Floor Statements

Mr. President, we have made great strides in recent years ensuring that Americans of all ages have access to quality health care. Part of this success comes from the Children's Health Insurance Program created in 1997 as a joint State-Federal health insurance program for low- to moderate-income children and pregnant women.

Because of CHIP, 10 million children, including 130,000 children in my State--most of whom are sons and daughters of working parents who are in low-income jobs and not making enough money to afford insurance and for employers that typically don't offer insurance--have access to health care today--health care they may not have received otherwise.

We know CHIP works not just in the number of children insured under the program but because of the flexibility CHIP provides States and the quality of care children receive. It works. It works for children, it works for parents, and it works for communities.

That is the good news. The bad news is, even though the law is on the books until 2019, the funding for CHIP will expire in September. That is why I am proud to introduce legislation today with my colleagues Senators Stabenow, Wyden, Casey, and Leader Reid to protect the CHIP program and to extend its funding to match the authorization until 2019.

The Protecting and Retaining our Children's Health Insurance Program--PRO-CHIP--Act is straightforward, it is common sense, and will provide much needed budget predictability for our States.

The Republican Governor of my State supports CHIP. He understands they need it in Ohio and across the country sooner rather than later so they can properly budget and plan and avoid gaps in health care for vulnerable children.

Again, these 130,000 children in my State alone are overwhelmingly sons and daughters of working parents who don't make enough money to pay for health insurance out of pocket, and who are working at companies and businesses that don't provide health insurance.

I am honored that 30 of our Senate colleagues have already joined as cosponsors. Providing health insurance to low-income children isn't just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. Children stay healthier, families function better, neighborhoods are better off, and children do better in school as a result, with fewer sick days. They feel better when they are at school because they have a family doctor, because they have health insurance.

We know it works. Listen to these numbers: Thanks to CHIP, the number of uninsured children has fallen by half, from 14 percent in 1997--when this bill passed with bipartisan support, and it has been extended and reauthorized a couple of times since--to a record low of 7 percent in 2012.

In nearly every State of the Union, Governors planning their State budgets and parents planning their family budgets are relying on us to extend CHIP now. We should not go right up to the deadline, as some are now talking about in terms of shutting the government down. We should not go up to the deadline but do it now. It would provide a sigh of relief for parents, not only for financial reasons but because CHIP means better access to comprehensive care for their kids.

Think about the anxiety parents face knowing they have insurance today under CHIP but not being certain they will have it this time next year. We should act together to protect this vital program that provides comprehensive health care coverage for 10 million children. States will start to roll back their CHIP program and funding for the program will expire at the end of September if we don't act soon.

This has always been bipartisan. It should continue to be. I look forward to working with all my colleagues to prioritize children's health and help pass this PRO-CHIP legislation as soon as possible.

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

Mr. President, this week we celebrate Salute to Veterans Week to honor all those who have served our Nation in uniform and their families who sacrificed so much for our country.

This week is a particularly appropriate time for us to reflect on the importance of fulfilling our commitment to all veterans. Just as we invest in and train our men and women during their military service, we must make the same investments when they return to our communities, hang up their uniforms, and embark on the next phase of their lives. This institution always seems to be willing to vote for money so we can send people to war, but is a bit less generous in taking care of those veterans when they return home. That should stop.

This morning I visited Eastern Gateway Community College in Youngstown and met with local veterans, including community college graduate Lisa Thomas. She graduated last May and is now pursuing a 4- year degree--after getting a 2-year degree--at Franklin University using her GI benefits.

Community colleges like Eastern Gateway are an important way we provide our veterans with the necessary skills to find decent-paying jobs. They serve as pipelines for veterans so they can attend 4-year universities.

The GI bill's education benefits are critical to investing in returning servicemembers. They help the veterans who have returned from war to learn new skills, and as a result these men and women have helped to build our middle class and led to our Nation's dominance in the second half of the 20th century and into this century. But veterans, as some find out unwittingly, have a limited amount of time before their GI benefits expire.

At crowded colleges, general education requirements and prerequisites often fill up quickly, and it can take several semesters for that veteran to secure a spot. Waiting for a spot in a required course is a luxury many veterans don't have because those veterans benefits could expire. If student veterans are unable to finish their degrees before these benefits expire, they may end up being forced to pay thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket tuition and fees. The veterans who served our Nation without delay should not face delays in getting their education.

Many colleges and universities--Youngstown State, which is the same place where the Eastern Gateway campus in Youngstown is located, is where many Eastern Gateway students complete their degrees. They offer veterans priority registration so they can get the courses they need before their benefits run out.

All of our colleges and universities--2-year, 4-year, public and private--need to follow Youngstown State's lead. If student athletes have priority registration, we can surely extend that privilege to those who have served our Nation. That is why in the coming

months I will introduce legislation to ensure that all veterans, all servicemembers, and their qualifying dependents can use their GI benefits to their full potential and be guaranteed priority registration. Our veterans have earned these benefits, and we must ensure that all of our veterans, such as Lisa Thomas, are able to take full advantage of those benefits for themselves and for their families. It is our duty to ensure that when veterans return home, they have the education and training and access to jobs they need to fulfill their potential. We have a duty to ensure that those returning from service to our Nation get the care they need when they come home.

As the first Ohioan to serve a full term on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have worked to ease the VA backlog and put in place a better system. The shortage of care providers has been especially pressing for veterans struggling with a brain injury--the so-called invisible injuries.

When our country went into Iraq a dozen years ago, our leader said that this will be a short war. Our country, our government, our administration, and our Congress failed to scale up veterans hospitals and veterans care and increase the capacity, and we now find it is too small. That is the importance of making sure we do this right.

Nearly 300,000 veterans in this country struggle with post-traumatic distress. Out of an estimated 300,000 traumatic brain injuries, there are 25,000 cases of mild traumatic brain injuries. These cases are hard to diagnose and document since there is often a lack of visible evidence.

