Floor Statements

Mr. President, I have only been in the Senate about 3 years, but you don't have to be too quick around here to figure out that it is pretty easy to attack and to oppose and to try to stop things.

I am fairly amazed at the number of people I see--and I will share some letters of people from Ohio, from my home State, about this health care bill and about what this means personally to them. I will do that in a second, but just putting aside ideological arguments and political attacks, these attacks that there is nothing good in this bill, it is a government takeover, it is socialism, it is putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor--the same argument the John

Birch Society used against Medicare we are hearing again. I hear those things, but I really never hear anything constructive.

They talk about the deals, forgetting about the deals they made when they were in the majority, which were huge giveaways to the drug companies and to the insurance companies and giveaways to the oil companies and to these big companies that outsource jobs to China. Whoever had their hand out, whoever the special interests were, they got what they wanted. Now I see my colleagues just shrink back and say how horrible all this is. Well, they have nothing to offer.

They say: Let's stop; let's work together; let's start with a blank sheet of paper and do this over. Well, they have no intention of doing that. We spent a year answering their objections, and we accepted 160 Republican amendments in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, amendments from Senator McCain, Senator Alexander, Senator Enzi, Senator Burr, and Senator Coburn--from one Republican Senator after another, one hundred sixty Republican amendments. It is never enough. They continue to oppose. But in the 8 years when President Bush was here and in the several years when they were in the majority in both Houses, the only thing consequential they could do for health care to insure the uninsured, to do anything, was to give hundreds--not tens of billions but hundreds of billions of dollars of giveaways to the Nation's largest drug companies and insurance companies.

Then I hear my Senate colleagues talk about we are blowing a hole in the budget. The fact is, the Congressional Budget Office--and the Presiding Officer understands this, because we all know the Congressional Budget Office is not comprised of Democrats or Republicans; they are not on our side or their side; they are simply accountants and lawyers and actuarial people who play this straight-- the CBO says this bill more than pays for itself.

I wonder, Mr. President, if this water we drink here causes amnesia for some of my colleagues because all of a sudden they are for balancing the budget. But in 2000, when President Bush took office, there was a budget surplus--a trillion-dollar budget surplus, year after year, as far as the eye could see--and we had tax cuts for the rich that they never even tried to pay for, and they never even tried to pay for the Iraq war. Even Senator Simpson, one of the most distinguished Senators of the Republican Party, who sat in this Chamber for 18 years, said in the paper yesterday: Never, to my knowledge, have we gone to war without paying for it. But they did that in those days, and I didn't hear my colleagues saying: Let's pay for this Iraq war, which cost us billions of dollars a month, month after month, year after year. When they did the Medicare privatization--the giveaway to the drug and insurance companies--they didn't try to pay for that either. But now they are saying we have to balance the budget. And I think we do, and I know the Presiding Officer and his constituents in Chesapeake and Arlington and Richmond think the same thing because we do need to balance the budget. But I find it curious, when the CBO says this actually creates a budget surplus--and they are not willing to believe them--that they were also not willing to pay for anything when they were in the majority.

But putting that aside, this bill is too important for that. It is too important to throw political accusations around. What is particularly important is what this bill means to individual Americans.

I hear my Republican friends talking about we are cutting Medicare. Yet this is the party that opposed Medicare, the party that tried to privatize Medicare. Yet they accuse us of cutting Medicare? I know nobody really believes that. They probably ought to quit saying it. It undercuts anything else they say because, as I say, nobody really believes that.

They say this bill was done behind closed doors. We had hearing after hearing, negotiation after negotiation, and floor debates. This has been going on, well, for 75 years, some would say, because Franklin Roosevelt tried to do it, Harry Truman tried to do it, John Kennedy tried to do it, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, who had some success between Kennedy and Nixon on Medicare.

Instead, my colleagues would rather talk about process and deals. In Washington, there is a buzz about process and deals, but in the country there isn't because people in the country know why we are here and why we are doing this. And as a result, Mr. President, let me take 5 or 10 minutes to read a handful of letters from constituents of mine because this is really why we are doing this. We are not doing it to score political points: This may help the Democrats or it may help Republicans win the election.

That doesn't really matter. It may help or it may hurt a reputation. None of that matters. What matters is this bill, and this matters to so many Americans.

I have read letters on the Senate floor for months now as we have debated this bill, and what is most common in these letters are two things. One of the most common things I hear from so many people is that a year or 2 years before they wrote these letters, they would have said: I am satisfied with my health insurance; it seems to work pretty well. Then something happened and they lost their job and then lost their insurance or they got sick and it was so expensive that the insurance company cut them off or they had a child born with a preexisting condition and they couldn't get insurance.

