John Barrasso

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. I ask unanimous consent that the time in the quorum call be equally divided between both sides.

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I rise today to share my concerns as well about Iran and to express my support for tough sanctions against Iran. Iran poses a threat to the United States as well as to the international community. It continues to support terrorist organizations around the world, including Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran has also called for the destruction of the democratic State of Israel. These actions illustrate Iran's destructive intentions. Iran continues to pursue nuclear capabilities. While Iran claims its nuclear programs are intended for civilian use only, this is very difficult to believe. In fact, reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency of February of 2008 and May of 2010 question Iran's claim of pursuing nuclear capabilities for purely peaceful purposes. Nuclear capabilities and proper management of these capabilities is a serious responsibility. Iran has neither earned the right nor the trust for this nuclear responsibility. Iran continues to develop its nuclear programs without giving the International Atomic Energy Agency sufficient access, access to and information regarding its nuclear program. I understand the need for energy and the complexities surrounding the dual use nature of nuclear technology. However, Iran placed itself under obligations to the international community and agreed to comply with international safeguards and inspections. Iran has not fulfilled its commitments. It has not fulfilled its commitment to be transparent with the International Atomic Energy Agency or to maintain obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iran does not want to join the international community efforts on curbing the development of nuclear weapons. I believe without serious consequences for the proliferation activities there is little if any incentive for Iran or any other country considering nuclear weapon- related activities to refrain from doing so. So I believe it is imperative that the United States work to increase comprehensive economic sanctions on Iran. The United States and the international community continue to threaten Iran with more sanctions. On June 9, the U.N. Security Council adopted resolution 1929. This represents the fourth round of sanctions against Iran from the international community. It is past time that this Congress act, act to put teeth into our threats of additional sanctions. I believe it is time today to implement economic sanctions to the full extent possible. Iran's leaders must be forced to realize that while they may be able to survive political isolation, they cannot ignore the adverse consequences to their ability to function in a global economy. I believe the status quo is not working in our dealings with Iran. I do not believe Iran is a country that we can quietly watch and hope that nothing serious is happening behind closed doors. Terrorism does not allow anyone to do so. It is time to act, and I call upon this Congress to support economic sanctions against Iran. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BARRASSO. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today as someone who has practiced medicine and taken care of families in Wyoming since 1983. Again this weekend I was home in Wyoming visiting with families across the State. I was in Thermopolis for Father's Day. I was in Sheridan and in Casper. In all those communities I had a chance to visit with people who are concerned about the direction of the country and are concerned about this new health care law. Mr. President, I tell you this because I ran into a number of people I have taken care of as their doctor. This happened at church on Sunday morning, where people asked the question: With this new health care law, will I be able to keep my doctor? So I come to you because there is more news as a result of the changes in the health care law in this country. I bring to you my doctor's second opinion as to what the impact of this health care law is going to be on the families across the country. Specifically, at church, I was hearing from someone I operated on and somebody on Medicare, and they were saying: Am I going to keep my doctor under Medicare? These people have a right to be concerned. It is because of what has come out in this past week. It is a front-page article, USA TODAY: ``Doctors Limit New Medicare Patients.'' I have said from the beginning, as this body was debating and discussing the health care bill that has now come to be law, that I believed this was going to be bad for patients, bad for payers--the American taxpayers who have to pay for the care as well as people who pay for their individual care--and bad for providers, the nurses and doctors and hospitals that take care of all of these patients. So I come to you with a second opinion because I think what has become law--a bill that cuts Medicare, cuts payment for our seniors on Medicare by $\1/2\ trillion--not to help seniors, not to help save Medicare, but to start a whole new government program for other people is resulting in devastating impacts for families all around the country who are on Medicare or will soon be on Medicare. One of the interesting things about this article in USA TODAY--this was Monday's USA TODAY--there is a list, a table of the number of people who are currently on Medicare and who will be on Medicare by the year 2015 and will be on Medicare by the year 2020. What we are seeing is, as Americans are living longer due to advances in medicine, advances in technology--people are living longer--more and more people every day are turning Medicare age, so the number of people on Medicare continues to grow. As a matter of fact, if you do the math, there are over 4,000 Americans every day being added to the Medicare ranks. That is almost 1.5 million Americans a year. The question is, Who will the doctors be? Where will the health care providers come from to take care of these people? It is fascinating, when you read the article and you see the complete disconnect between Washington and the reality of the rest of America. Because, according to this article, the people from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services say 97 percent of doctors accept Medicare, so do not worry. That is what the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid say. The American Medical Association says 17 percent of over 9,000 doctors who were surveyed are actually restricting the number of Medicare patients in their practice. Among primary care doctors--which is key for our seniors to be able to see primary care doctors--31 percent of primary care doctors are restricting access to Medicare patients. Just since the first of the year in North Carolina, 117 doctors have opted out of Medicare. That does not include the ones who had opted out before. We are talking since January 1, 117 doctors in North Carolina have opted out of Medicare. In Illinois, in the President's home State, 18 percent of doctors restrict the number of Medicare patients in their practice. In New York State, about 1,100 doctors have left Medicare. Even the president of the Medical Society of New York is not taking new Medicare patients. No new Medicare patients. You say: Why are these physicians no longer taking Medicare patients? It has to do a lot with the way Washington deals with Medicare patients, Medicare and the doctors around the country. At this point, there is going to be a cut of 21 percent in what Medicare pays doctors for services they give. Prior to that, Medicare always has been kind of a deadbeat payor when it comes to paying for health care. Medicare has not kept up with medical inflation in this country. So as physicians, it is a challenge to take care of patients on Medicare. With 4,000 new people joining the ranks of Medicare on a daily basis, who will care for those people? You can imagine, I was fairly surprised when the President of the United States yesterday visited with a number of people at the White House. He put out remarks printed from the White House and talked about what his new plan does. He says Americans--this is astonishing. The President of the United States said yesterday: Americans will be able to keep the primary care doctor or pediatrician they choose. He says these protections preserve America's choice of doctors. What happens if your doctor cannot afford to keep you? We have the President of the United States, for well over a year, making statements just like the one he made a year ago: If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. That is what the President said. He said: No one will take it away. Period. No matter what. Period. Yet here we are looking at the facts. Doctors are limiting new Medicare patients, and 4,000 new patients every day are joining the Medicare rolls looking for doctors. We see it all across the United States. That is why the public remains very skeptical about this new health care law, and why 58 percent of Americans want this law repealed. That is why the American people, when they heard Nancy Pelosi say: We have to pass the bill before you get to find out what is in it, why the American people who are now finding out what is in it are very distressed. They were hoping to take the President at his word when he said he was trying to lower costs and improve quality and increase access to care. But this body did not pass into law, nor did the House, a reform package that will do those things the American people had wanted, had asked for, and had heard from their President they would get--something that would lower costs, improve quality, and increase access to care. What the