Without proper care, each year some 8,000 veterans take their own lives--154 a week, 22 veterans a day commit suicide. What a tragedy. Last week I was proud to stand with my colleagues in this body in support of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act. I look forward to President Obama signing that bill later this week. It is our duty to take an active role in increasing veterans' access to quality mental health care, and the Clay Hunt Act will help ensure that those who put their lives on the line for us have a lifetime of their own upon returning home. We have a sacred trust between our government and those who protect us all.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today the House of Representatives held yet another vote--I think they are maybe up to 50-some--to repeal the Affordable Care Act, showing once again their objective is to dismantle the health care law. House Republicans voted to repeal the law. They like to say ``repeal and replace,'' but the ``replace'' doesn't ever really quite come forward.

Think what that would be like. It would take us back to the day when children with preexisting conditions such as cancer or asthma could be turned away from health coverage. Let me illustrate.

Several months ago a couple came to my coffee, which I hold every Thursday when the Senate is in session. It is open to anyone from Ohio who wants to stop in. A woman came from Cincinnati. She lives in one of the most conservative parts of the State. We talked for a few minutes about home schooling and her desire to be able to get some support from the Federal Government in a variety of different ways for home schooling.

Then she said: I want to thank you for the Affordable Care Act.

I said: Certainly. I was proud to support it.

She said: You see, my son--and she pointed across the room. He was about 15. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 7 or 8 years old.

She hesitated. She said: I counted them, 33 times, we were turned down for health insurance because of his preexisting condition. We signed up last week for the Affordable Care Act.

So if the House's effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act had come to the Senate and become law, someone would have to explain to her why she loses her health care. Again, if this is repealed, insurers could place lifetime or annual caps on health coverage. We know that tens of thousands of people in this country have gotten sick and their insurance has been cancelled because their insurance was so expensive. That is prohibited under the Affordable Care Act. That would be back if we repealed the Affordable Care Act.

Seniors were forced to pay huge out-of-pocket costs when they hit the gap in prescription drug coverage known as the doughnut hole.

A decade ago, when I was a Member of the House of Representatives, I voted against that Medicare plan in part because it had this huge gap in coverage. So if you have an illness or a series of illnesses and buy a lot of prescription drugs, between the second thousandth dollar and the fifth thousandth dollar, there is a gap in coverage. In other words, you continue to pay the premiums for prescription drug coverage but get no assistance from the government. Under the Affordable Care Act, we have closed that gap. We have already cut it better than half, and over the next 3 or 4 years it will be eliminated entirely. We know the Affordable Care Act is working.

In my State, 100,000 young Ohioans, a little older than these pages, between the ages of 18 and 26, are on their parents' health insurance plans right now. They would be dropped from that coverage if the Affordable Care Act were repealed.

Ohio seniors have saved $65 million in prescription drug costs by the closing of the coverage gap, the so-called doughnut hole. Those savings would end. Those with preexisting conditions would no longer be covered or would be

charged higher premiums, and 700,000 Ohioans--people in my State--now have health insurance they did not have 5 years ago.

So if we repeal the Affordable Care Act, somebody has to explain to those 700,000 people why they no longer have insurance, why those 100,000 young people are getting dropped from coverage; those families like the woman's who would lose her insurance because her child has a preexisting condition, and all the consumer protections the Affordable Care Act has been part of.

Last month I spoke with Charles McClinon, a Cincinnati resident who suffered from severe epilepsy and, as a result, was unable to work. After Ohio chose to expand Medicaid--and I give Republican Governor Kasich credit for that--Mr. McClinon qualified for health care coverage and was able to schedule surgery. Thanks to this lifesaving coverage, he has returned to work.

Isn't that what we want? If people are ill, injured, sick, don't we want to take care of them so they can return to work? Mr. McClinon never wanted to miss work, but he had to. Because of the expansion of Medicaid, because of the Affordable Care Act passed by a Democratic Senate, signed by a Democratic President, because of a Republican Governor in Ohio expanding Medicaid, unlike Republican Governors in many States, people such as Charles McClinon can now go back to work and live a healthier, more productive life and pay taxes.

Since its creation in 1965, Medicaid has been a joint Federal and State program, providing free or low-cost health coverage to qualified individuals. One of the key components of the Affordable Care Act expanded both the eligibility and the Federal funding for Medicaid. States were given the opportunity to expand Medicaid to individuals with incomes of up to 130 percent of the Federal poverty level. Many people on Medicaid who are now on the expanded Medicaid in Ohio and Kentucky and many other States hold jobs, just like the parents of the 130,000 Ohio children who now have insurance because of the Children's Health Insurance Program. Their parents are working at places such as Walmart and McDonald's, making $8, $9, $10 an hour. Those companies generally don't provide health insurance and don't pay wages high enough to be able to buy health insurance.

What kind of society do we want to be? Where people are working every bit as hard as all of us as U.S. Senators work, with very little compensation, without health insurance, generally without pensions?

Do we want to say: Well, we don't care about you? If you weren't smart enough, if you weren't educated enough, if you weren't smart enough to get a good-paying job with insurance, then we are going to turn our backs on you? Of course we are not that kind of society. That is what the Affordable Care Act is about.

The expansion of Medicaid has saved Ohio about $350 million. It also helped Ohioans who already have insurance. When people lack health insurance, someone has to pay for their care.

The Presiding Officer's State of Colorado is not much different, just smaller dollar amounts because it is a smaller State. But Ohioans spend over $2 billion on care for people who can't pay. It is a hidden tax on the insured estimated to be about $1,000 a year per insured family.

