to endanger that.

That is so obvious that yesterday the Republican Governor of Illinois, who was careful in his words and seldom reacts, came out publicly and said that the Republican repeal bill would significantly hurt our State of Illinois. That is from a Republican Governor.

Medicaid is the largest payer of long-term care for seniors in the Nation and in Illinois. It is one of our best tools, incidentally, for addressing the opioid epidemic, ensuring that those facing addiction have access to treatment. And the Republicans want to cut that.

Medicaid has been a lifesaver to Illinois hospitals, especially in my part of the State, downstate Illinois.

Repeal of the Medicaid expansion, as the House bill proposes, could result in the loss of up to 90,000 jobs in Illinois.

The Republican repeal bill on healthcare is a jobs killer in Illinois and across this Nation. We will see hospitals cutting back on personnel in an attempt to adjust to the cutbacks in coverage and the increases in cost brought on by the Republican repeal bill.

But the bill goes even further. It dramatically restructures the entire Medicaid Program. When talking about the plan for Medicaid, congressional Republicans throw around innocuous terms: per capita caps, block grants, more flexibility, modernizing. Don't be lulled in a false sense of security by these words. This Republican healthcare repeal bill would significantly cut back on Federal spending on Medicaid, shifting the cost to States, families, and individuals who are currently struggling to get by today.

With less funding, States would be forced to throw people off of Medicaid, limit the types of healthcare services offered, create waiting lists, and much more. In the name of State flexibility and modernizing, it would mean that more and more people would be showing up in emergency rooms in Illinois and across the Nation with no health insurance coverage under the Republican approach.

Oh, they will get care, and it will cost. They can't pay for it, and that cost will be shifted to others with health insurance.

Unfortunately, Ms. Verma has significant experience in this exact type of healthcare rationing. In her role as a private healthcare consultant, she championed radical Medicaid overhauls. She supports making low-income Medicaid beneficiaries pay more money. She believes that Medicaid beneficiaries need ``more skin in the game.'' I wonder how many Medicaid recipients Ms. Verma has actually sat down and met with.

The Illinois folks whom I know are the mom working two jobs, struggling to take time off from work to take her kid to the doctor, or the senior who has literally spent down all of her life savings on nursing home care and has no place else to turn.

Devising plans that restrict access to care for the most vulnerable among us are not the qualifications I am looking for in the person who wants to run the agency responsible for Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP.

Finally, on the House Republican repeal bill, in addition to gutting Medicaid, the bill eliminates the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which currently provides the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention $900 million, or 12 percent of their annual budget. The bill defunds Planned Parenthood. The bill allows insurers to charge older people significantly more in premiums than allowed under current law. The bill, incidentally, dramatically cuts taxes for the wealthiest people in America and increases costs for middle-income families. What is most telling, as I mentioned earlier, is that the House Republicans won't even send this bill or wait for a report from the Congressional Budget Office before proceeding.

How many people will lose their health insurance under the Republican repeal plan? How will out-of-pocket expenses go up for families under the Republican repeal plan? How much responsibility and burden will be shifted to the States under the Republican repeal plan?

For now, Republicans can claim ignorance because they have decided to move forward before there was a report from the Congressional Budget Office.

Thank goodness some Republicans are speaking out against this terrible plan--maybe not for the same reasons I oppose it. But conservatives say it doesn't rip health insurance away from more people more quickly, and moderates worry about Medicaid--demonstrating, again, the lack of a consensus on the Republican side when it comes to the future of healthcare.

We have big challenges ahead--challenges that will determine whether we have as many people in America with health insurance tomorrow as we have today and how much it will cost.

I don't believe the Republican repeal bill is the right path forward, and I don't believe Seema Verma is the right person to stand up and fight for our Nation's seniors, children, and low-income families. For that reason, I will be voting against her nomination to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act that is being considered by the House.

In December, I was informed that I was going to get one of my dreams to come true in the Senate. I had asked to be on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee when I came in, in January of 2013, and I was not on the committee. I had no complaints because I had other good committees, but I was told in December that, for this Congress, I would be added to the committee, and I am thrilled to serve on it.

When I found that I was going to be added to the committee, I knew one of the first issues we would be tackling is what to do about the Affordable Care Act. So I have started to pay visits around the State to as many stakeholders as I can, including patients, doctors, medical students, hospitals, behavioral health facilities, allied health training programs in regions all across the State, military families in Hampton Roads just last Friday, as well as patients and their families in Chesterfield County last Friday. In all of these visits, my question has been: We are going to be tackling the Affordable Care Act; tell me what works, what doesn't work, and what we can do better. That has been the goal.

Today's committees in the House, two committees, are considering a plan that House Republicans have put on the table and are touting as a replacement of the Affordable Care Act. I just want to talk about what it would mean, if passed, to Virginians and Americans.

This plan will reduce the number of Americans with insurance. We dropped the uninsurance rate to a historic low, but the gains that we made would be reversed and the numbers of Americans with insurance would go down.