The insurance company model is why this is important, because of what it does individually for people. In a sort of macro way, think about how insurance companies operate. I have a lot of insurance companies in my State. I have no malice aimed toward them or their executives. I think their executives are paid too much. The CEOs in the average largest 10 insurance companies make $11 million a year. When they are cutting people off from their insurance, I think that is a bit of an overreach.

But I also think the insurance companies, because they compete with each other, in a for-profit model, do things they probably would rather they didn't have to do. Let me explain that for a moment. Insurance companies hire a whole bunch of bureaucrats to decide they do not want to insure potential customers. They look at all the new applicants, do tests, find out things about them, and these bureaucrats make the decision: We don't want to insure that person because that person has a preexisting condition and will get sick and it will be expensive. So they hire a bunch of bureaucrats to keep customers away. Then, on the other end, they hire a bunch of bureaucrats to deny claims of their customers when they get really sick sometimes.

So their business model is to keep customers away who are too expensive, too costly, and to deny payments for those who actually get expensive. That is their business model. That business model serves their profitability, to be sure, but that business model doesn't serve the American people.

So while we will continue to use private insurance in this country for health care--many countries in the world do, although no country uses private for-profit insurance. Many countries use private insurance to run their health care systems, in whole or in part, but they are nonprofit insurance companies. We will continue to use for-profit insurance companies, but we are going to have a whole set of rules around what they do. No more denying care for a preexisting condition; no more putting a cap on coverage so that once you get sick and get expensive, you could lose your insurance; people will be allowed to stay on their parents' insurance until they are 26--a whole host of things. Eighty-five percent of the insurance premium dollar must go to health care, not to executive salaries and marketing and to hire all those bureaucrats that the insurance companies do.

So that is the one thing mentioned by people in most of these letters, people who were satisfied with their insurance a year or 2 years earlier but then found out it wasn't such good insurance.

The second thing in these letters--and a lot of this comes from people in their early sixties--is many of them say they simply just need to hang on until they reach 65 and become Medicare eligible because then they will have the security and stability of something they trust.

As Senator Cardin of Maryland knows, government really can provide

health care, as it does with Medicare, as it does with Medicaid, as it does with TRICARE for all the Active military people in Maryland and Virginia and Ohio. Government knows how to do this and can do it very well. But this bill is not a government takeover. It uses the parts of government that run the insurance, that do the insurance now, but it is certainly not a government takeover.

Let me now share these three letters from constituents, and then I will turn it over to Senator Cardin.

This first letter is from Melanie, Erie County in northern Ohio, the county next to mine, along Lake Erie.

I have a health condition that requires me to be on thyroid

hormone replacement the rest of my life. But before my

condition was diagnosed, I had to undergo all kinds of tests.

And instead of being able to afford a 6 month and 1 year

prescription, I have to buy my pills monthly, depending if I

can afford them or not. We need a health care system that

doesn't let insurance companies decide whether I can afford

the medicine I need.

When someone is sick, they want to put their efforts into, how do I get well, not into, how can I afford this? Do I have to cut the pills in half? Do I have to take the pill every other day and hope that works out right? How am I going to pay for it this month?

There is a mind-boggling statistic that a woman in this country with breast cancer, without insurance, is 40 percent more likely to die than a woman with breast cancer who has insurance. Part of the reason for that is the anxiety and the fear people have when they are sick and trying to get well but who have to worry about so many other things in their lives and, most importantly, how are they going to pay for their medical treatment and how is their family going to deal with this. This bill will obviously help with that.

Here is a letter from John from Hancock County, Findlay, OH, not too far south of Toledo.

I am a 44-year-old diabetic who has had this condition for

43 years. Most people who know me thought I would never make

it past 25.

He was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 1, which is pretty astounding.

What my insurance company has done to me may make

bankruptcy my only option. In 2008, I needed a new insulin

pump. I filled out all the paperwork that was required by my

insurance company. I received my insulin pump via mail and

thought everything was all right. I received a bill from my

pump supply company for $8,500, along with the supplies to

use the pump for an additional $5,500. That is a $14,000 bill

that my insurance company said they would not pay because of

preexisting condition.

What is the point of health insurance? What is the point of a system where a man diagnosed as an infant with diabetes is faced with charges such as this, when diabetes is a terrible affliction that an increasing number of Americans have? We know how to manage it pretty well so that people such as John can live a pretty long, productive life. Yet the insurance company puts him through that. What will that do to his diabetes and health generally, to have to worry about how he is possibly going to come up with the $14,000?