So prior to the Affordable Care Act, somebody who went to a hospital in Denver, Cleveland, Dayton or Colorado Springs or Pueblo or Youngstown--because those without insurance would go to hospitals and get care; that is what we do; we take care of people if they show up in an emergency room--because they were not paying, because they were low income, they were unemployed, and they had no insurance, the cost of their treatment got shifted onto those of us with insurance. Economists say pretty much everybody pays about $1,000 additional for their health insurance because of the problems of the uninsured. So when we expand Medicaid, when we pass the Affordable Care Act, when we get people into the health exchanges, it means we are not charging people that $1,000 hidden tax, so it is a savings to those of us with insurance. Ultimately it is better for taxpayers, ultimately it is better for our health care system, and ultimately, most importantly, it is better for a healthier society.

We should be helping Ohioans gain health care, not cutting them off. That is the importance of expanding Medicaid.

I urge the Ohio legislature to work with the Governor to include Medicaid expansion in the budget. I urge my colleagues here in this Chamber to end their grandstanding attacks on a law that is helping Americans such as Charles McClinon get the care they need. It helped him go back to work. It will help others live more healthy lives. It will help all our communities. We should be helping Ohioans gain health care, not cutting them off.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, 1 year and 1 week ago, on a cold, snowy morning in Cleveland, OH, not much different from what I woke up to this morning in Cleveland, OH, I attended the Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial Breakfast in that city, which is also my hometown. A minister at that breakfast said something that we all know but probably have not thought about and rarely put in such succinct, meaningful words. He said: Your life expectancy is connected to your ZIP Code. Think about that. Whether you grew up on the east side of Cleveland or Gary, IN, or whether you grew up in Appalachia, OH, or southern Indiana, or whether you grew up in a city, suburb, small town, affluent, less affluent, low income, rural, or urban, your ZIP Code often determines whether you have access to quality health care, to a good, solid education, and the social support that is necessary to succeed. It is up to this body to help ensure--not to do it and not to do it alone--that every ZIP Code is one that provides opportunity, not inequality.

Ten years ago, the ZIP Code where my wife and I live in the city of Cleveland had the highest foreclosure rate of any ZIP Code in America. Think about what that means for a 12 year-old-child of a family where the father gets laid off from work and the mother has her hours cut back. Even though they were doing everything right, they can't pay their mortgage. They sit down with their 12-year-old daughter and say: Honey, we are going to have to move, but we don't know where we are going yet. We don't know what school district you are going to be in, and we don't know if you will be close enough to be able to stay with your friends.

Those kinds of decisions happen far too often. Those kinds of scenarios happen far too often. But we know that in many ways we have made progress. Fifty years ago the poverty rate was 26 percent, and today it is around 15 percent thanks in large part to what people in this institution have done with social insurance programs, such as the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and today's Children's Health Insurance Program, so-called CHIP.

There was no greater champion in the Senate for children's health care than my predecessor, the Senator from West Virginia who actually sat at this desk on the Senate floor, retired Senator Jay Rockefeller. He helped to write CHIP in 1997. I was a member of the House Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee at that time. I believe the Presiding Officer sat on that committee when he was in the House many years ago. We worked on writing CHIP in 1997 when it was a joint State-Federal health insurance program for low- to moderate- income children and pregnant women.

Keep in mind that in most cases the children who are in today's Children's Health Insurance Program have at least one working parent in their family. CHIP provides health insurance to low-income families who fall into a coverage gap: They make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but they don't make enough to qualify for private insurance. Many employers don't offer the insurance. They don't make enough money and are not able to afford to buy the insurance due to the high copays and the high premiums they would typically face. Today's CHIP, the current CHIP program, bridges that gap.

I am honored to continue the fight to protect this program and ensure that Congress acts to extend funding for the current program before it expires at the end of September.

You may have noticed that I said today's CHIP, the current program. When CHIP started in 1997, it was a good program. It was started in the Senate by Senator Rockefeller, Senator Kennedy, and Senator Hatch. It was very bipartisan, and it passed overwhelmingly. Those of us who worked on it in the House--Congressman Billirakis and I, as leaders on the Health Subcommittee, and others--made sure that it was bipartisan and that it worked very well. But understand that over the 20 years of CHIP, each time it has been reauthorized, we made it better. We extended the benefits because we have seen where the coverage gaps are. We made it more efficient, we made it work better, we have kept the bipartisan nature to it, and that is why I referred to it as today's CHIP, as the current program.

Providing health insurance to low-income children is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. It is the right thing to do because these are families where the parents are working hard and taking responsibility but simply can't afford health insurance for their child. Today I was in Cleveland with a couple of people--Shonte Saunders and her daughter Amari. Ms. Saunders is a young woman with two children. Amari is 9 years old. Ms. Saunders told me she is working, raising her children, and she is in school studying to become a nurse at Cuyahoga County Community College. She is doing the right thing, but she said: If CHIP expires, I don't want to be in the position where I have to choose between taking my daughter to a doctor for an ear infection versus having to provide enough food to put food on the table, or a more serious illness or injury than that.

Why should she be subjected to that?

Listen to these numbers. Thanks to CHIP, the number of uninsured children has fallen by half. It went from 14 percent almost 20 years ago when Senator Hatch, Senator Kennedy, and Senator Rockefeller wrote this program in the Senate and Congressman Billirakis and I and others in the House wrote it to a record low of 7 percent. Because of today's CHIP, 10 million children--130,000 children in my State of Ohio alone-- have access to health care they may not have received otherwise.

Over the past week I met with parents across Ohio. I met with Jennifer Huit in Cincinnati and listened to her story. In Dayton, I listened to a family talk about what CHIP means to them.