American people are seeing is the cost of their care is going to continue to go up, and the quality and the availability is likely to go down. That is not what the American people asked for in this health care law. That is why so many Americans are opposed to it. I talked with people all across Wyoming, and they think of what the impact is going to be on their own lives and their own family. People all across this country are worried for their own health care, that they are going to end up paying more and getting less. That is why the public remains very skeptical about what has been passed into law. Twenty States have filed suit against the Federal Government because of a national mandate that people have to buy insurance. The Department of Health and Human Services, which says 97 percent of doctors are still taking care of Medicare patients, there actually has been a new nominee to take care of that Department. We have not yet had hearings in the Senate. We have not been able to ask those specific questions of that nominee: What about taking care of these patients? How will they find doctors under this new law and this new plan? Here we are, 90 days after the health care law has been enacted, signed into law, 90 days ago this became law. The White House is holding press conferences and again repeating promises to the American people that the American people know have been broken. There is a litany of broken promises. It just seems that every week something new comes out that the American people look at and say: You know, it is amazing because we saw this coming. Yet this Congress, this Senate, jammed through a bill that is not going to provide better coverage. It is going to jam 16 million more people onto Medicaid--16 million more onto Medicaid. We know that almost half of the doctors in the country do not take Medicaid patients. Now we are seeing more and more physicians and hospitals saying: How do we keep the doors open with what Medicare is paying? As fewer and fewer physicians are willing to take care of patients on Medicare, limiting their practice on Medicare and on Medicaid, and Congress now stymied with what is known as the doc fix, huge cuts in additional reimbursement to doctors who take care of our seniors, it is going to be increasingly difficult for the American people to be able to find a doctor. That is why I come to the floor with my second opinion about this health care law, telling you it is time to repeal this legislation and replace it with legislation that delivers more patient- centered solutions, delivers more personal responsibility, more opportunities for individuals to take control of their own health and their own care, which is what I tried to do as the medical director of the Wyoming Health Fairs: give people information they could use to keep healthy and drive down the cost of their care. Half of all the money we spend on health care in this country is on just 5 percent of the people. There are patient-based solutions: allowing people to buy insurance across State lines, giving individuals who buy their own health insurance personally the same tax relief the large companies get when they pay for health insurance, deal with lawsuit abuse, allow small businesses to join together to lower the cost of insurance, and provide individual incentives for people who do take personal responsibility for their own health. Those are the things that will actually help get down the cost of care. Those are the things that will help Americans stay healthy. But they are not in this health care law that has been passed by the House, passed by the Senate, and signed by the President. That is why I come to the floor this week, as I have week after week since the law has been signed, to offer my second opinion; and that opinion is, it is time to repeal and replace this health care law with a law that will work for the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I just returned from spending a weekend in Wyoming talking to many people around the Cowboy State who are concerned about our Nation, concerned about the growing debt, concerned about jobs and the economy, and the concern that Washington has taken our eye off the ball. They also have considerable concerns and questions specifically about the nominee to the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan. I heard this when I was in Thermopolis, WY; when I was in Sheridan; when I was in Casper. So what I want to do is spend a few minutes discussing and questioning the views on the second amendment of Elena Kagan. The second amendment in Wyoming, as you know, is nothing we take for granted. It is something we hold very dear. We do not take it for granted because our lives depend upon it. The second amendment allows us to defend ourselves from harm. It also puts food on our tables. These are the values and the virtues that make this issue so important to Wyoming. I understand next week Ms. Kagan's hearings will begin. It is my hope we will have a clear picture of where she stands on the right to keep and to bear arms. The window into her views is small. I hope the hearing will open that window wider for the American people. Her clerkship to Justice Thurgood Marshall and the documents connected to her time in the Clinton White House only crack that window a little bit. I want to hear from her. I want to hear why Ms. Kagan recommended to throw out the Sandidge v. the United States case from the Supreme Court. This is a case that involved an individual charged with possession of a handgun and ammunition in the District of Columbia. In a one-paragraph recommendation to Justice Marshall, Ms. Kagan wrote: The petitioner's sole contention is that the District of Columbia's firearms statutes violate his constitutional right to keep and bear arms. She went on to write: I am not sympathetic. I want to know why she was not sympathetic to Mr. Sandidge. The second amendment explicitly says: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Well, as we know today, the DC gun ban, the law, was clearly unconstitutional. The individual right to keep and bear arms has been affirmed by the Heller case. Mr. Sandidge's rights were violated. Ms. Kagan had the opportunity to recommend that the Court hear the case, but she did not recommend it. Was this recommendation a legal opinion or was it a political opinion? The second amendment is pretty clear: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. During the Clinton administration, Ms. Kagan served as associate White House counsel. The role of the White House counsel's office is to provide the President with the best legal advice possible. This is not a political office. According to a 1996 memorandum released by the Clinton Library, Ms. Kagan raised concerns that certain organizations would be exempted from liability under the Volunteer Protection Act. This legislation was aimed at providing protections to volunteers, to nonprofit organizations and governmental entities in lawsuits based on the activities of volunteers. In a memorandum she wrote, she branded some of these organizations as ``bad guy orgs.'' I assume that is bad guy organizations. The bad guy organizations she was referring to she listed as the Ku Klux Klan and the National Rifle Association. So in her capacity as counsel to the President, I want to know why she was concerned that the NRA, the National Rifle Association, would be covered in the Volunteer Protection Act. I want to know why she grouped a violent racist hate organization with the NRA. The NRA, the national organization and chapters around the country, is very active in Wyoming. It teaches firearm safety. It advocates for second amendment rights. Again, this gets to the question of whether Ms. Kagan is able to separate politics from policy. We have seen Ms. Kagan's resume. Now we need to hear from her. Next week I look forward to hearing her testimony. I also look forward to meeting with Ms. Kagan to discuss these issues and the importance of the second amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, my colleague from Arizona is absolutely right. There is a front-page story in USA TODAY. I was reading it as I was coming back from Wyoming yesterday. In Wyoming over the weekend, I visited with a number of seniors on Medicare. I visited with some family physicians who take care of families in Wyoming. I practiced medicine for 25 years in Wyoming taking care of families and have lived under the Medicare rules and regulations. Here it is: ``Doctors limit new Medicare patients. Surveys point to payment concerns.'' Doctors will tell you the biggest deadbeat when it comes to paying for health care is the Federal Government. It is Washington. More and more of my colleagues are opting out, as the Senator from Arizona said, from taking care of Medicare patients because what they get reimbursed is so limited that it does not keep up with the growing cost of liability insurance, the mandates on them in terms of the expenses of running a business, and they try to provide health care for all their employees. Item after item, those costs go up. But what the government continues to pay for taking care of patients on Medicare, which is an expanding group of people, is shrinking. Think about how Washington works and does not get it. Patients around the country on Medicare understand they are having a hard time finding a doctor. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services was quoted in yesterday's USA TODAY saying 97 percent of doctors accept Medicare. What is the reality? In North Carolina, since January 1, this article says 117 doctors have opted out of Medicare. In New York, since the beginning of the year, about 1,100 doctors have left Medicare. The president of the State of New York Medical Society is not taking new Medicare patients.

