Bill Frist

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I object to further proceeding en bloc.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I understand there are two bills at the desk and due for a second reading. I ask unanimous consent that the clerk read the titles of the bills for the second time en bloc.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, in closing, I do stress the importance to leadership on both sides of the aisle--we have been in constant communication-- that people have the opportunity to express themselves and to have that appropriate debate on the floor. Again, we were on the bill all last week. Yes, we had some interruptions last week with extraneous circumstances, but resilience came through and we had the opportunity with the floor open, as it will be all this week. At the end of the day, our obligation is to have that opportunity to debate, have our ideas reflected, and then give people an opportunity to choose. That is, again, my goal over the course of the debate during this 2-week period. With that, I would like very much to finish the bill this week and give each of our colleagues the opportunity to choose and reflect their opinions on this bill.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning the Senate will resume consideration of the highway bill. There are several amendments pending to the legislation and it is hoped that we can consider and dispose of those amendments during today's session. Although it appears as though we have not made as much progress on the floor as most of us would like, the chairman and ranking member have been working with a number of Senators on their amendments--as we said, working through the weekend and through yesterday. Thus, work continues on that front. And, again, on behalf of the managers, I encourage Senators to come forward and offer their amendments and discuss those amendments with the managers. Rollcall votes are possible today as we continue to look for ways to make progress on the bill. I have been talking to the chairman about the continued desire to finish the bill this week. Although last week was a challenge in the Senate, the bill has been pending since that time, and we had hoped to have considered more floor amendments under the regular order. We have now been on the bill 7 days. Again, there has been a lot of discussion, but I do ask our colleagues to accelerate the process of the consideration of amendments. And they must be brought forward now. I will continue with discussions with the managers to look for an appropriate avenue for completing this bill this week. I will notify all Senators as we proceed as to when rollcall votes can be expected. I thank everybody for their attention.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Tomorrow, following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 1072, the highway bill. It is my expectation that following final remarks of several Senators, the chairman will move to table the Warner amendment on seatbelts. Therefore, Senators should expect the first vote tomorrow to occur prior to noon. For the remainder of the day tomorrow, the Senate will continue to debate on the highway bill. It is my hope the bill's managers will be able to work through additional amendments during tomorrow's session. Senators should expect rollcall votes throughout the day tomorrow. As a reminder, cloture was filed on the substitute which was offered earlier today. While it was not my preference to file cloture, it became obvious that we would be unable to move forward without forcing a cloture vote. A cloture vote on the substitute amendment will occur on Thursday. I also remind all Senators that under cloture rules all first-degree amendments must be filed by 1 p.m. tomorrow.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order following the remarks of Senator John Warner.

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

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, February 11. I further ask unanimous consent that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then begin a period of morning business for up to 60 minutes, with the first 30 minutes under the control of the minority leader or his designee and the final 30 minutes under the control of the majority leader or his designee, provided that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 1072, the highway bill.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I understand S. 2061, introduced by Senator Gregg and others, is at the desk. I ask for its first reading.

Mr. FRIST. I now ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. FRIST

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

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I now send a cloture motion on the bill to the desk.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion on the pending substitute to the desk.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I now ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. FRIST. I understand S. 2062, introduced by Senator Grassley and others, is at the desk.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H. Con. Res. 354, which is at the desk.