Think about this: It provides a sigh of relief for parents like Shonte and Jennifer, and not only for financial reasons. CHIP means better access for preventive and comprehensive care. Too often, if you are right on the edge and making $12 or $13 or less an hour and don't have Medicaid, think about the choices you know you have to make. You can't take your child to the doctor if they are only kind of sick. If you had insurance, you would take her in. But she is kind of sick, and it may get worse, but you will only take her in if it gets worse because you really can't afford those out-of-pocket expenses. Think of the tension and the difficult life that people generally have anyway at that income level. Think of how much more difficult that is. CHIP-- which in Ohio is administered

through Medicaid--means that a child in Cleveland or Cincinnati or Gallipolis or Troy or Pickaway, OH, can see a family doctor when they need it, thereby preventing a costly ambulance ride and emergency room visit.

CHIP means a bunch of things. It means vaccines, shots, dental coverage, and better treatment if kids get sick. Think about this: It is not just the health care. It means they do better in school. It means they miss fewer days in school so they don't fall behind their classmates who perhaps have better health insurance. It means they perform better in school because they feel better. We know the stories of how a hungry or sick child can't focus on what they need to do in the classroom. CHIP means that children from Bowling Green will get the health care they need to become healthy, active adults.

We know that the current CHIP--today's 2015 version of CHIP--works not just because of the number of insured children under the program but because of the flexibility it provides States and the quality of care children receive.

Ohio's conservative Republican Governor supports CHIP. It is called Healthy Start in Ohio because the Governor and legislature have been given flexibility under CHIP to make it work for that State.

The flexibility that CHIP provides States is the result of 20 years of watching, observing, quantifying, and analyzing CHIP. We have had 18 years of experience in seeing what works best, and we have worked together to make improvements. As a result, under the current CHIP program, more children are covered and the coverage they get is better.

If we don't act, understand that CHIP--the authorization, the language, the law governing CHIP is in effect until 2019, but the funding for CHIP runs out in September of this year. You have to have both. You have to have the law governing CHIP--how it works, who is eligible, how the States have flexibility--but obviously you also need the money to implement it.

If Congress doesn't act now, first of all, Ohio, my State, would lose $146 million in Federal funds in 2016 alone, and the Presiding Officer's State of Indiana would lose tens of millions of dollars in CHIP funding.

We know another thing: Whether it is Governor Pence in Indiana or Governor Kasich in my State, they need the flexibility of knowing what Congress is actually going to do. We should not wait until July or August; we should reallocate money for CHIP today. If we don't act, parents like Shonte and Jennifer may not be able to get the quality, affordable care for their children as States would start to roll back CHIP programs.

That is why I will soon introduce legislation to protect the program and extend its funding so it runs out at the same time as the authorization--the roadmap, if you will, of how CHIP will work. If we let the program run out of funding, the number of uninsured children will increase, the quality of health care will decrease, and States will see a significant increase in cost-sharing services.

Providing health insurance to low-income children isn't just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. If the program works, it works for children, it works for parents, it works for communities, and it works for our great country.

I call on my colleagues to work with me to extend funding for the current CHIP program before it is too late.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the Children's Health Insurance Program. This Congress 20 years ago passed CHIP. It was an invention of Senator Kennedy and Senator Hatch, both Senators who cared a lot about what we do to help low-income children.

I was at Mercy Health Clinic in Cincinnati late last week, and early this week I was at Dayton Children's Hospital, talking to families who have benefitted from the Children's Health Insurance Program.

In the great majority of cases, the parents of these children have full-time jobs--often two jobs. They typically make significantly less than what we would call a living wage. They rarely have any kind of health insurance, although now they are entering the exchanges or perhaps Medicaid--more likely the exchanges--but their children are not getting health insurance except through CHIP. It has been around for 20 years, and there are about 10 million children in the United States who benefit from the Children's Health Insurance Program.

The Children's Health Insurance Program is law. It has been reauthorized up through 2019, but the funding for it expires this September. I have spoken with members of the Senate Finance Committee, including my colleague here, Senator Nelson from Florida, who has been a big supporter of the Children's Health Insurance Program. Senators Casey and Stabenow have been very involved, Senator Gillibrand, and as I said, Senator Hatch was one of the founders of this program, along with Senator Kennedy.

It is so important that we move as quickly as possible, in part because the States need to budget these dollars--this Federal passthrough--so that it directly goes to the Children's Health Insurance Program. There are a few things we can do that are even more important than that.

In closing, I will add that it is not just the right thing to do, to fund the Children's Health Insurance Program, it is also a smart thing to do because it means that parents will take their child who has an earache to the family doctor because they have insurance, instead of waiting a week, when the pain is unbearable, and taking that child to the emergency room and costing all of us more as taxpayers and perhaps causing that child some hearing loss.

In addition to helping these families with health insurance and saving money, it also makes a big difference in schools. The children are less likely to miss school and children will be better able to learn if, in fact, they have better health insurance.

We know that is the case for our own children. All of us here have government health insurance, if you will, as Members of the Senate, and it is important that we do what we ought to do for the Children's Health Insurance Program. It matters for so many families in North Dakota, the Presiding Officer's State, and my State of Ohio.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to honor a couple of people with Ohio ties who have dedicated much of their careers to public service, Rob Lehman and Luke Albee. Rob Lehman served more than two decades on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch most recently, and that is when I got to know and work with him as chief of staff to my colleague from Ohio, Senator Rob Portman. Rob Lehman served as chief of staff when Senator Portman was the U.S. Trade Representative, so he understands why trade and enforcement of trade rules are such important issues to a State such as Ohio.

He was helpful when Senator Portman and I testified together before the International Trade Commission on behalf of Ohio Steelworkers. Fortunately, in this case the ruling was on the side of Ohio manufacturers. In some cases China and now in other cases Korea have not played fair and have broken trade rules. Rob Lehman provided breadth and insight to Senator Portman on this issue and so many others that are important to Ohio during my colleague's 4 years in the Senate.