Mr. BARRASSO. Mayo Clinic said: We cannot afford to keep our doors open if we are taking Medicare patients. Specifically in Arizona, where they have a wonderful clinic, the best care in the world in many ways in the sense that early on in the health care debate, President Obama said we should use the Mayo Clinic as a model of what works, they do not want to take Medicare patients. They do not want to take Medicaid patients. But this health care law is cramming 16 million more Americans on to Medicaid. What the President is proposing for the American people is something less than what he has previously said is the best in care. One of the other promises the President made is, if you like the health care you have, you can keep it. As a matter of fact, he gave a speech about a year ago at the American Medical Association meeting: If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. He went on to say: No one will take it away. Period. No matter what. Period. Now the White House has come out with new rules and regulations about who really will be able to keep their health care plans. In the analysis that has come out from the administration, over 100 pages--I had it on the Senate floor last week--what they have shown is, over the next few years more and more Americans who have health care right now through their jobs that they like, they understand, they know how to use--and as a doctor I have worked with these patients. I know what it means to them to have a health care plan they are comfortable with, that they understand, that they use, that all of the work has been done with the doctor's office, hospital, and the patient, they understand the whole thing. To have that change is very distressing for people. It is unsettling. But yet this government report out from the administration says within the next couple of years, for people who have their insurance through small business plans, almost four out of five of them may lose the coverage they have.