Here is the last letter. It comes from Hayden, a young woman who is a Peace Corps volunteer from Delaware County, outside Columbus. She e- mailed us from Thailand, but she is an Ohioan.

I am thousands of miles away from you. I am far away from

family, friends, and my hometown of Sunbury, OH. I am a

member of the U.S. Peace Corps in Thailand. I believe I help

to provide for the common good. I am creative, courageous and

compassionate, and I believe my abilities can make a

difference. In 15 months I will return to the United States,

and I would like nothing more than to continue to work in

community development. But I might not be able to.

Unfortunately, my life depends on two pills, each no bigger

than your smallest fingernail. Without insurance, the cost of

these two small pills is often more than my rent. And I am

unlikely to get insurance unless I go to work with a large

company.

Too many of my friends are in the same situation. We are

young and bright, products of an American school system that

has taught us to think independently and pursue our dreams.

We want to be entrepreneurs, researchers, and community

activists.

We need the opportunity to start our own ventures, to take

responsible risks, and to go out into our communities--

Work to start businesses such as the Presiding Officer has.

I work everyday to give voice to those who have none [in

the Peace Corps]. But today I need you to be my voice. I need

you to speak for my generation.

So please let me come home--

She writes, to Delaware, OH, now working in the Peace Corps in Thailand; she e-mails:

. . . please let me come home to a system that is better

than the one we have now. My future depends on it.

She is serving this great country, the United States, in the Peace Corps is doing the right thing with her life. When she comes back to the United States, I hope this bill is passed. I hope the President of the United States has signed this bill, and we can be a better country as a result.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks on health care, Senator Tester be permitted to take the floor to talk about health care.

Madam President, I don't know where to start. I listened to Senator Kyl, whom I really do like personally, and respect, but I just hear so much. Of course, it is not just Senator Kyl; it is almost all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have just engaged in scare tactics.

First, they try to scare the middle class and scare people who have parents who are older by talking about

death panels. Well, that didn't work because nobody believed that. Some people believed it, but most rational people didn't believe it. Then they try to scare people who have health insurance by saying it is going to be taken away. Then they try to scare senior citizens by saying we are going to cut Medicare. Now--this is almost funny--they are trying to scare House Members. These poor, innocent House Members who can't figure things out on their own, we need Senate Republicans to tell them all about these House rules and Senate rules and reconciliation. It is a little bit funny but, again, it is not very funny because it is standing in the way of what we need to do for the American people.

I am particularly amused--again, probably a wrong choice of words-- when my Republican colleagues talk about cutting Medicare. Just look at the history. They have built careers trying to destroy Medicare. I haven't been around here since 1965 by a long shot, but I sure read about 1965. The Presiding Officer knows this history. She has talked to people in Charlotte and Winston-Salem. I have talked to people in Dayton and in other areas of my State about it.

In 1965, Republicans used the same arguments. They thought that Medicare might be a government takeover. Then, the John Birch Society made all of these claims about Medicare, as the tea party is doing today about this health care bill. It wasn't true. It didn't matter that it wasn't true. They said government bureaucrats were going to get between you and your doctor. That is what they predicted with Medicare, and that is what they predict now. It didn't happen. In 1965, half of America's seniors had no health insurance. Today, 1 percent of America's seniors have no health insurance.

It didn't just end in 1965 when Republicans in large numbers and these same insurance company interest groups--I might add, the Republicans' most important benefactor is the insurance industry. That is why they are coming to the floor acting as if they are defending seniors, acting as if they are defending the middle class and the poor, and health care. They are defending the insurance companies. That is the way they do it. Just as they defend the oil companies on energy legislation, and just as they help and defend the drug companies; just as they defend the drug companies that send jobs overseas, that is why they are against trade agreements. That is why they always support the oil industry in climate change and everything else. That is why they support the drug companies and insurance companies. They are their biggest benefactors. That is who helped them get elected, although don't say that on the floor: I am against this bill because the insurance company is against it. No, they try to scare the Medicare beneficiaries. They try to scare the middle class and rural constituents and urban constituents and suburban constituents. But it just doesn't wash.

Now they have brought in the student loan bill: We have to protect middle class, working class students so they can get student loans. No, they want to protect the banks. This is about: Should we give direct loans to college students or should we let the banks skim off and leave some of the money. Then they have the nerve to say the money we save in this will be put back into the government bureaucracy. No, the money we save by saying to the banks, no more skimming off student loans, no more taking your cut, giving worse service at higher interest rates, that money goes for Pell grants. So the money we take back from the banks--the decade of George Bush subsidies for the banks--is, instead, going to students so they can afford to go to college.