I wish to also honor Luke Albee. Luke is a native Ohioan and long time Senate aide. He is a Cleveland native and, like myself, a die-hard Cleveland Indians fan.

Luke Albee had a long tenure in the office of Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, rising from an entry-level position to become his chief of staff. He served in the same role--which he is about to leave--for my colleague Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. He began in Senator Leahy's office answering mail and later guided the office through the September 11 attacks, the anthrax discovery on Capitol Hill, and other memorable events while chief of staff--like a 5-hour dinner with Senator Leahy and Fidel Castro while on a trip to Cuba in 1999. Like Rob Lehman, Luke Albee likes to bring people together and reach common ground so the Senate can move forward the way it should.

I wish to also say a few words about another career public servant. He is not leaving public service, but he is leaving the chief of staff's position in my office. Mark Powden has been my chief of staff since 2009. He started with Senator Jeffords when Senator Jeffords was a Republican and then became an Independent.

Mark Powden grew up in Vermont, where he worked for his own State congressman and senator. Mark later became the staff director for the Republicans. In fact, he was the staff director for the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee as it went through its transition to a new name. He was with Senator Jeffords when Senator Jeffords switched parties in 2001.

Mark, as I said, has served as my chief of staff for more than 6 years now and will move over and be the staff director for the banking committee. At the same time, he will take with him Graham Steele, who served ably as my legislative assistant, and will also take his assistant Megan Cheney to the banking committee. Graham will be chief counsel, and Megan will be a legislative aide in the Senate banking committee.

My thanks especially to Mark Powden for the terrific work he has done as my chief of staff, and I am thrilled he is going to stay with me to do the very important job of staff director as I become ranking member of the Senate banking committee.

Mr. President, tomorrow, Friday, January 30, is Earned Income Tax Credit Awareness Day. It is a day to highlight a vital tool for Americans working--and I emphasize ``working''--their way out of poverty.

Too many Americans work hard, play by the rules, take responsibility for their lives, but simply can't get ahead. They are in low-wage jobs--sometimes two low-wage jobs--and don't really have much opportunity where they live or due to their circumstances to get a job that pays closer to a living wage. There are millions of Americans living in this situation. The EITC helps provide for their children, to build economic security to allow them to pursue the American dream.

Signed into law in 1975, expanded by every single President since then, the EITC was created to make sure we have a tax system that provides an incentive to work. That is what it has done.

EITC's expansion in the 1990s led more than half a million single mothers to move from cash welfare assistance to work, making it twice as effective--without the side effects, I might add--as welfare reform. Since its creation, EITC has lifted more children above the poverty line than any other government program.

I will emphasize that it rewards work, most importantly. In 2012, 28 million American households--almost 1 million from my State of Ohio-- benefited from the EITC with an average credit of more than $2,300.

I met Juanalicia Duran in Cleveland last year. She told me she lives paycheck to paycheck not because she overspends, not because she is irresponsible, but simply because she does not make a lot of money. She said receiving the EITC is the one time of year

she pays off her bills. She is barely making it, getting a little bit behind week after week, month after month, then she gets that check of--I don't know how much Juanalicia Duran gets, but on average she gets a check for a little over $2,000. It helps her to pay her bills and maybe get a little bit ahead.

Rosa Olea of Toledo works as a manager of a fast food restaurant and makes $9.35 an hour. Imagine that--a manager of a restaurant making $9.35 an hour. She said her family struggles to pay bills. The EITC has been a lifesaver since she found out about it through her local VITA center.

There are thousands of stories like this, and we hear hundreds and sometimes thousands of them from Ohioans.

In last week's State of the Union Address, President Obama laid out plans to reform the Tax Code by making the current earned-income tax credit and child tax credit permanent by expanding credit for middle- class families to raise children and save for retirement. Some in this town responded--not surprisingly--by saying that reforming the Tax Code starts with cutting taxes for big business. Think about that.

Most of the time, I hear people in this town--people with good titles, paid well, dressed well, getting a good government pension and health care benefits--say that the first thing we need to do with tax reform is lower the corporate tax rate. It is all about trickle-down economics. You cut taxes on big companies, you cut taxes on the wealthy, and maybe it will trickle down and help workers and families.

Well, the experience of the last 25 years doesn't really say that. The one time we tried trickle-down for a decade--from 2000 to 2010--we had no net private sector job gain in this country. Zero. But when we tried focusing on the middle class and growing the economy from the middle out during the Clinton years, we had a 22-million--it may have been almost 23 million--private sector net increase in jobs. And since the auto rescue, when we have focused on the middle class for the last 5 or 6 years by building the economy out, we have had job growth for 56 or 57 months in a row.

If we are going to reform the Tax Code, we need to draw a line in the sand: No tax breaks for corporations without tax breaks first for working families.

There is one glaring hole with the earned-income tax credit. Under current law, workers without children who are making minimum wage barely receive any EITC. Childless workers under 25 don't qualify at all. That makes young people and workers without children the only group who can be taxed deeper into poverty.

My State of the Union guest was Jason Jacobs, a Cincinnati resident and paraprofessional. He is a college graduate. He went to Ohio University. He has a degree to teach. He has not found a full-time teaching job. He is a paraprofessional in the West Clermont School District who works with special needs students and does the kinds of things people should be rewarded for. Last year he made less than $16,000. I believe he is paid hourly. He is obviously not paid in the summer. He is not paid on nonschool days. Because he doesn't have children, he will miss out on this critical tax credit.

That is why my legislation, the Working Families Tax Relief Act, will nearly triple the size of the earned-income tax credit for workers without children, expand access to young workers, and will make permanent enhancements to the EITC to 2017.