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements relating to the concurrent resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I now ask unanimous consent that there be a period for morning business with Senators to speak for up to 5 minutes each.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, today the Senate resumes consideration of S. 1072, the highway bill. We had a good debate on the highway bill last week. Although I know the chairman hoped we would have progressed further, I believe we remain on track to finish this week. Chairman Inhofe and his staff worked with several Senators over the weekend on possible amendments and are making good, steady progress. I appreciate the efforts of the bill managers to work through the weekend in the interest of keeping the bill moving on track. I will consult with Senator Inhofe and the Democratic leadership as we go forward, but I hope we will be prepared for a vote relative to an amendment prior to our recess for the policy luncheons on tomorrow, and Senators should be available accordingly. This is the last week prior to the scheduled Presidents Day recess. I will be asking for all Senators' cooperation in allowing us to work our way through various issues pertaining to the highway bill. Again, last week was a challenging week for our Senate community in many different ways, but we are open for business and expect to continue our work throughout this week. With regard to the closing of the Senate office buildings last week, I am pleased to announce that all the Senate office buildings are back open and fully operational this week.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I wish to comment on the recent Medicare bill we passed. Last year--this being February--President Bush and Congress made good on our promise to strengthen and expand Medicare for today's seniors and individuals with disabilities. The bill, called the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, does represent the most significant improvement to Medicare in two generations. The reason I wish to comment on it today is that as a product of the debate and passage of this legislation, we are starting to see, even right now, impressive results. Very simply, we said the program would give seniors better health care at lower out-of-pocket cost and give seniors and individuals with disabilities more choices. That is exactly what the bill is doing. We said the bill would strengthen the program and increase flexibility and choice, and, indeed, that is exactly what is happening. Dozens of Medicare, managed care companies just recently announced-- about 10 days ago--that in 3 short weeks, they are going to increase benefits, enhance benefits; that they are going to reduce or even eliminate premiums altogether; and that they are going to expand their service areas. They tell us they are doing all of this as a direct result of this Medicare bill. For example, Aetna plans to cut its Medicare+Choice premiums by up to 50 percent to seniors. The action by Aetna will reduce inpatient care fees and physician copayments. In New York City, Oxford Health Plans is boosting its annual limit on brand-name drug coverage from $250 and $500 up to $1,200. That is more coverage. Colorado's three Medicare HMOs, meanwhile, will drop monthly insurance premiums by as much as 50 percent. That is less out-of-pocket costs for seniors. Colorado's PacifiCare, for example, will offer prescription drug coverage to seniors who didn't have it before. That is new coverage, better health care, and then they will add brand-name coverage to many policies. In Miami, FL, Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans to double its coverage for brand-name drugs. In Broward County, it will add brand-name coverage to its current generic-only plan, and it will drop its monthly premium altogether: Better coverage, lower out-of-pocket expenditures. When it comes to more comprehensive coverage care, seniors in Tampa with private plans can expect to get new benefits, such as free dental care and reimbursement for transportation to the doctor. I mention all this because it is only the beginning. Nationally, 5 million seniors with HMO coverage are expected to enjoy better benefits, lower out-of-pocket costs, and expanded options. And this will only grow with time. This is only the beginning. Not only are these improvements on the way but also we have the prescription discount card that will be available in just a very few months, in June. This spring, seniors will be able to use these new discount cards to get discounts of 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent, or 25 percent off their prescription drugs. For seniors living around the poverty level or up to 135 percent of the poverty level, they will get, in addition to the prescription drug card, an additional $600 in coverage to help pay these drug bills. That is on top of the discount. This is immediate help. This is immediate help to those who need it the most. Already, private companies have submitted more than 100 applications to be able to participate in the discount drug card process. Immediate relief from high medication costs is only months away. I mention this because we hear a lot of the opponents to the bill grumble. Even in the various elections and campaigns going on across the country, we look at what appear to be attempts of very partisan politics trying to gain political points in an election year. I wanted to mention this real progress that is already being made because it shows that at least the concept of the approach of a public/private partnership--which is what this Medicare law is all about--is beginning to work, where we take the very best of the public sector and marry it to the very best of the private sector. Older Americans who are happy with their immediate care coverage do not need to do anything. They can keep exactly what they have today. In the bill, those who need it the most are going to get the most help. Lower income seniors, people at the lowest income brackets, and individuals with disabilities will pay almost nothing for their prescription drug coverage. Seniors who have very high catastrophic costs, costs that for the most part they did not expect, will no longer have to go bankrupt to get those prescription drugs, the most powerful tool in American medicine today. Millions of seniors with no current coverage will see their prescription drug costs reduced, on average, by about 50 percent. So we see better health care and lower out-of-pocket costs for seniors who are listening to me at this juncture, and they will see more choices of coverage that better suit their individual needs. Yes, the Medicare Modernization Act is expanding these choices and opportunities to obtain quality health care. This bill includes preventive care in a substantive way for the first time in the history of Medicare. For the first time ever in Medicare, we are offering disease management for chronic illnesses such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. It also takes a number of steps to improve the overall quality of care available to seniors. We do need to continue to educate both ourselves and the American people about the progress that is being made to date. We will continue to work with organizations such as AARP and organizations of nurses, doctors, hospitals, and patients to really get the news out as this program unfolds. We will make sure that every senior who is entitled to these new drug discounts I mentioned, and who have the availability of that improved access, find out about it so that they indeed can take advantage of these improvements. From time to time, I will come to the floor to comment on the progress that is being made as this program unfolds. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 1 p.m. Monday, February 9. I further ask that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the Journal of the proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate resume consideration of S. 1072, the highway bill.