Back to the health care issue itself. I hear my colleagues so liberally--if I could use that word to define them--quote Lowen & Associates. Every time Lowen & Associates puts out a new study, they come to the floor and they ponderously and seriously say: Lowen & Associates says this bill--da, da, da.

Lowen & Associates is owned by United Health Care, which is one of the biggest health insurance companies in the country. So quoting Lowen & Associates on health care is like quoting the oil companies on energy legislation or climate change or quoting the drug companies or the Medicare giveaway to the drug companies bill. Just forget about Lowen & Associates. If they want to comment on something that has nothing to do with insurance, maybe they are reputable. They used to be reputable, but then United Health Care got them. Sorry. That is just the way it is.

With all of this, let's stop the scare tactics. Let's take a deep breath. Let's look at what this bill is about.

What this bill is really about is helping people who have lost their insurance, who have had insurance and found out it wasn't much good because of what the insurance companies did to them, as Senator Tester knows. He has people in Billings and in Helena and in White Fish who, because of a preexisting condition, lost their insurance or they got sick and then their illness was so expensive the insurance company said: We don't want to insure them, we want to cut them off.

I wish to share a couple of letters, and then I will turn it over to Senator Tester because this is what it is all about. They can talk about tax increases. They are wrong about it. They kind of make up some stuff. They can talk about budget-busting legislation. I am a little curious about their saying that because the Congressional Budget Office, which we kind of agree with--whether you are a moderate Democrat such as Senator Carper or a conservative Republican such as Senator Kyl or a progressive Democrat such as the Presiding Officer, we all agree that the Congressional Budget Office is pretty much reliable. They are not partisan. They don't cheat. They don't scam the system. They don't lie to us. The Congressional Budget Office says this actually pays for itself and then some. It will help to retire the budget in the first 10 years and do even better in the second 10 years.

With all of that debate, why does this matter? This matters because we have constituents in Wilmington, in Chicago, and in Butte, as I do in Youngstown and Toledo, who thought they had good health insurance and then they get sick and then they find out they didn't.

I have read letters on this floor since July from people who, a year ago, if you asked them, they would say: My health insurance is pretty good. Then they found out it wasn't because they really needed it. This tells the story, to me, why this is important. Forget the political side. Forget the accusations. Forget the charges. Forget the countercharges. Forget the philosophy. We need to help people and this bill does it.

Gwen is from Claremont County, a very conservative county. Her daughter is a recent college graduate who has been denied insurance. She writes:

My 22-year-old daughter is a recent college graduate. While

looking for a permanent job, she's working full time as a

waitress. Her employer will not give her health insurance,

and she can't stay on my policy because she is no longer in

college.

She takes no prescriptions and is one of the healthiest

young people you can find. One insurance company offered her

a policy for $750 a month.

I am a teacher and my husband has been unemployed for a

year, and even if he were working full time, we could not

afford $750 a month.

Our present insurance system decides who can have health

insurance at what price.

That's a moral and ethical decision no insurance company

should decide.

We know what this bill does. This bill says these pages sitting in front of us--they are not yet in college. They come home, they can't find a job with insurance, perhaps, when they are 23 years old-- although they are all so young and bright they will, but most people can't at this age. They are 23, 24. They come home from college. They have no insurance. Our bill says: You can go on your parents' insurance plan until you are 26. That takes care of that problem. That is barely debatable. That makes sense for Republicans and it makes sense for Democrats.

The second letter is from Tammy from Preble County, another conservative rural county. This one is; the other one is a conservative suburban county. This story is much more tragic. Tammy writes about her best friend who died in January at the age of 31 from cervical cancer. She was a nursing assistant, a single mother of five children. She worked her way out of low-income housing into her first home. When she couldn't afford health insurance, she was able to roll her children into Medicare. She writes:

By the time my best friend could afford health insurance

and went to a doctor, it was too late. She learned she had

cervical cancer and that it was spreading throughout her

body.

A woman with breast cancer in this country without insurance is 40 percent more likely to die than a woman with breast cancer with insurance. People say: Well, conservatives seriously don't want government involvement--whatever that means, even though Medicare works for millions. Conservatives say: Well, they can just go to the emergency room and get care.

If you have breast cancer, you don't go to the emergency room to get care. They will only take care of you right before you die or right before you have an episode. If you are a chronic asthmatic or have chronic diabetes, they won't take care of you in the emergency room unless you have an insulin attack or unless you have a terrible situation with your asthma or you can't breathe. They are not going to help you maintain your health so you don't end up in the emergency room.

That is what this bill is all about. This bill will prevent situations such as Tammy's friend. Pure and simple.