It would raise healthcare costs, particularly on seniors, which I will discuss in a minute.

It would dismantle the Medicaid Program at the service of tax cuts for the wealthiest.

It is not an adequate replacement; in fact, it would be a dramatic retreat, and it would be a retreat that would violate promises that had been made by the President and other leaders.

Republicans--and I will get into this--have made a number of promises about what a replacement would look like, but this plan falls far short of that. That is why, within 36 hours of it being put on the table, stakeholders across the spectrum, including the American Hospital Association, AARP, the American Medical Association, nurses, nursing homes, and Republican Governors have come out to either dramatically and flatly oppose this plan or suggest significant concerns with it.

The bill has yet to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office, but the House is trying to push it through committee, and even through the floor, if they can, before the CBO tells the American public what this plan would cost and, every bit as importantly, what it would cost Americans in terms of the number of people who would lose their health insurance.

A very poignant comment about the plan that was in the paper this morning was from the Republican Governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval, who said: We Republican Governors have talked to Congress and said please pay attention to what we have to say. States bear a huge burden on these programs, especially Medicaid. He said: We gave ideas to the leadership, to the majority about the replacement, but none of our ideas are in this plan.

Without a CBO score, the American public and this body are completely in the dark about how many people will lose coverage and about how this will affect the American economy. Why would we move forward? Why would we try to push a vote even in a committee, much less on the House floor, before the CBO has given us this score? We don't serve the American public well by doing that.

What does the replacement bill do? One, it ends the expansion of Medicaid that was a core component of the Affordable Care Act--the expansion that has been embraced by more than 30 States. Then, it takes the traditional Medicaid Program and really dismantles it, instituting a per capita fee for enrollees, and moving it more towards a block grant program. That is the first thing it does.

Second, with respect to seniors, this plan would repeal a provision in the Affordable Care Act that says seniors cannot be charged more than three times the premium of a young person; it would repeal that, and it will allow insurers to charge older customers five times as much as younger customers. It would also give States the ability to set even more unfavorable ratios for seniors. This will have a significant impact on the premium of older Americans.

Third, the plan repeals the income-based subsidies, premium assistance, and cost-sharing reductions in the current Affordable Care Act and substitutes less generous tax credits that will not be adjusted to average costs of plans in particular markets. So if you are a middle-income individual in a high-cost market, you are really out of luck with this plan.

Let me give an example of how insurance would be affected in particular communities all over Virginia if the House plan were adopted. If you are 60 years old and you make $30,000 per year, under the House plan, here is

what happens. First, the cost of your insurance can be dramatically raised because you are not, at age 60 now, limited to three-to-one over a young person's premium; they can charge you five-to-one over a young person's premium. So the premium cost, if you are a 60-year-old making 30,000 bucks, goes up significantly.

Now, you get a tax credit, just as right now you get a subsidy, but the tax credit is much less generous. So the cost of your policy goes up, but here is what happens in communities all over Virginia--tax credit compared to the subsidy they currently get.

In 2020, in Augusta County, VA, in the Shenandoah Valley, the tax credit you get is worth only about half of the subsidy you would get if we continued the Affordable Care Act. So the price is up, but your tax credit is less generous by half of the current subsidy.

In Fairfax, your tax credit is 41 percent less than the subsidy; in Bedford, 51 percent less than the subsidy; in the city of Norfolk, 51 percent less; in Rockingham, 50 percent less; Pittsylvania, 49 percent less, and Pulaski County in far Southwest Virginia, 54 percent less.

So if you are a senior, your costs go up, but the assistance you get in the tax credit is dramatically less generous than the assistance you currently get with the premium subsidy.

The bill establishes a penalty if you don't have continuous insurance. An insurer can charge you 30 percent more in premiums if you go 2 months or more without insurance. So if you are unemployed, you lose your insurance. If you forget to pay a premium for two months, you lose your insurance. If you have any gap of 2 months, that is an opportunity for insurers to come in and sock you with a massive penalty.

The bill repeals funding to a healthcare provider of choice for millions of American women: Planned Parenthood. It is really important to be specific about this. There is not in the Federal budget a line item that says Planned Parenthood gets axed. What Federal funds go to Planned Parenthood? Well, first, the Hyde amendment says no Federal funds can go to any organization for the provision of abortions-- Planned Parenthood or anybody else. Planned Parenthood receives Federal funds because it provides healthcare to women who are eligible for Medicaid. So when Planned Parenthood treats a woman who is Medicaid- eligible for a medical service that is eligible for a Medicaid reimbursement, then Planned Parenthood is able to bill Medicaid just like a doctor's office is. And Planned Parenthood is the healthcare provider of choice for millions of American women to do annual checkups, pap smears, cervical cancer tests, and all kinds of basic healthcare provisions. But under this bill, Planned Parenthood will be disbarred from the Medicaid Program, even when they are providing services to Medicaid-eligible women--services that are covered by Medicaid.