Mr. BARRASSO. To my colleague from Arizona, I did. I had a chance to look at that mailer sent out by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I found it very misleading. Some have described it even as being a piece of propaganda. The sad part is, it was paid for by the American taxpayers. The estimates for the cost have been $16 to $20 million of taxpayers' money to send out this piece of mail that essentially misleads, or tries to mislead--as my colleague from Arizona knows, the American people are too smart to be misled by this--it tries to mislead them into saying that this whole health care law is actually going to strengthen Medicare. The seniors of this country clearly understand, as I know they do in Wyoming and Arizona, if you cut $500 billion--a $\1/2\ trillion--out of Medicare, not to save Medicare, not to save the program that is there for our seniors but to start a whole new government program, that is not going to improve Medicare. That is money seniors planned for, know it is in their system, and it is being taken from Medicare to start a whole new government program. It is not for them. It is not going to improve Medicare. It is not going to strengthen Medicare. That is why from the beginning, to my colleague from Arizona, I said this bill, now the law for 90 days, is bad for patients, bad for payers--the American taxpayers who are going to end up stuck with the bill--and bad for the providers--the nurses and doctors who are trying to take care of these people.

Mr. BARRASSO. I agree with my colleague completely. What is happening is any sort of a change to a policy, whether they change the deductible, change the copay or any of those things, then that policy is disallowed as something you can keep.

Mr. BARRASSO. Let's say you change your job. Let's say you move from one employment situation to another. You may change your insurance. Most people do because most people get their insurance through their work. We will have a situation where over the next couple of years, a promise that the President made to the American people--another promise that the President made to the American people will be broken. We have not just seen it with regular insurance. My colleague from Arizona is in a State with many people who are seniors, a number of them on Medicare Advantage, a special program that speaks specifically to preventive care, coordinated care. People signed up for Medicare Advantage because there are advantages to being on Medicare Advantage. Yet this health care law that was crammed through this Senate is going to cut massively from Medicare Advantage. One out of four people on Medicare is on Medicare Advantage, and they know why they have signed up for it. It is because of the advantages to them.

Mr. BARRASSO. It works when a Senate and a House of Representatives and a President think they know more than the American people. They say: We know what is best for you. We don't care what you think. That is what has happened.