Thomas from Cincinnati is writing about his brother Jim who has been in hospice care after being diagnosed with lung and brain cancer less than a year ago. He doesn't have much longer to live. He wanted his story told, as Jim said, to anyone who would listen. He doesn't have health insurance and can't afford the cost of cancer treatment.

My dying brother is an example, and the countless stories

we hear from others are examples of why we need protection

from the insurance industry.

I have a lot of insurance companies in my State. I don't hate insurance companies. I understand they are in a situation where to compete with each other they have to have a business model. The business model is--if Senator Carper and Senator Tester and I run an insurance company, do you know what we all do? We hire a bunch of bureaucrats to keep people from buying insurance that might be expensive. If you are sick, and you are sick, and you are not, well, I don't want to insure you because you are sick. You are going to cost too much and affect my bottom line. Then they hire a bunch of bureaucrats on the other end for people who actually have insurance policies and get sick to deny their claims.

So this is a business model where you don't insure people who are sick and you try to slough off people who get sick whom you insure, and that is the way you make a lot of money. If you don't do that, you go out of business.

So I don't have any problems with insurance executives. They are paid too much, but I don't have any problems with what they do except their business model forces them to do this. I think they should come to us and say: Senator Carper, Senator Tester, Senator Brown, thank you for bailing us out from doing bad things because you are going to set new rules so we can't do that anymore.

It is outrageous that we have a system--we are the only country in the world that does this. A lot of countries have private insurance companies running their health care system, but they are private, not- for-profit insurance companies. They are not Aetna and Cigna and all of these companies that pay their executives an average of literally $11 million a year to the CEO. Why do we want a system where for-profit insurance forces these companies to keep people from buying insurance if they are sick, keeps them out if they might get sick, and denies them care if they do get sick. It doesn't serve the public interests, period. That is why this legislation is so important.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Yes.

Mr. President, there is already Medicare, which seems to work for a lot of people, and Medicaid, which seems to work for a lot of people. You have military bases in your State, as I do, one of the greatest Air Force bases in the country, and they have something called TRICARE that works pretty darn good. This isn't a takeover. This still allows lots and lots and lots of private involvement. But we have some government involvement in the health care system, I would say.

Not that I see.

They keep talking about our bill. Health care costs will go up. Health care costs are going to go up a lot faster. It doubled in the last 7 years, and it will double again, if we do nothing, in the next 6 or 7 years. Who is going to pay for that?

If you count accountability, still allowing them to cut people off for preexisting conditions, no. It allows them to keep abusing the system the way they have.

It is more and more expensive. If you follow what some of my colleagues want to do, they want to privatize it further.

To me it is. Clearly, if we do nothing, small businesses are going to get creamed, taxpayers are going to get hurt and, most importantly, patients.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak about a dear and trusted friend, not just for me and my family but for the people of Lorain County, OH. John Hatcher was a man of conscience and courage. His commitment to the highest ideals is unwavering, even in the face of criticism and attempts to silence him.

In large and small ways, John Hatcher has done more for the working men and women of Lorain County and organized labor than anyone else I know. John is a retired United Auto Workers member from the Ford Motor Company Ohio assembly plant in Avon Lake.

For generations, the plant helped build Lorain's middle class--the same way that American manufacturing built America's middle class. He has long held a position of leadership in the labor movement, and his loyalty to his fellow workers and to those who champion them has never wavered. He is still president of the Lorain County UAW CAP Council and a board member of the Lorain County Labor Agency.

He has chaired the Lorain County Labor Day Festival Committee for several years--an event that attracts thousands of Lorain County families to celebrate the accomplishments and heritage of organized labor. And every month, John finds time to deliver food to the elderly through the Lorain County Office on Aging.

For the many years I have known John--two-and-a-half decades, perhaps--he has been a fighter who is not afraid to stand up for what he believes. And as he battles cancer, John is displaying the same vigor, the same fighting spirit. Yesterday, hundreds of friends, families, and elected officials joined in honoring John with the Lorain County AFL-CIO Lifetime Achievement Award.

John said--and I was standing with him--``I haven't been out in the community much the past few months, but as the warm weather comes, I will be back out soon.''

In many ways, John's presence is always felt in Lorain--through the workers he has helped and for the causes which he has championed. He is a tireless champion for working men and women. He has made an invaluable contribution to the labor movement.

You never wonder where you stand with John Hatcher. He is the best kind of friend. He stands sturdy at your side in the highest winds, but is also willing to rein you in if you are getting too full of yourself. He is one of the kindest people I know, always greeting his friends with a twinkle in his eye and the hug of a man twice his size.