The one thing about this bill that I would say--if you were going to say: Well, who is a guaranteed winner in this bill because there are a lot of losers, and I have tried to summarize them--the guaranteed winner is that this bill overwhelmingly repeals the provisions that raise revenue. This bill is a big tax cut bill.

The biggest revenue raisers in the Affordable Care Act were tax cuts on the wealthiest citizens. There is a tax increase for nonwage income by the top earners in the United States and an additional hospital insurance tax that also affected individuals of high income.

What this bill does is cut taxes that almost exclusively benefit the wealthy, while the bill is taking away these coverages and provisions that protect middle and lower income Americans. The tax cuts in this bill would save the top 0.1 percent of earners in the United States about an average of $195,000 a year. So if you are in the top 0.1 percent and this bill passes, you are going to get an average of a $195,000 tax break.

Millionaires get 80 percent of the value of the high income tax cuts in the House bill, with the elimination of the hospital insurance tax on high earners and the Medicare tax on investment income. In fact, a family who is going to do incredibly well under this bill is the family of our President, Donald Trump. As high earners, they are going to get a huge tax cut with this bill.

I have to ask: Is this bill a healthcare bill or is it basically a tax cut bill? You could look at this bill as basically being that the driver of it is who benefits from it. It is a tax cut on the wealthy, paid for by slashing Medicaid, slashing healthcare coverage, slashing Medicare's trust fund, slashing Planned Parenthood, taking protections like preexisting conditions that really matter to people and reducing them. So I have a real question about whether this bill is a healthcare bill at all or whether, under the guise of a repeal and replace of ACA, it is a tax cut for the wealthiest, financed by slashing the healthcare safety net.

Let me read to my colleagues what certain Republican leaders have said about this bill in the past. The deputy leader here in the Senate--a friend--from Texas, Senator Cornyn, said to Republican Governors--Governors have a lot at stake in this. I was a Governor. I know how much Governors depend on Medicaid and healthcare programs. Here is what he said on January 19, 2017: ``Nobody is going to lose coverage.''

No exception, no qualification. ``Nobody is going to lose coverage.'' That is what he said to the Republican Governors.

We were awaiting the CBO score suggesting potentially how many millions will lose coverage. Many people will lose coverage. That is not what was promised.

But, more importantly, probably, what did the President say? When the President was campaigning as a candidate, this is what he promised the American people: ``I am going to take care of everybody. I don't care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken care of now.''

That was the test that he set for himself about an ObamaCare replacement--that no one would be worse off and that many would be better off. This does not meet that promise. It fails that promise.

At a December press conference the majority leader, Senator McConnell said: ``Surely, we can do better for the American people,'' and ``we will work expeditiously to come up with a better proposal than current law.''

Again, the promise was, we will take where we are right now and we will make it better. Nobody will lose coverage; everybody will be taken care of better. We will come up with a better proposal than the current law.

This is not that proposal. Turning Medicaid from a Federal guarantee to a per capita cap on spending doesn't mean everyone is covered; it means cuts to the States that would force States to cut eligibility, reduce benefits or provider payments. That is why providers, like the hospital associations and nursing homes, and the Republican Governors, like Governor Sandoval, are deeply opposed to this particular version. It is not better for the American people.

Protecting people with preexisting conditions, which the current bill does, but only if they have continuous coverage--that is not better for the American people because what if you lose your job or you can't afford benefits or you have a break in coverage for two months, and then you suddenly find that you are not protected, and your preexisting condition can be used against you to bar you from insurance for the rest of your life.

If you are unemployed and have a break in coverage, how do you afford a 30-percent surcharge on health insurance premiums like this plan proposes that insurance companies can sock you with? That is not better for the American people.

In closing, I will repeat something that 13 Democrats put into a letter to the Republican leadership in January: We want to work together to try to make healthcare better. We are willing to sit down at a table. We have ideas for how to improve not just the Affordable Care Act but prescription drug prices under Medicare Part D, something our citizens are deeply concerned about. We need to work together on affordability. We need to work together to make sure small businesses are able to afford coverage. We have to bring prescription drug pricing down. I know Republicans have ideas about how to do that and Democrats do too. The time is now to sit down and try to figure that out.

Passing a precipitous repeal, trying to rush it through before the CBO scores it--a precipitous repeal that would take health insurance away from many, that would jack costs up on seniors, that would punish so many Virginians by reducing the subsidies they get now and replacing them with a less-generous subsidy--that will break a promise the President made. That will break a promise other leaders have made.

We had a HELP Committee hearing recently where we had witnesses who had been called by Democrats and Republicans before us, talking about things we need to do to fix and improve the Affordable Care Act. They all agreed we needed to find improvements and fix it--all of them. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, they all agreed we need to find improvements. They all agreed a repeal of the Affordable Care Act would be a catastrophe.

There were four witnesses. I asked them this question: If we need to make improvements, what is the best way to do it? Should we do it fast, carelessly, and secretly or should we do it slowly, deliberately, and publicly transparently?