We know what this will do. We know that children from low-income families where the families are eligible and qualify and earn the EITC--and I say earned the earned-income tax credit. That is why it is called earned--because these are always working families who are playing by the rules, doing the right thing, and taking responsibility. We know that children from families who have earned the EITC have higher test scores, higher high school graduation rates, and higher college attendance rates. Expanding EITC means more people attending college and more people getting GEDs. It means working more hours and higher salaries. Why wouldn't we invest in the earned-income tax credit? It means stronger communities.

If we fail to act to renew the provisions that expire in 2017, 50 million Americans would lose all or part of the EITC and CTC--50 million Americans who are doing the right thing. They are working hard and taking responsibility for their lives. We would just give up on them? We would be glad to do corporate tax breaks, but we would give up on the 50 million working Americans?

Sixteen million of them--including 8 million children, if we don't renew--will be pushed into poverty or deeper into the poverty they are already in. It is the worst kind of class warfare aimed at working families. These workers need help to get out of poverty, not to be taxed into it.

Renewing the expanded EITC will help so many people in this country. It is not just the right thing to do; it is the smart thing to do because it will bring more wealth to our communities. They will spend the money locally. It will help small businesses, and it will make a big difference in a lot of lives.

While we work to renew and expand this program, I encourage Ohioans who may be eligible for the EITC to visit the IRS Web site irs.gov or call 1-800-906-9887 or find a local Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Center, VITA. It is a vital and free resource for working families.

To receive EITC, all you have to do is file your taxes. That is it. You have earned it; just ask for it. Spread the word about EITC. It is a bridge out of poverty and serves millions of American families across Ohio and across the Nation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak on H.R. 26, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program. I thank Senator Crapo, and I appreciate and enjoy the relationship we have had over the last 8 years since I joined the banking committee. He was already a relatively veteran member of that committee and very knowledgeable and very straightforward and fair. I appreciate his work, especially on this legislation.

I support the reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, and I did not want it to expire in December. Many of us on both sides of the aisle in the Senate worked to try to get this reenacted in December. Unfortunately, because of partisan games in the House of Representatives, it didn't happen. But that is why I voted for TRIA reauthorization, S. 2244, in the banking committee last June. I supported the bill that the full Senate passed in July by a strong vote of 93 to 4. S. 2244 made important reforms to TRIA in order to gain bipartisan support, but it still provided long-term certainty in the marketplace.

What was unfortunate was that last fall the House Republicans were unable to embrace the Senate bill--similar to immigration, if you will--that had broad bipartisan support. They waited until the last days of the last Congress to engage the Senate in an effort to reauthorize TRIA. The situation could be dangerous if it is unauthorized. Fortunately, we will be able to move today and get this to the President pretty quickly and at least protect our cities and our communities and our people.

While the TRIA provisions the House and Senate eventually agreed on went further than I would have liked, they represent a compromise-- something we obviously don't see enough around here these days. Ultimately, though, the swap end-user provision that was added by House leadership to the TRIA bill at the last moment was not a compromise. It was moving in a different direction. It was a weakening of Dodd-Frank. It was not the way this Congress or any Congress should enact legislation and should proceed. That end-user provision did not go through regular order in the Senate. The committee held no hearings and no markups to consider its merits or its demerits. This bill was never brought to the Senate floor to be debated.

That is what people, whether in Florida or Idaho or Ohio, are unhappy about--legislation that needs to pass, things for which there is strong, bipartisan, across-the-board, almost unanimous support, and then special interest groups get provisions in that don't belong there that were not debated and never discussed.

Unlike TRIA, the swap end-user provision is controversial and overrides regulators' proposed rules. It prevents future regulatory flexibility. It allows another avenue for derivatives risk to build up in the financial system.

These actions of inserting this provision in legislation with overwhelming, almost unanimous support--adding these kinds of provisions simply doesn't work for our system. It is not the way we should be legislating. It begs the question, Did we learn nothing less than a decade ago? We know what happened to our financial system. The greed on Wall Street and the pain it caused on Main Street in Boise, Pocatello, Columbus, and Cleveland was pretty hard to measure.

The financial crisis exposed risks in all areas of the market, and the provisions in Wall Street reform target dangerous exposure in the system by strengthening protections using clearing and margin requirements.

Under Wall Street Reform, commercial end users are exempt from clearing requirements, and regulators have provided them with accommodations from margin requirements, recognizing the business- related need of the companies.

The end-user legislation added to the TRIA bill goes above and beyond the existing law and the existing rulemaking and could tie regulators' hands in the future if excessive risks were to develop, thus exposing the financial system and taxpayers to more harm.

In just one example that this end-user provision could cut both ways, 2 days before Christmas Reuters reported that ``major U.S. airlines including Delta and Southwest are rushing to finance losing bets on oil and revamp fuel hedges as tumbling crude prices leave them with billions of dollars in losses, according to people familiar with the hedging schemes.''

We know most of us are thrilled with the price of gasoline at the pump going significantly below $2 a gallon. We know there are other people who are a little bit less thrilled, as this story illustrates with Delta and Southwest. We know the economy of Texas and North Dakota have had problems because oil revenues declined. We know all of that, but we also know that when you enact provisions such as this that aren't debated and aren't discussed, that haven't had hearings, there could be unforeseen consequences.

Less than 7 years after the financial crisis, we shouldn't forget the risks involved. Let's not forget the impact of the financial crisis on consumers, investors, taxpayers, and the financial system as a whole. What we do here has impact in Omaha and in Cleveland, and it is important that we really understand what we are doing by going through regular orders. Slipping this provision in the TRIA bill is just the latest Republican effort to roll back Wall Street reform.

In December, we know the same cast of characters attached an effective repeal of section 716, the Lincoln amendment, to the end-of- the-year spending bill. Yesterday they tried--and thankfully failed--to pass a bill consisting of 11 smaller bills that included attempts to weaken a number of important Dodd-Frank provisions.