Of all his accomplishments, the hours of labor spent at the factory, in the union hall, or on the picket line fighting for others, if you asked John, his proudest achievement is being a devoted husband to Carol--one of my favorite people--and a loving father to 6 children, 13 grandchildren, and 7 great-grandchildren.

Thank you, John, for your service to the working men and women of Lorain County, for your service to the State of Ohio, and for your service to our Nation. Connie and I are honored to consider you our dear friend.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor Marilyn Roberson of Massillon, OH, a proud grandmother of five Eagle Scouts. This year, the Boy Scouts of America celebrates its hundredth anniversary of service to our Nation. Already this year, I have attended Boy Scout celebrations and Eagle Scout Courts of Honor across my State.

Around Ohio and our Nation, families and friends, community and business leaders, are celebrating Scouting's commitment to service, to protecting the outdoors--some of the original environmentalists--and to instilling the values of faith and fellowship.

Growing up in Mansfield, OH, a city of 50,000 in north central Ohio-- an industrial town--my parents instilled in my brother and me our own values of compassion and commitment to community. My two brothers and I are Eagle Scouts and my mother wore a charm bracelet representing each of her Eagle Scout sons. I always claimed my Eagle Scout emblem was larger than my brothers'. She always denied that.

In many ways, Scouting's commitment to family and community laid the groundwork for my years in public service--as it has for the Eagle Scouts now in elected office in this body--I think there are 6 others in the Senate--or executives in boardrooms, teachers in classrooms, or just model citizens everywhere in our country.

On March 20, 2010, the Boy Scouts of America, Venture Crew 10 of Massillon, OH, will hold an Eagle Court of Honor for five young men who will become Eagle Scouts. Among the Eagle Scouts will be Andrew and Timothy Bushman, who will become the fourth and fifth grandsons of Mrs. Marilyn Roberson to become Eagle Scouts.

Marilyn Roberson is now 86 years old, and like many of our role models she has taught her grandchildren the capacity for selflessness, and to have the confidence to serve with humility and honor. I knew Marilyn's late husband Al 25 years ago, when I first met Al and Marilyn and several of their children. Al grew up in Tupelo, MS, across the street from Elvis Presley, then moved north, started a business, was very successful, and always--always--Marilyn and Al and their children gave back to the community.

I congratulate Andrew, Timothy, their fellow Eagle Scouts, Ian Christopher McKinney, Mathew Michael McKinney, and Michael David Ternaux, for earning this important honor. I congratulate Eagle Scouts across Ohio--there are hundreds of New Eagle Scouts every year--for earning this

honor and taking part in a great American tradition, which asks you to live with honor and loyalty and act with courage and service.

It is a creed of common purpose and community service based on the Scout oath, ever present in the 12 points of the Scout law.

While each of you as Eagle Scouts will forever be an Eagle Scout, your accomplishments are not easily defined by the number of badges earned but, rather, the character and dignity you show in earning them. For Andrew and Timothy, that dignity has been shaped by your remarkable grandmother, Mrs. Marilyn Roberson. Thank you, Mrs. Roberson, for your dedication to your family and for your service to our great State and for the legacy you have created for so many.

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Secretary inform the House of Representatives the Senate is ready to receive the managers appointed by the House of Representatives for the purpose of exhibiting articles of impeachment against G. Thomas Porteous, Jr., Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, agreeable to the notice communicated to the Senate, and at the hour of 2 p.m., Wednesday, March 17, 2010, the Senate will receive the honorable managers on the part of the House of Representatives in order that they may present and exhibit the said articles of impeachment against the said G. Thomas Porteous, Jr., Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 455, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Con. Res 53 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I understand that H.R. 2314 has been received from the House and is at the desk.

I would ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:15 a.m. on Tuesday, March 16; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate proceed to a period of morning business until 12:30 p.m. with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; further, that the time until 10:30 a.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, and the time from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Tonight we were able to reach an agreement to set the vote with respect to the HIRE Act for 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 17. Tomorrow we will resume consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill, and rollcall votes in relation to the FAA bill are possible Tuesday afternoon.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for about 10 minutes under morning business.

Madam President, I came to the floor to talk about a young woman in Cincinnati, OH, but I guess I am just amazed at the amnesia in this body. I hear colleagues on the other side of the aisle say Democrats vote for spending to keep that gravy train going; that Democrats believe that job creation is always the government; that Republicans believe we have to get spending under control and how politically unpopular it is to vote to cut spending. I hear these things over and over, and I hate cliches but, you know the Yogi Berra line: ``It's deja vu all over again.''