They all said: Of course, there is only one answer to that question. We are talking about people's health. We should do it deliberately, carefully, and transparently, rather than fast, carelessly, and secretly.

We are proceeding right now in the fast, careless, and secret mode. This particular plan comically was locked in a room and nobody was able to see it last week. One of our Senate colleagues went over and tried to get in to see what was in the plan--a Republican colleague, the Senator from Kentucky. Now that the plan is out in the light of day, I think we can see why they were hiding it--because it has so many elements that are frightening so many people.

We can get this right. We can get this right by sitting down and having a discussion about what I have been talking to my constituents about: in the healthcare system right now, what works, what doesn't work, and what we should change. If we bring constituents around the table--individuals, hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, businesses that are trying to buy insurance, doctors and nurses--if we get people around the table, they will break us out of the ``them versus our'' thing. We listen to them. We ask them those questions--what works, what doesn't, what can be fixed. We will find a path to meet the promise the President made, to meet the promise Senator Cornyn made, which is not make anything worse but taking the system as it is right now and making it better. We will only do that if we engage in a dialogue rather than trying to rush. That is what I encourage my colleagues to do.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, even in its early days, this administration has embarked on a course of foreign private interest entanglements and conflicts of interest that are truly staggering.

Just this morning, the Associated Press reported that China has granted preliminary approval for 38 new trademarks. They are Trump trademarks, paving the way for the President, Donald Trump, and his family to ``potentially develop a host of branded businesses from hotels to golf clubs to bodyguard and concierge services.''

These reports are contained in public documents. All but three are in the President's own name. The AP report also quotes an official as saying that ``for all these marks to sail through so quickly and cleanly, with no similar marks . . . no issues with specification, boy, it's weird.''

Now, the speculation is that these trademarks could not have been issued without approval by the ruling Communist Party, that hierarchy had to be involved, and that awareness had to involve their approval for these intellectual property interests. The benefit is to the President through his private interests. The fact is, the President of the United States should be beholden only to the American people, not to personal profit, but in fact these trademarks raise the specter that the President possibly is beholden to the approving officials in China even more than to the American people. That is an issue that merits investigation. Like so many issues arising in this young administration, the question is, Who will do that investigation?

The lawyers in China representing Donald Trump applied for these trademarks in April of 2016, even as then-Candidate Donald Trump railed against China at his campaign rallies, criticizing Chinese currency manipulation, its intellectual property theft, its attraction of jobs from this country to theirs. The question arises, What has he done about those issues? In fact, China continues to manipulate its currency, continues to attract jobs from this country, and continues its aggressive policies in the area around that country.

The question is whether an inquiry is appropriate--which certainly it seems to be--and who will supervise it. It is the same question that arises with respect to Russian interference in our electoral system and the potential ties between Trump team officials and the Russians who committed those acts. Those ties have been established by evidence that is now incontrovertible because it is admitted by the officials themselves, now Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

It is now a matter of factual record that Russia engaged in a series of deliberate cyber attacks in order to carry out an unprecedented plot to undermine the 2016 elections with the goal of assisting Donald Trump. The growing body of evidence clearly and unmistakably indicates that Trump campaign officials were in contact with Russia during the election. These deeply troubling claims of coordination with a foreign government to influence an American election certainly deserve exacting scrutiny and investigation, and the more we learn, the more troubled we become. In fact, we are rapidly careening toward a constitutional crisis. These recent revelations about Vladimir Putin's government and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn resulted in his resignation. There have also been details about contact between Attorney General Sessions, our former colleague, and the Russian Ambassador that have caused his recusal from all inquiries of that subject matter.

I believe a special prosecutor must be appointed to investigate the Russian interference and meddling in our election, the massive cyber attack misinformation, and propaganda campaign conducted to subvert that election. The potential for cooperation, condoning,

connecting between the Trump officials and Russia certainly merits investigation as well. Without reaching conclusions, the special prosecutor ought to investigate and then reach a conclusion. His conclusion should be based on fact, not surmise or speculation.

For weeks, I have called for a special prosecutor to investigate possible ties between members of the Trump campaign, the Trump transition, and the Trump White House to Russian officials who sought to interfere with our election. I support the Intelligence Committee in conducting its investigation. I would favor the appointment of a special commission or a select committee of the Congress to do factfinding, make reports and recommendations in a fully transparent way, but only a special prosecutor can take action based on criminal intent. Only a special prosecutor can pursue violations of criminal law, to not only investigate but also bring charges and seek appropriate punishment and remedy. Only the Deputy Attorney General of the United States can appoint a special prosecutor because the Attorney General has recused himself--in other words, taken himself out of all of the areas of this subject matter. That is why I asked yesterday that the nominee for Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, commit to appoint a special prosecutor.