Mr. BARRASSO. Cut the funding so people on Medicare Advantage--who like it, who like the preventive medicine activities of it--are going to lose those opportunities. Just since 2003, the number of seniors on Medicare Advantage grew from a little over 4 million to 11 million. That is because the seniors talk to one another, and they know what the best deal is for them, for their money, and for their health. The seniors I know in Wyoming who signed up for this program said they want to make sure they have a number of these preventive services. Once they lose this, they are going to lose preventive services. They will have to pay more. The cost for people will go up, in spite of the promise made by the President that he was going to get down the cost of care. Experts who have looked at this said: No, I am sorry, it is not going to work that way.

Mr. BARRASSO. The mailer.

Mr. BARRASSO

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

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the Republicans have offered a bill, and it is fully paid for. We have the same concerns. We think, though, we should not be adding to the debt and the deficit. We know the President's budget doubles the national debt in 5 years, triples it in 10. The recommendation here being offered is one that would add to the burden of the debt on our children and grandchildren. As a result, Mr. President, I do object.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I am trying to get my amendment No. 4313 pending so we can have an up-or-down vote. It is unfortunate that this has been blocked. This amendment fixes flaws in the Cobell v. Salazar settlement, which is important to Indian country. These fixes will benefit thousands of class members involved in this suit. Congress has a responsibility, when they know legislation is broken, to fix it. The Cobell settlement legislation is no different. I will continue to raise this issue as long as the debate on this bill is occurring. I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending business be set aside and I be allowed to call up my amendment No. 4313, which is at the desk.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today as someone who has practiced medicine in the State of Wyoming since 1983, taking care of families across the great State of Wyoming as an orthopedic surgeon and also as a medical director of the Wyoming Health Care, which is a program to offer low-cost medical screenings, health screenings to help people; early detection, because we know that is a way to keep down the cost of care--to help them find problems before they get too far progressed so we can get effective treatments. This is a very successful program. Often doctors are asked for their opinions on issues. Then, if a patient has a question, they ask for a second opinion from a second physician. Well, I come to the floor today to offer my second opinion on this health care bill. I have been doing this week after week, as we have had a year-long debate and discussion about the health care bill that has now been signed into law. I come to the floor because it seems that every week, every week since the bill became law, there has been a new revelation, a new unintended consequence that the people of America look at and say: This is a bill, now a law, that was not passed for me. It is to help someone else. The promises the American people heard when the bill was being debated and discussed, we are now finding that those promises have been broken. Again this week one of those major promises, fundamental behind the health care law, has been broken. The American people are concerned and distressed because it affects them personally. They believe they were misled. The goal of the health care legislation last year was to lower the cost of health care. There is agreement all across the country we need to do that; we need to lower the cost of care, to improve quality of care. Absolutely. It is in the best interest of all Americans if we can improve the quality of care; then, of course, to increase access to care. The more we can do to allow more people in this country to have access to care, the better it is. Lower cost, improved quality, improved access. Well, that is not what this Senate Chamber passed because I believe the bill that was passed is clearly not going to lower cost, and the Congressional Budget Office agrees. It is not going to improve quality, and it is not going to improve access, as we see from statements from the Secretary of Health and Human Services about the shortage of primary care providers, the shortage of physicians and nurse practitioners and others to help. So I continue to believe the law we now have passed is bad for patients, bad for payers, the people who are going to pay the health care bill of this country, and bad for providers, the nurses and doctors who take care of those patients. I believe the bill fundamentally is going to result in higher costs for patients, less access for care, and unsustainable spending. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said: You are going to have to first pass the bill to find out what is in it. Once again, this past week, we have learned about something new that is in the health care law that many Americans have found surprising. I would like to contrast a speech President Obama gave 1 year ago this week, 1 year ago yesterday, at the American Medical Association meeting in Chicago. I would like to quote from the speech given by the President, and then contrast it to regulations that have been sent out earlier this week. What a difference a year makes. President Obama said: So let me begin by saying this-- This was a year ago-- I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage. They like their plan and they value their relationship with their doctor. He went on to say: And that means that no matter how we reform health care we will keep this promise. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. He went on to say: If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away no matter what. Well, those are very reassuring words to the 170 million people in this country who get their health insurance coverage through their employer at work. There were 170 million people reassured 1 year ago by the words of the President of the United States that if they like what they have, they can keep it. This is the line that the President has continued to repeat. Most recently he gave the same reassurance to the senior citizens of this country in a townhall meeting he had just a little over a week ago. But what we are seeing now, instead of allowing Americans to keep their doctors and their health care plans, is another broken promise, a broken promise to the American people. On Friday of last week, the Associated Press reported that 51 percent, over half of all Americans, a majority of those 170 million who get their health insurance through work, will no longer necessarily be able to keep the health insurance they have. In the 25 years or so that I have practiced medicine, I know how important it is, having worked with patients, worked with people, what happens when they lose the coverage or have to change their coverage. It is very distressing. Sometimes it can be disorienting to them as they learn what new coverage they have, what they lost. So people who felt reassured last year by the President's comments are now in a