I was in the House of Representatives for the first 6 years of this decade, and I saw what happened. What happened was my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--when one bird flies off the telephone wire, they all fly off the telephone wire--voting on issue after issue to bankrupt this country and to drive our economy into the ditch. In 2001, tax cuts for the rich, George Bush's tax cuts which went overwhelmingly to the richest taxpayers and, as the Presiding Officer from North Carolina knows, using reconciliation to drive these tax cuts through in 2001, 2003, 2005, bringing Vice President Cheney in so they not only used reconciliation, they had to bring the Vice President in, who is almost never here, as the Presiding Officer knows, to vote in passing that with 51 votes.

We had a surplus in those days. We had a surplus, and they took that surplus and they enacted tax cuts for the wealthy. Then they started the war with Iraq but did not pay for it. I disagreed with going to war. I voted against it. But at least we should have paid for it. They didn't pay for the war in Iraq and still have not.

Then they did this huge, tens of billions of dollars in giveaways to the drug companies and insurance companies, all in the way of privatization of Medicare.

So when I hear them preaching to me about Democrats want to spend money on unemployment compensation, or Democrats want to spend money on health care--such as COBRA, for those people who have lost their health insurance--or Democrats want to spend money on reimbursing doctors at a fairer rate for Medicare, they attack us for doing that yet they took a budget surplus and ran this economy into the ground by deregulating Wall Street, by cutting taxes on the richest people in this country, by turning the surplus into deficits to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.

We had projected in 2000 a budget surplus--projected--of $1 trillion. One trillion dollars is 1,000 billion dollars. We now have a projection of $1 trillion in budget deficit. They come here and they preach that Democrats should quit spending money on unemployment compensation because all these workers, they do not want to work, they want to receive their unemployment benefits.

Well, what somebody needs to explain to them, and perhaps my friends on the other side of the aisle do not know anybody who is exactly getting unemployment compensation because they spend too much time with people similar to us, wearing suits and hanging around places such as this and not enough time in places in Charlotte and Dayton and Winston- Salem and Cleveland, with people who have lost their jobs and talking about it.

But it is not unemployment welfare, as they would like to say it is, it is unemployment insurance. That means when you are employed, you pay into a fund, and when you lose your job you get money out of that fund. It is called insurance, unemployment insurance. They should remember that.

remembering esme kenney

Madam President, I would like to commemorate the life of Esme Louise Kenney of Cincinnati, OH, whose life was tragically cut short 1 year ago this past Sunday.

Esme was a bright, inquisitive, and spirited young girl with many talents and a limitless imagination and a boundless love for life.

She was an artist, a musician, an avid reader, an expressive writer, and a budding water-skier.

The beloved daughter of Tom Kenney and Lisa Siders-Kenney, the caring sister of Brian, Meghan and Frances, and a loyal and loving friend to so many, Esme touched many hearts in her short time with us.

From all accounts, Esme's compassion and enthusiasm always warmed the room and lifted the spirits of everyone she met. Her loving brother described her as a real ``people person,'' one who loved meeting people, talking with them, learning about them, and sharing her life with them.

For all of those whose days were brightened by Esme's radiant joy and love of life, this week marks an anniversary filled with sorrow and heartache.

One year ago, Esme's life was taken from her under tragic and horrifying circumstances.

The 13-year-old left the house one day to go for a jog, and would never return.

One man's rage and delusion resulted in the brutal and senseless murder of an innocent, virtuous, and loving child.

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that Anthony Kirkland, the confessed murderer, was already a convicted killer and registered sex offender when he committed this atrocity. He had served 16 years in prison for the sadistic assault and murder of another young woman.

My wife Connie and I extend our deepest sympathy to Esme's family, friends, and community during this unthinkably difficult time. We lost Esme a year ago, but I know she will be part of our lives always.

The recurrence of these horrible acts underscores the urgent need to review our criminal justice system, and that is why I join the Kenney family in support of legislation introduced by my

colleague, Senator Webb: S. 174, the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.

This bill would establish the National Criminal Justice Commission to undertake a comprehensive review of the current system and submit a report to Congress and the President that outlines findings and recommendations for changes in criminal justice policies.

Such action is vital to keeping our children safe. We must not be complacent in the face of such inconceivably violent and destructive acts as the crime that took Esme from us.

Mr. President, right now there is a meeting at the White House that is being covered extensively by the media live. There has been much anticipation about the meeting between the President and a number of Members of Congress, equally divided between the two bodies, the House and Senate, and the two political parties. It is a chance for both sides to listen to each other. The media has decided that by and large this is going to be unproductive. I watched a good bit of it today. At least people are

being open with what they believe and what they want.