His answer to me was that he wishes to wait until he is approved by the Senate--assuming his confirmation occurs--to decide whether to appoint a special prosecutor. He claims he needs to familiarize himself with the facts and circumstances of any ongoing investigation before he can make a decision. With all due respect, the facts he needs to know are already established. They are already a matter of public record. They are already known to the American public. There is an investigation ongoing by the FBI--and with good reason--into Russian meddling in our elections, this massive campaign of misinformation and cyber attack that they purposefully conducted to influence the outcome of our election.

We know the Justice Department must investigate and pursue the ongoing investigation, wherever the evidence leads. Part of that evidence inevitably will be meetings that were conducted by his boss, the Attorney General of United States, Jeff Sessions, which is why the Attorney General has recused himself--because he could be involved in that investigation as a witness, as a subject, even possibly as a target, as could the President himself.

To close that investigation, the Deputy Attorney General, or whoever is conducting it, needs to question the Attorney General of the United States. To conduct that investigation, that questioning must occur. So the Deputy Attorney General would be expected to be investigating his boss. If he decides to conduct that investigation himself, he must appoint a special prosecutor to establish the independence of that inquiry, to assure that in reality and in appearance the American public is assured that the investigation is independent, objective, impartial, vigorous, and fair.

The facts that warrant a special prosecutor are already known and they are already a matter of public record. That is why I believe he must commit himself now, before his confirmation--in fact, as a condition of his confirmation--to take that action, which preserves the credibility and public confidence in the Department of Justice that he observed very eloquently in his confirmation hearing as one of his central objectives.

There is a lot of precedent for this step. The most prominent one perhaps is Elliot Richardson, when he was the Attorney General designee. He was requested by the Judiciary Committee, at that time, to make the same kind of commitment--and he did. He kept his promise. He appointed Archibald Cox to be special prosecutor, and the Watergate scandal was appropriately investigated and pursued. That example--when Elliot Richardson had enough facts, just as Rod Rosenstein does now-- ought to be the lodestar here. It ought to be the model for his commitment to appointing a special prosecutor.

The simple fact is, Rod Rosenstein, like Elliot Richardson, knows everything he needs to know to be sure a special prosecutor is necessary, and especially because he is a career prosecutor with a distinguished record, and because he has that intellect and integrity that would qualify him probably to be confirmed, he should know it is the right thing to do. Maybe he will do it if he is confirmed, but it would serve the interests of justice, and it would help to sustain and enhance the trust and public confidence in the Department of Justice if he were to do it now, as Elliot Richardson did many years ago.

We live in an extraordinary time. The conflicts of interest and foreign entanglements that threaten our Nation, beginning at the very top of this administration, impose a unique mandate on the Department of Justice. The recusal of the Attorney General from this investigation indicates that leadership and integrity are necessary at every level as never before. That is why, in this extraordinary time, I urge the Deputy Attorney General nominee, Rod Rosenstein, to do the right thing and make sure there is an investigation that is independent and vigorous, as well as fair and full; that we know all of the facts eventually and that action is taken appropriately to deal with the Russian interference in our election, the potential ties between the Trump administration--before and after the election--in those improper interferences by the Russians in our election, and that the danger of coverup, indicated by the potential false statements made by Jeff Sessions before the Judiciary Committee and Michael Flynn elsewhere, be stopped before it starts. Only a special prosecutor can provide the unbiased and fair answers that are so urgently needed.

The American people deserve an explanation. They deserve an explanation for the trademarks that have been issued to Donald Trump in China. They deserve an explanation by a special prosecutor on Russian meddling and Trump ties to that meddling. Whether the independent and special prosecutor broadens the scope of that investigation to include the entanglements or conflicts of interest involving China is a question that will have to be addressed by that official, but this much we know now. We are rapidly careening toward a constitutional crisis, a crisis of credibility as well as legal challenges. The historic opportunity and obligation this nominee owes the country cannot be avoided.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Apparently there is another speaker. I withdraw that suggestion.

Mr. President, I rise again today to share the story of this beautiful young lady, Jessie Grubb. She is a West Virginian who passed away a year ago last week, and she was only 30 years old. She was a bright young lady with a great future ahead of her.

After years of struggling with heroin addiction, she had been doing very well. She had been sober since August of 2015. She had surgery for an infection related to a running injury and died a day after leaving the hospital.

Her story of addiction is known to many. We have told it many times here. Her father David, a former West Virginia State legislator who served with me, a friend of mine, shared their family struggle with addiction when President Obama traveled to West Virginia to bring attention to the growing opiate epidemic that we are all encountering in all of our States.

West Virginia has been hit the hardest by the opioid epidemic, where drug overdose deaths soared by more than 700 percent from 1999 to 2013. More than 600 lives were lost last year--just last year alone--to prescription drug overdose, legal prescription drugs.

Jessie's story and her family's pain are all too common in West Virginia and throughout this Nation. As I said, we lost 627 West Virginians to opiates last year alone.

When you think about it, this is a pill, this is a product that is manufactured by some of the most regarded institutions, pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country. It has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which basically says what we can use and what we should consume should be safe for us.