situation where 51 percent of them are going to lose the coverage they have. The Washington Post this week, Tuesday, June 15: The administration estimated that by 2013, health plans covering as many as 69 percent of employees could lose protected status. For small employers, the small businesses of this country, the total could be as high as 80 percent. I mean, could that really be true? I find it astonishing. We have had calls to our office: Is that really true? We have talked to patients and people that I have taken care of because I have been back in Wyoming this past weekend and ran into a number of former patients of mine. They said: Is that really going to happen? Let's see what the rules are that came out. These are the rules that came out on Monday. I mean, it is interesting to get rules on health care, and what are the first two lines? Department of the Treasury. Internal Revenue Service. The Internal Revenue Service is writing the rules and regulations dealing with the health care bill. It goes on with the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services. This is titled, ``Interim Final Rules For Group Health Plans And Health Insurance Coverage.'' This is 121 pages. I am not going to go through all of it, but I would like to call your attention to page 54. On page 54 there is a table, and the table is called ``Estimates of the Cumulative Percentage of Employer Plans Relinquishing,'' having to give up, ``Their Grandfathered Status.'' What it means is the percentage of employer plans of people who have the insurance they like they are not going to be able to keep. They have a low-end estimate, a mid-range estimate and a high-end estimate of all of the employer plans in the country. It covers 170 million Americans. It says by the year 2013, just a few years from now, 51 percent, 51 percent of Americans will lose what they have now. It talks about the high estimate for the small employer plans, 80 percent. So how can that be true? So 80 percent of small employers--that is the lifeblood of our economy, and we are at a point in this country where we have unemployment at 9.7 percent, and small business is the engine, the engine that grows the economy. Seventy percent of all new jobs in this country are created by small businesses. Yet for people who work in small businesses, it looks like up to 80 percent of them, over the next couple of years, are not going to be able to keep the health insurance they have now. Why? Because the rules and regulations that have come out related to the law that has now been passed, in spite of the President's promise right here behind us--you will be able to keep your doctor, period; you will be able to keep your health care plan, period--the American people are finding that those words, those words, are not being held out in what was passed into law and the regulations that have now been written. Headline, Wednesday, June 16, today, national newspaper: ``So much for `Keeping Your Plan.' '' Now, actually there are some people who can keep their plans--very few. Headline, ``Union Contract Can Exempt Plans From ObamaCare.'' So you do not get to necessarily keep your plan, it says, unless a union negotiated your coverage. The administration has granted a special exemption to those, and apparently only those, health care plans, a special exemption offered by the administration, according to this article, for those whose plans have been negotiated by the unions. You do not have to go very far. All you need to do is open a newspaper. This is on Capitol Hill just the other day, Tuesday, June 8. It says, talking about health care, there is a picture of a doctor with an eye chart: ``Comprehensive, but Not for All.'' ``Health reform ban on annual limits may end up hurting lower wage workers.'' Well, I thought that the whole idea behind this was to help additional workers, to help additional workers get coverage, get care. First paragraph: Part of the health care overhaul due to kick in this September, could end up stripping more than a million people of their insurance coverage, violating a key goal of President Barack Obama's reforms. There it is in black and white: ``Violating a key goal of President Barack Obama's reforms.'' These are identifiable victims of ObamaCare, losers under ObamaCare. Promises made and promises broken. What about the President's promise on the cost of care, bending the cost curve down? Well, yesterday, in The Hill: Report projects a rise of 9 percent in employers' health costs in 2011. But was it not Obama who said his legislation was going to actually allow Americans to have a lowering of their premiums by $2,500 per year per family? Well, how does that work with the projected rise in cost? So, once again, the American people heard one thing and now they are being delivered something very different. That is why I come to the Senate floor today--to say it is time to repeal this legislation and replace it, replace this legislation with legislation that delivers more personal responsibility and more opportunities for individual patients, a patient-centered health care bill, a bill that allows Americans to buy insurance across State lines. We need a bill that will give more competition and will allow the costs to come down, that gives people who own their own health insurance an opportunity to get the same tax relief big companies get. That is important. That will help people. How about a bill that includes a provision to give individual incentives to people who take responsibility for their own health care and their own health, do things like the people who come to the Wyoming Health Fairs, early detection, early treatment. We know, and I have seen this in my years of practicing medicine, about half of all of the money we spend in this country on health care is on just 5 percent of the people. If we can focus on those 5 percent and help them with healthy lifestyles and good choices, we can get down the cost of their care. Then we need a bill that deals with lawsuit abuse. That will help lower the amount of defensive medicine practiced and help lower the cost of care, plus one that allows small businesses to join together and then shop much more effectually to buy a lower cost health insurance plan. Well, you can imagine what is happening right now in small businesses across America, as I have just brought to the attention of the Senate. When 80 percent, up to 80 percent of people with small business health plans who are getting their insurance that way, according to the new regulations put out by the Internal Revenue Service, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services, up to 80 percent are not going to be able to keep the coverage they now have and now enjoy under their current plans come the year 2013. Those are the things that will make a difference. That is why I come to the floor today. I offer my second opinion about health care law, and now it is the law that I think is going to end up--and the American people understand this, and they see through it--is going to end up being bad for patients who need care, bad for payers, people paying for their health care costs, and the taxpayers of this country, as well as bad for providers, the nurses and the doctors and the hospitals who take care of those patients. I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, could you please inform me how much time is remaining in morning business?