I don't like the way this has been done today. I want to see TRIA pass. We have seen this movie before. We will keep seeing it over and over again. This seems to be the new Wall Street playbook. It seems to be the new Republican playbook. I hope it is not the Senate leadership's playbook, where you take a bill that most people like, that has pretty much overwhelming support, is a must-pass bill, and you help Wall Street and Wall Street lobbyists get provisions in, and they can weaken consumer protections. Consumer protections rules on Wall Street will keep Wall Street safer so we don't have to have another Federal bailout.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I will be no more than 3 minutes.

I wish to make a short response to my friend from Idaho that the issue here is more about process than substance. We have slight disagreement on substance, partly from the delta issue. I understand the farmer and rancher in Idaho and the farmer in Ohio and the importance of managing risks.

I was also a bit amused by the examples he used of manufacturers, those same manufacturers who came in front of our committee that produce beer or soft drinks that were paying more for their metals, for their aluminum cans because of the overreach in some commodities from some Wall Street firms. But this is not the time to debate that.

The issue is really the process of this change. I was part of legislation with Senator Collins and with Senator Johanns in the last session. It was a lengthy process. Senator Crapo supported our efforts in committee and beyond.

It was a slight change to Dodd-Frank. It was a change that we did cautiously. We made agreements and compromises. We brought in Sheila Bair, who had helped in some of the crafting of the language with the Collins amendment.

We worked with her, we worked with Senator Collins, we worked with Senator Johanns, and I started the process. Senator Collins became the lead sponsor of it--the compromise through hearings in both Houses and hearings in the Senate banking committee. There were discussions in both Houses. We eventually came to that agreement with a free-standing bill.

That is the way this should be done. I would be happy to have a debate on the end-user provision with Senator Crapo, Senator Shelby, and the rest of us. Then we come to a conclusion, we get compromise, and we move forward.

The lesson, before Senator Coats gives his comments, is let's do this in the future the way we did--Senator Collins, Senator Brown, and Senator Johanns last year, and do this right so all sides can be represented, we come to a compromise, and the stand-alone bill goes to the President.

That is the way this should have been done, and I am hopeful that is the way it will be done in the future.

I yield the floor to Senator Crapo and Senator Coats.

Madam President, I thank the Democratic whip for his comments. I was part of a group, with Senator Leahy, Senator Whitehouse, and Senator Flake, who worked on this. The credit overwhelmingly goes to Congressman Van Hollen and Senator Durbin and Senator Leahy in the negotiations and discussions the administration had. It was so important.

I also appreciate the opportunity to be a cosponsor of Senator Durbin's resolution. I mentioned to him that one of the most intriguing and most admirable things Pope Francis has said as he travels the world and ministers to the poor and talks to his flock--one day he exhorted his parish priests to go out and smell like the flock--a good admonition to all of us to make sure to go out and know how people live their lives so that we can minister to them and govern this country better. So I appreciate Senator Durbin's words.

Senator Durbin is right about that.

Madam President, before putting us in a quorum call, I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided between both sides.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, how much time is left on both sides?

Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from New York. I thank him for his leadership for a number of years on this bill and the hard work he did leading up to December to try to get this passed before the unfortunate response of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, and I thank him for his leadership.

Mr. President, in his first legislative message to the 89th Congress in 1965, 50 years ago I believe this month, President Johnson laid out what would become a key marker in the legislative fight for Medicare and Medicaid. Ultimately, the bill was passed in July 1965. President Johnson signed it in Independence, MO, I believe at the home of former President Truman.

President Johnson, in his legislative message to the House and Senate in 1965 said:

In this century, medical scientists have done much to

improve human health and prolong human life. Yet as these

advances come, vital segments of our population are being

left behind--behind barriers of age, economics, geography or

community resources. Today, the political community is

challenged to help all our people surmount these needless

barriers to the enjoyment of the promise and reality of

better health.

Fifty years later we have made historic improvements to our health care system, thanks in large part to a couple of things: No. 1, medical research, funded both by taxpayers and often by drug companies, foundations, universities, and others; and No. 2, because of social insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Before the passage of Medicare--listen to these numbers--30 percent of our Nation's seniors lived below the poverty line, only half our Nation's seniors--at this time 50 years ago, early in 1965, had health insurance, and insurance usually only covered visits to the hospital in those days.

Now, thanks to Medicare, 54 million seniors and people with disabilities have access to guaranteed health care benefits.

Let me share a letter a constituent named Donald, from Toledo, OH, wrote to me last Congress, when the House of Representatives threatened to turn Medicare into a voucher program as part of its budget proposal. Donald wrote:

Thank you for your efforts to keep Medicare from being

privatized. At the age of 63, I am going to be eligible for

Medicare before too long and looking at the affordability of

health care is critical. If Medicare is privatized, we will

not be able to afford it any more than we can afford private

insurance today.

That is the whole point. The reason there is a government health care program, the reason there is social insurance, is because people, as in 1965, only half the people in the country had any kind of health insurance.

It is a little disconcerting to know that after working all

our lives and living comfortably, that in our retirement

years we will either have to try to find full-time employment

to be in a position of affording Medicare, privatized

Medicare. I am sure I don't need to tell you how difficult

finding a job is these days when you are an older citizen.

I know normally I am writing you from the opposing side,

but this time we definitely see eye to eye.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 150 or 160 years ago, said that history has always been a fight between conservators and innovators. There is a legitimate place in society for both, creating the tension that moves our country one way or the other. Conservators want to protect the status quo. They want to preserve privilege and want to hold on to their wealth. Conservators fundamentally don't believe the government should be involved in ensuring a decent standard of living. Innovators--what we might call today progressives--understand our society is only as strong as its most vulnerable members.

If we go back to the key congressional votes--the key congressional votes, not necessarily final passage--to advance debate of a Medicare bill in 1965, most Republicans voted no. Then it was the John Birch Society that opposed it. Today, 50 years later, it is the tea party that opposes social insurance.