It is then prescribed by the most trusted person who is not in our family--and next to our family is a doctor. You would think that this is something that should be helpful for us, that should be part of the healing process. Instead, it has been part of the killing process. It has no home. It is a silent killer. We kept our mouths shut; we didn't say anything for many years, and now we have an epidemic on our hands, which we are trying to control.

We had 61,000 West Virginians who used prescription pain medications for nonmedical purposes in 2014. This includes 6,000 teenagers. As I have said, our State is not unique. The Presiding Officer's wonderful State of North Carolina is facing the same challenges we are.

Every day in our country, 91 Americans die from a prescription opiate or heroin overdose. Since 1999, we have lost almost 200,000 Americans to prescription opioid abuse.

Jessie's story deeply impacted President Obama, and I spoke with him about her death and the pain her family is going through. He reached out to David and Kate and the entire Grubb family. It is horrific.

When President Obama came to Charleston, Jessie was in a rehab facility in Michigan for the fourth time. Before her life was taken over by addiction in 2009, Jessie's future was bright. She was the beloved daughter of David and Kate Grubb, a beloved sister to her four sisters, and a beloved friend to so many.

She was an excellent student, scoring in the 99th percentile on all of her tests since she had been in education. She was a cheerleader at Roosevelt Junior High School, and she was an avid runner, an athlete.

At the time of her death, she was looking forward to running in her first marathon. She had been training for that. The only trouble she had ever gotten into at school was when she protested the Iraq war, and she was on the right side of that one.

Needless to say, she was a natural-born leader. After graduating from Capital High School, she was thrilled and looking forward to her bright future at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

She was sexually assaulted during her first semester, which caused her to withdraw from school and return to Charleston. The traumatic event that caused Jessie to turn to heroin to escape the pain was that horrific experience.

Over the next 7 years, Jessie would battle her addiction. She would overdose four times and go into rehab four

times. Until her death, she had been sober for 6 months and was focused on making a life for herself in Michigan. All of her hard work was ruined because of a careless mistake.

I introduced this piece of bipartisan legislation; everybody has been so kind on that. It makes so much common sense. I introduced it almost a year ago. At the time, I told David, Kate, and the family: This is something that should be a no-brainer. This is something we should easily pass. It was called Jessie's Law, after this beautiful young lady.

I will explain how the events unfolded, and then I will go into the bill. Her parents, David and Kate, traveled to Michigan for her surgery. They traveled to Michigan, and they told her doctors and the hospital personnel that she was a recovering addict. Jessie confirmed it. She said: Yes, I have struggled. I am clean. I am proud, and I want to get healthy. I want to get my leg injury fixed, and I want to run that marathon.

After Jessie's surgery, the discharging doctor, who said he didn't know she was a recovering addict--the parents were there when she was admitted. She told him. You would have thought they would have asked: Do you have any allergies, penicillin?

You would have thought they would have flagged it: I am a recovering addict.

They sent her home with a prescription for 50 oxycodone--50 oxycodone--because they did not know, because her records had not been properly identified, that she was very prone, being a recovering addict, to any type of opiate. There are other ways of treating pain. Not knowing, the doctor went ahead and released her with what a normal person would get for pain relief.

Needless to say, she should never have gotten that prescription--no way, shape, or form. We must ensure this never happens again. That is why today I am reintroducing Jessie's Law.

Let me tell you what I ran into. David and Kate accompanied her as the parents. They were with their beautiful daughter. They both confirmed that she had an addiction problem and she was recovering: Please, we want you to notify anybody who handles, anyone who dispenses, anyone who is working with Jessie. Please know what we are dealing with is very fragile.

I said: We will write the legislation. And we did; we wrote the legislation. If you have a consenting guardian, parent, and a consenting patient, it should be flagged. Because of privacy laws, we know we are very concerned about that. For some reason, I cannot get past the bureaucracy of getting this bill to the floor to be voted on because they are saying there is objection to the privacy laws with the parents' being involved. So guess what. I finally called David, and I called Kate, and I said: I know you would think it makes common sense that, basically, we should be able to pass legislation the way we would like to pass it--where the parents acknowledge it and the patient, who is their child, acknowledges it. They both are cooperating, and it should be done.

In order to try to get this piece of legislation passed as quickly as possible, we are taking off the parents. It is only the patient herself. Jessie comes in and says: I want you to know I am a recovering addict. Please make sure that everybody who handles my case knows that. That is all we are asking for. I am hopeful, Mr. President, that you and others will be able to join me because we don't want anybody in North Carolina going through what we have gone through in West Virginia or what the Grubb family has gone through, losing this beautiful, bright, talented young lady. It should never happen in this country.

Even the healthcare providers are saying: We need this legislation to go forward so we can identify that, so we can mark that, hotline that, redline that, and so that anybody who is handling Jessie from the beginning to the end, especially when they are discharged, is going to have knowledge. In no way, shape, or form will anybody prescribe an opiate or any type of addictive painkiller that they are going to be affected by, because their life has been changed by it already.