There clearly are major differences between the two parties when it comes to health care. It goes back a couple, three generations. It certainly goes back to the mid-1960s, to 1965 especially, when the Senate and the House and President Johnson signed the Medicare bill. An overwhelming number of Republicans opposed it and an overwhelming number of Democrats supported it. It wasn't as partisanly charged as this, but it had the same interest groups around it, including the same insurance company opposition, the same accusations by--it was the John Birch Society then. Today it is the tea parties who oppose it. They didn't talk about death panels back then. Perhaps the John Birch Society wasn't as creative as are the tea party people, but they said it would be a takeover by big government of health care; the government would stand between the patient and the doctor. None of that has happened with Medicare. The kinds of accusations and charges and scare tactics used by the insurance industry and mostly Republican opponents in the 1960s to Medicare are very similar to the opponents to health care today.

So I say, setting the table, that there are major differences between the two parties. I was speaking to a couple of school groups recently, one from Lakewood, OH, and one from the University of Miami in Oxford, southwest Ohio. They asked about partisanship.

One woman said: I am neither a Republican nor Democrat--a young person, a 19- or 20-year-old college student. She said: I don't understand why they are blocking appointments, why you can't even agree on that, to even have a vote.

So the partisanship is surely more charged today than it has been. I explained to them it is not so much party as ideological differences; that Democrats are believers by and large in things such as Medicare, and the Republicans think: Let the insurance industry do it. That is fine. That is a legitimate philosophical difference. The Republicans side with the insurance industry, and the Democrats believe government can play a positive role--not an overreach but a positive role in people's lives by running programs such as Medicare, by running programs such as Social Security, by running programs such as student loans, agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency which has made our country significantly safer and people's neighborhoods significantly safer.

There are some people on the other side of the aisle who just want President Obama to fail. I don't think that is a majority of Republicans; I think it is some number. Let's ignore that for a moment and just think there are philosophical differences between the two parties. I say that because I think there is something more going on, and that is that on a lot of these issues there has been bipartisanship on this bill.

I sit on the Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. We did our work on this bill back in May. Clearly, this hasn't been rushed through the Congress or rushed through with reconciliation. The Bush administration, on their big initiatives, pushed them through quickly without nearly as much debate as we have had, but, nonetheless, we sat in the HELP Committee and--the Presiding Officer knows this--we accepted, I believe, 163 Republican amendments. I voted for probably 155 of them. I agreed with most of them.

At the same time, the Finance Committee had negotiations with three Republican and three Democratic Senators. I think they took too long-- that is my opinion--but the fact is, they had negotiations for months. There were discussions in May and June and July and August and September. Finally, Chairman Baucus, in frustration, said: Let's move forward. This doesn't seem to be working.

So there has been plenty of Republican input into this bill. There has been plenty of bipartisanship. As I said, there have been Republican amendments which have given the bill a Republican flavor and certainly a bipartisan flavor. There were a couple of specific matters. They wanted to allow health insurers to sell across State lines. We did that in the bill. The bill has provisions that allow a company in Indiana to sell insurance to residents of Ohio.

A company in Indiana can sell in Ohio, and a company in Ohio can sell insurance to somebody across the line in Fort Wayne or in Richmond or in Indianapolis or in Gary or anywhere else in that State.

So we listened to that, and we included that in the bill because that is one the Republicans always talk about: If you would only let us sell across State lines, that would be a great thing. That is what we did. We agreed to that.

The second big issue the Republicans talk about is allowing individuals and small businesses and trade associations to pool together so they can acquire health insurance at lower prices, much the way the large corporations and unions do. We did it. We set up exchanges that are basically clearinghouses of companies so that individuals can go into these exchanges and buy insurance and spread the risk out among millions of people. Or small businesses can take their employees--for a company that may have 25 employees, if one or two of them get sick from cancer, let's say, that small business will either--at best, that small business's premiums will go up and at worst they will get their premiums canceled. If two or three or four employees are sick and it costs tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, you can be in a risk pool with millions so your rates don't spike up. So the Republicans were right about that: Let them go into pools, and we did that.

So my point is, there is Republican flavor to this bill. There is Republican input--not just input, negotiations and successes--in this bill. There are 160 Republican amendments out of the HELP Committee in this bill. There have been almost unending discussions surrounding the bill. Yet the Republicans, to a person, oppose the bill. The only reason I can figure that out--not that it doesn't have bipartisanship to it--the only reason I can figure it out is what my colleague, Senator DeMint from South Carolina, said: If this bill goes down, it is the President's waterloo.

I don't want to accuse my colleagues on the other side of the aisle of wanting this to fail in order to have the Democrats fail or wanting this to fail to damage Barack Obama's Presidency. I don't think that. I am not accusing them of that. I just wonder.

I note the absence of a quorum.