Mr. BARRASSO

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

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, the tax extenders bill includes a settlement that involves a class action lawsuit that is known as Cobell v. Salazar. The total cost of this settlement is about $3.4 billion. This settlement will affect hundreds of thousands of Indian people across the United States who are class members in this lawsuit. It was signed last December by the Obama administration with the lead plaintiffs and their attorneys. Part of the settlement provides $1.4 billion to individual Indians whose trust assets have been mismanaged by the Federal Government for over 100 years. Another $2 billion would be used by the Department of the Interior to consolidate Indian land ownership to prevent a repeat of these claims. On Wednesday, June 9, 2010, Attorney General Holder and Secretary Salazar sent letters to the Senate leaders opposing an amendment I filed on Tuesday, June 8. My amendment corrects serious flaws in the settlement. I am going to respond to their letter as well as explain my amendment. The Attorney General and the Secretary argue that the amendment makes material changes to the settlement that would render it void. To begin with, I must point out that the parties have changed their settlement in material ways several times--several times--since it was announced that the agreement had been reached. Whenever they deem fit, they change it. For the reasons I am about to go into, they should change it again. If they don't, then Congress should act. In their letter to leadership, the Attorney General and Secretary Salazar say: The nature of any settlement agreement is that no one gets everything they asked for. I know the Cobell case has waged on and on in the courts for 14 years. It has been up and down on appeal many times--too many times. In fact, it is on appeal right now. So I support settling this case. I support providing fair compensation to people harmed by decades of Federal mismanagement. I support consolidating the fractionated ownership of land to prevent the recurrence of problems that led to this court case. But I cannot support the settlement as drafted by the administration. It has flaws, and I believe some of them are very serious. All of them can and should be fixed without making major changes to its overall structure. Leaders in Indian country agree. I ask unanimous consent that a letter dated June 11, 2010, from the National Congress of American Indians to Senator Dorgan and to me be printed in the Record following my remarks.