The bottom line is that we need to go at this problem from every angle with the help of everyone: family assistance, counseling programs, drug courts, consumer and medical education, law enforcement support, State and Federal legislation. We need everything. This is a fight we can't lose.

This is the first time in my lifetime that my State has fallen under 50 percent of adults of working age not working. We are down to 49.6 percent. We have always had the reputation of having some of the greatest workers--hard workers--giving you a good hard-working day for good hard-working pay. They have always been there. We just have too few of them. There are three things that keep you out of the workforce, basically: a lack of skill sets, if you are addicted or you have a criminal record, or a combination. Addiction has taken over and has basically changed the lives of Americans, changed the lives of West Virginia, and it is ruining families.

There is no way that her sisters and David and Kate, her parents, are ever going to get over losing Jessie. There is no reason they should have lost Jessie and no reason you should lose another North Carolinian--none of us. As to the situation where they are go in and they are identified by all the professionals with the help they need in the systems they are asking for, we owe that to every person in America, and we owe it to Jessie.

So I am asking for the cooperation of all my colleagues--the continuous support, tireless work that everyone has done. Jessie's death is heartbreaking and reminds us all that this is one death that could have been prevented and one death that should never happen again because of a lack of legislation that prevents us, because of the privacy laws, to identify a person that is in need.

If you are looking at addiction and happen to be looking at addiction as an illness, an illness needs care. If they need care, then we are going to give them the care to protect them while they are getting that care. That is all this does. I hope it is something we can do as quickly as possible. We will be forever grateful. In Jessie's memory, her parents are going to be forever grateful. Basically, Jessie's life will not be in vain. That is exactly why I am here. I am not going to sit still and lose a beautiful person who could contribute to society the way this young lady was going to contribute to society and say there is nothing we can do. We can do it and do it in her honor.

Mr. President, I rise again today to share the story of this beautiful young lady, Jessie Grubb. She is a West Virginian who passed away a year ago last week, and she was only 30 years old. She was a bright young lady with a great future ahead of her.

After years of struggling with heroin addiction, she had been doing very well. She had been sober since August of 2015. She had surgery for an infection related to a running injury and died a day after leaving the hospital.

Her story of addiction is known to many. We have told it many times here. Her father David, a former West Virginia State legislator who served with me, a friend of mine, shared their family struggle with addiction when President Obama traveled to West Virginia to bring attention to the growing opiate epidemic that we are all encountering in all of our States.

West Virginia has been hit the hardest by the opioid epidemic, where drug overdose deaths soared by more than 700 percent from 1999 to 2013. More than 600 lives were lost last year--just last year alone--to prescription drug overdose, legal prescription drugs.

Jessie's story and her family's pain are all too common in West Virginia and throughout this Nation. As I said, we lost 627 West Virginians to opiates last year alone.

When you think about it, this is a pill, this is a product that is manufactured by some of the most regarded institutions, pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country. It has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which basically says what we can use and what we should consume should be safe for us.

It is then prescribed by the most trusted person who is not in our family--and next to our family is a doctor. You would think that this is something that should be helpful for us, that should be part of the healing process. Instead, it has been part of the killing process. It has no home. It is a silent killer. We kept our mouths shut; we didn't say anything for many years, and now we have an epidemic on our hands, which we are trying to control.

We had 61,000 West Virginians who used prescription pain medications for nonmedical purposes in 2014. This includes 6,000 teenagers. As I have said, our State is not unique. The Presiding Officer's wonderful State of North Carolina is facing the same challenges we are.

Every day in our country, 91 Americans die from a prescription opiate or heroin overdose. Since 1999, we have lost almost 200,000 Americans to prescription opioid abuse.

Jessie's story deeply impacted President Obama, and I spoke with him about her death and the pain her family is going through. He reached out to David and Kate and the entire Grubb family. It is horrific.

When President Obama came to Charleston, Jessie was in a rehab facility in Michigan for the fourth time. Before her life was taken over by addiction in 2009, Jessie's future was bright. She was the beloved daughter of David and Kate Grubb, a beloved sister to her four sisters, and a beloved friend to so many.

She was an excellent student, scoring in the 99th percentile on all of her tests since she had been in education. She was a cheerleader at Roosevelt Junior High School, and she was an avid runner, an athlete.

At the time of her death, she was looking forward to running in her first marathon. She had been training for that. The only trouble she had ever gotten into at school was when she protested the Iraq war, and she was on the right side of that one.

Needless to say, she was a natural-born leader. After graduating from Capital High School, she was thrilled and looking forward to her bright future at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

She was sexually assaulted during her first semester, which caused her to withdraw from school and return to Charleston. The traumatic event that caused Jessie to turn to heroin to escape the pain was that horrific experience.