Some of the most privileged interest groups in Washington opposed the creation of Medicare. But they were wrong. As I said earlier, 30 percent of seniors lived below the poverty line prior to Medicare. Medicare helped to cut the poverty rate in half by 1973, only 8 years after its passage.

We see the same attacks today. Budgets proposed in the House of Representatives over the past several years have tried to dismantle Medicare, by and large by privatized vouchers, to help offset the cost of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. They would privatize the program and undermine its guaranteed benefits.

Ohio's seniors have worked hard, they have paid into Medicare, and they deserve a program that truly meets their health care needs. They deserve better than the underfunded voucher that would put them at the mercy of the private insurance industry. Thankfully, we have been able to block this plan in the Senate. We will continue to do that.

Interestingly, the Affordable Care Act has provided significantly enhanced benefits for Medicare beneficiaries. In my State alone more than 1 million Ohio seniors have gotten free--meaning no copay, no deductible--preventive care benefits under the Affordable Care Act.

If you are on Medicare and your doctor prescribes an annual physical or asks that you be given an osteoporosis screening, a diabetes screening--all the things doctors order for their patients for preventive care--those are provided under the Affordable Care Act and under Medicare, no copays, no deductible.

Many of the efforts to privatize and voucherize Medicare mean taking away preventive care, taking away prescription drug protections added to Medicare under the Affordable Care Act. Others want to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.

I was in Youngstown, OH, a couple of years ago at a townhall. A woman stood up and said: I hold two jobs, and I am barely making it.

I think the two jobs were close to minimum wage, so she was probably making $8 an hour in one and $8.50 in the other. She was a home care worker and doing something else. She had tears in her eyes.

She said: I am 63 years old. I need to stay alive until I can get health insurance.

This was maybe 5 years before we passed the health care law. Imagine being 63 years old and your goal in life is just to find a way to stay alive so you can have health insurance.

Some geniuses in the House and maybe in the Senate think it is a good idea to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. Just because we dress like this and have jobs that aren't all that physical other than walking back and forth from our offices to the floor, just because we have this kind of lifestyle and just because we are privileged enough to get to dress like this and get paid well and get to do these incredibly privileged jobs as Members of the Senate--there are a whole lot of people in this country whose bodies won't last until they are 67. They can't work until they are 67 to get Medicare. They are working at Walmart, standing on floors all day, they are home care workers, they are working at fast food restaurants, they are construction workers.

Both my wife's parents died before the age of 70 in large part because of the work they did, the kind of heavy, strenuous work, and the chemicals they were exposed to and all that. So when I hear my colleagues propose to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67--and I know they say we can't sustain these entitlements, whatever that means. What they really want to do is raise the eligibility age. To raise the eligibility age for Medicare to 67, they need to take Abraham Lincoln's advice. His staff wanted him to stay in the White House and win the war, free the slaves, and preserve the Union. President Lincoln said: No. I need to go out and get my public opinion bath.

What did he mean by that? He meant: I have to go out and talk to people. So when I hear Senators say they want to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67--whether they are in Gallipolis or Troy or Zanesville, OH--when I hear people say they want to raise the retirement age or the Medicare eligibility age--what I think when I hear Senators say that is they are not out talking to real people.

We know we can do a number of things to improve and strengthen these programs so future generations can continue to move into retirement years with a sense of security.

Last Congress I was an original cosponsor of the Medicare Protection

Act, which would make it difficult for Congress to make changes that would reduce or eliminate guaranteed benefits or restrict eligibility criteria for Medicare beneficiaries. With several of my Senate colleagues, I will submit a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, a reminder that these programs must be protected, not weakened, not rolled back, not undercut, not privatized, not voucherized--if that is a word--a reminder that all these programs must be strengthened.

As we move forward in protecting social insurance, we should remember President Johnson's words when speaking to the House and the Senate 50 years ago: Whatever we aspire to do together, our success in those enterprises--and our enjoyment of the fruits that result--will rest finally upon the health of our people.

Mr. President, I think it is important to understand that TRIA is legislation that we need, which is the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. We passed a bill with only two or three ``no'' votes in the Senate last year. But what the House of Representatives has done looks like what they will probably do in the future: They have taken legislation which is really important to the country, which passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis, and they have loaded on to that legislation extraneous provisions.

Frankly, that is what people in this country are tired of--when legislation that must pass and has overwhelming support is about to pass, special interest groups come and add their language to it. That is exactly what happened here. If the House of Representatives gets its way, if Wall Street gets its way, it is the first step to begin to slice away at the Dodd-Frank legislation.

When I hear a number of my colleagues in this body and down the hall in the House of Representatives say they support progrowth policies and deregulation, what they are saying is they want to roll back the protections for consumers in Dodd-Frank, the Wall Street reform bill, and they want to weaken the provisions in the rules that govern Wall Street behavior. I don't quite understand it because what I do understand is less than a decade ago, because of Wall Street greed, because of Wall Street overreach, because this body and the body down the hall weakened the rules on Wall Street, and because the previous administration appointed regulators who would really look the other way, we had terrible damage done to our economy. About a mile north of the ZIP Code I live in in Cleveland had the highest number of foreclosures of any ZIP Code in the United States of America because of deregulation, because of Bush appointees to many of the bank regulatory bodies.

So I caution my colleagues, as we accept this legislation, the TRIA legislation--and I assume we will--to understand that is not going to be behavior that we are going to sanction in the Senate, where they take must-pass legislation and they find ways to attach to this legislation rollback of consumer protections and weakening of Wall Street rules. That is what got us into this. We can't let these special interests who have so much power in the House of Representatives, who have so much influence in the House of Representatives--we can't let them have their way on legislation like this.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.