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

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, the National Congress of American Indians' letter states that the changes in my amendment address legitimate concerns that have been raised by tribal leaders and Indian people. The NCAI letter references resolutions passed by the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen's Association supporting my amendment. So what does my amendment do? It addresses five significant weaknesses in the settlement. The first issue is attorneys fees. This settlement was signed by the Department of Justice and two of the plaintiffs on December 7, 2009. Originally, the settlement said that Congress had to approve it in 24 days--by New Year's Eve. Well, supporters said there was no time for a hearing; Congress had to act immediately. I disagreed. Any $3.4 billion settlement paid for by taxpayers that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people should have a hearing before Congress. I requested that the Committee on Indian Affairs hold a hearing on the settlement. Chairman Dorgan scheduled one nearly 6 months ago and that hearing was December 17, 2009. During the hearing, it was disclosed that the parties had entered into a separate agreement covering attorneys fees. In the side agreement, the plaintiffs' lawyers agreed not to ask the court for more than $99.9 million in presettlement attorneys' fees and costs, and the administration agreed not to argue that the attorneys should get anything less than $50 million. So, in effect, the two parties quietly agreed that the plaintiffs' attorneys should be paid between $50 million and $100 million. This separate agreement also provided that when attorneys asked the court for presettlement fees, the attorneys must provide contemporaneous time records, but they said only ``where available.'' This is a very remarkable agreement, especially for a court case that was pretty much all about inadequate government recordkeeping in the first place. What the government has done is agreed not to demand contemporaneously prepared time records when the attorneys ask the court for their fees--fees that will be taken directly out of the funds that are supposed to be distributed to the class members in the suit. This settlement should be about compensating the individual Indians who were harmed by government mismanagement. My amendment requires production of contemporaneous records and it caps the fees at $50 million. Fifty million dollars is an amount that both parties agreed would not be appealed. It is their number, so it must be fair. Besides the issue of attorneys fees, there have been other concerns raised about the settlement--about the possibility of a multimillion dollar incentive award to named plaintiffs; about the qualification of the bank where the money will be deposited; about the role of Indian tribes and the land consolidation aspect of the settlement; and about the formula for distributing the money. My amendment addresses each of these issues. The amendment would also require that any ``incentive awards'' to named plaintiffs be justified by documented expenses. Leading the case of Indian landowners against the government for 14 years has undoubtedly been an exhausting burden and an expensive burden. The named plaintiffs should be allowed to ask the court to have those expenses reimbursed. My amendment would limit any such award to an aggregate amount of $15 million and only for the expenses incurred by the class representatives. This is the amount the plaintiffs told us is their total estimated out-of-pocket expenses. The amendment would allow full reimbursement of these expenses. My amendment also addresses the selection of the bank that will hold the $1.4 billion in settlement funds. The settlement is especially lax in setting standards to ensure the safety of these funds--lax, I believe, to the point of being irresponsible. My amendment simply requires the court to consider certain factors when approving a proposed bank: experience, a history of regulatory compliance, plus competitive interest rates and fees. These factors are important because if anything happens to the money, then the class members bear the risk of the loss. I cannot fathom why asking the court to simply consider these commonsense protections will void the settlement. The amendment I have offered will require the Secretary of the Interior to consult with Indian tribes on implementation of the Indian land consolidation program. In order for this $2 billion consolidation program to succeed, the tribal governments should be partners in implementation. The amendment would require that to happen. Finally, my amendment would provide relief for certain class members for whom the pro rata formula used in the settlement does not work. This formula is simple and will be easy to use. That is why the administration likes it. In many cases, the formula won't work and will lead to unfair results. It is necessary that we create a system for individual class members with unique circumstances to petition the court for a nonstandard settlement payment. Under my amendment, the court would be provided with broad flexibility to make discretionary awards in appropriate cases. In closing, I urge Members of the Senate to support this amendment to the Cobell settlement provisions in this measure. My amendment doesn't change the structure of the settlement. It does improve, however, the agreement for the hundreds of thousands of class members covered by the settlement. What my amendment doesn't do is void the agreement. Let me repeat, my amendment does not void the agreement; it does not void the settlement. Plaintiffs have the ability to void the settlement if they don't believe the changes are in the best interests of the class members. The administration can void it if they don't believe there should be financial standards for selection of the bank that will hold and manage $1.4 billion of settlement funds. By passing this amendment, we will not void the agreement. Congress has the obligation to never rubberstamp an agreement and to not rubberstamp this agreement. Adopting my amendment is the right thing to do. I yield the floor. Exhibit 1 National Congress of American Indians, Washington, DC, June 11, 2010. Re Cobell Settlement and Senator Barrasso's Amendment 4313 to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010. Hon. Byron Dorgan, Chair, Committee on Indian Affairs, U.S. Senate, Washington,

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I thank my colleague for allowing me to conduct this colloquy with other colleagues who are here as part of the Senate Western Caucus. We are here to speak in favor of the Murkowski resolution in opposing what the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to do in terms of its efforts to regulate climate change because we know that is a job killer for all Americans. I see my colleague, Senator Hatch from Utah, and I understand he has some new information he would like to share with the people of America and the Senate.