Over the next 7 years, Jessie would battle her addiction. She would overdose four times and go into rehab four

times. Until her death, she had been sober for 6 months and was focused on making a life for herself in Michigan. All of her hard work was ruined because of a careless mistake.

I introduced this piece of bipartisan legislation; everybody has been so kind on that. It makes so much common sense. I introduced it almost a year ago. At the time, I told David, Kate, and the family: This is something that should be a no-brainer. This is something we should easily pass. It was called Jessie's Law, after this beautiful young lady.

I will explain how the events unfolded, and then I will go into the bill. Her parents, David and Kate, traveled to Michigan for her surgery. They traveled to Michigan, and they told her doctors and the hospital personnel that she was a recovering addict. Jessie confirmed it. She said: Yes, I have struggled. I am clean. I am proud, and I want to get healthy. I want to get my leg injury fixed, and I want to run that marathon.

After Jessie's surgery, the discharging doctor, who said he didn't know she was a recovering addict--the parents were there when she was admitted. She told him. You would have thought they would have asked: Do you have any allergies, penicillin?

You would have thought they would have flagged it: I am a recovering addict.

They sent her home with a prescription for 50 oxycodone--50 oxycodone--because they did not know, because her records had not been properly identified, that she was very prone, being a recovering addict, to any type of opiate. There are other ways of treating pain. Not knowing, the doctor went ahead and released her with what a normal person would get for pain relief.

Needless to say, she should never have gotten that prescription--no way, shape, or form. We must ensure this never happens again. That is why today I am reintroducing Jessie's Law.

Let me tell you what I ran into. David and Kate accompanied her as the parents. They were with their beautiful daughter. They both confirmed that she had an addiction problem and she was recovering: Please, we want you to notify anybody who handles, anyone who dispenses, anyone who is working with Jessie. Please know what we are dealing with is very fragile.

I said: We will write the legislation. And we did; we wrote the legislation. If you have a consenting guardian, parent, and a consenting patient, it should be flagged. Because of privacy laws, we know we are very concerned about that. For some reason, I cannot get past the bureaucracy of getting this bill to the floor to be voted on because they are saying there is objection to the privacy laws with the parents' being involved. So guess what. I finally called David, and I called Kate, and I said: I know you would think it makes common sense that, basically, we should be able to pass legislation the way we would like to pass it--where the parents acknowledge it and the patient, who is their child, acknowledges it. They both are cooperating, and it should be done.

In order to try to get this piece of legislation passed as quickly as possible, we are taking off the parents. It is only the patient herself. Jessie comes in and says: I want you to know I am a recovering addict. Please make sure that everybody who handles my case knows that. That is all we are asking for. I am hopeful, Mr. President, that you and others will be able to join me because we don't want anybody in North Carolina going through what we have gone through in West Virginia or what the Grubb family has gone through, losing this beautiful, bright, talented young lady. It should never happen in this country.

Even the healthcare providers are saying: We need this legislation to go forward so we can identify that, so we can mark that, hotline that, redline that, and so that anybody who is handling Jessie from the beginning to the end, especially when they are discharged, is going to have knowledge. In no way, shape, or form will anybody prescribe an opiate or any type of addictive painkiller that they are going to be affected by, because their life has been changed by it already.

The bottom line is that we need to go at this problem from every angle with the help of everyone: family assistance, counseling programs, drug courts, consumer and medical education, law enforcement support, State and Federal legislation. We need everything. This is a fight we can't lose.

This is the first time in my lifetime that my State has fallen under 50 percent of adults of working age not working. We are down to 49.6 percent. We have always had the reputation of having some of the greatest workers--hard workers--giving you a good hard-working day for good hard-working pay. They have always been there. We just have too few of them. There are three things that keep you out of the workforce, basically: a lack of skill sets, if you are addicted or you have a criminal record, or a combination. Addiction has taken over and has basically changed the lives of Americans, changed the lives of West Virginia, and it is ruining families.

There is no way that her sisters and David and Kate, her parents, are ever going to get over losing Jessie. There is no reason they should have lost Jessie and no reason you should lose another North Carolinian--none of us. As to the situation where they are go in and they are identified by all the professionals with the help they need in the systems they are asking for, we owe that to every person in America, and we owe it to Jessie.

So I am asking for the cooperation of all my colleagues--the continuous support, tireless work that everyone has done. Jessie's death is heartbreaking and reminds us all that this is one death that could have been prevented and one death that should never happen again because of a lack of legislation that prevents us, because of the privacy laws, to identify a person that is in need.

If you are looking at addiction and happen to be looking at addiction as an illness, an illness needs care. If they need care, then we are going to give them the care to protect them while they are getting that care. That is all this does. I hope it is something we can do as quickly as possible. We will be forever grateful. In Jessie's memory, her parents are going to be forever grateful. Basically, Jessie's life will not be in vain. That is exactly why I am here. I am not going to sit still and lose a beautiful person who could contribute to society the way this young lady was going to contribute to society and say there is nothing we can do. We can do it and do it in her honor.