Mr. FRIST. No.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I want to make a few comments on the news, and give a quick update on the events that have happened in my own mailroom earlier in the week. First of all, just a few minutes ago, this morning, with regard to the employment situation, we have been given very good news. The unemployment rate is at 5.6 percent, which was little changed, but the nonfarm payroll employment increased by 112,000, with job gains in construction and several service-providing industries. Indeed, that is very good news. That is 112,000 new jobs in January. If we look back to last August, we have seen a creation of 366,000 payroll jobs. These numbers are very good news. It demonstrates we have turned the corner. But, clearly, we have a lot more work to do as we go forward. So there is very good news today on the job front; the trends are in the positive, right direction. But, again, we have a lot more work to do. The economy is doing well. I say that very quickly, and say we have a lot more work to do in job creation. But, again, that figure of 112,000 is very good news. Mr. President, on another front but timely in terms of the news itself, I am delighted to report we are ahead of schedule in getting Senators back into their offices here on the Capitol grounds. As everyone knows, in response to the attack on my office with what is a deadly poison by the name of ricin, we immediately focused on the safety and welfare of the staff throughout the Capitol complex. Through a very comprehensive plan, a comprehensive response, even though I know it has not been handled just perfectly, and there are a lot of frustrations, I am delighted to report nobody has been hurt, everybody is safe, and that includes people here in my office, in the Dirksen building, the Senate office buildings, the Capitol complex, and, indeed, the postal system in this country. All testing has been negative, with the exception of the testing right around where the discovery was made. The Russell Senate office building has been opened now for 2 days. The Hart Senate office building opened yesterday. The Dirksen office building we will be making announcements about over the course of the day. On a third issue, Mr. President, I am delighted to see the response to the Medicare legislation we passed has been very positive in a number of ways. According to press reports, over 100 companies, agencies, and organizations have filed or are filing applications to participate in that prescription drug card that will be available to all seniors this summer. To me, that demonstrates a real interest and a fierce sign of competition and a lot of people participating in addressing the issue of health care, health care costs, prescription drugs, and making prescription drugs more available to our seniors. This is a strong indication there will be a very positive and broad interest that this full benefit, once it is available, will be taken advantage of. Also, earlier in the week we saw Medicare HMOs are, in response to this bill, slashing their premiums, making these premiums come down, therefore lowering that burden that falls on the senior in terms of out-of-pocket costs. At the same time, they are increasing their benefits in response to this bill, and expanding their service to more and more seniors, with the opportunity for more and more seniors to participate in integrated health care plans. This is a real stark contrast to what we had seen in the past where there were shrinking choices. Now there are going to be expanding choices. We are already seeing that take place. We began this Congress making the promise we would bring about strengthening the Medicare system and expanding the choices within the Medicare system and lowering the burden in terms of out-of-pocket expenditures and costs to individual seniors, and we have delivered on that promise. We made the promise that seniors would have access to better health care, and we have delivered on that promise by providing preventive care and prescription drugs for the first time really in Medicare today. So the plan is working. The new discount cards will be available for our seniors later on this spring. Mr. President, on a related issue, I want to comment on a silent epidemic that is in this country and that affects a lot of people who are listening to me right now--my colleagues and others who are watching through the various media. It has to do with an epidemic that a lot of people don't recognize that is occurring that can affect your health care and my health care and that of our colleagues and our families. It can be brought to focus by a single question that I want to ask every American; that is, are you positively sure that you don't have high blood pressure right now? If you can't answer that question yes or no, then you need to find out. Are you positively sure that you don't have high blood pressure? High blood pressure is hypertension. If you can't answer that question, just listen to me for a couple minutes on this important issue. The American Heart Association calls hypertension, or high blood pressure, ``the silent killer.'' We call it hypertension, and it is high blood pressure just like the pressure in a tire. If you are pumping up a tire with too much air, a bicycle tire or an automobile tire, it gets higher and higher. And literally, when they put that blood pressure cup on your arm and they measure to get those two numbers, the one and the slash and then the other number, it tells you how much pressure is in your body. The higher the pressure in your body, once it gets out of a certain range, the more likely you are to die, whether that be from heart disease, because it causes hardening of the arteries, or a stroke. It is as simple as that. When a person's blood pressure is too high, the heart is having to pump too hard. The heart is a pump. You have the rest of the body and the resistance of the blood vessels themselves. If it gets too high, it is like too much pressure in a tire. Or you can think of taking a thin coffee stirring straw and you are trying to blow through that as hard as you possibly can and the pressure that builds up strains the heart, which is a pump, and the blood pressure. If that pressure builds up over a period of time, because it is that way all throughout the course of the day--heartbeat after heartbeat, day after day--it damages everything that is downstream from the heart and the blood vessels--the brain and all of the organs. That is my physiology lesson. The point is, it is widespread. This is not just a few people. There are about 50 million people in the country today who have high blood pressure. Remember, if you have high blood pressure, you are going to have heart disease or a stroke or myocardial infarction, coronary artery disease, or atherosclerotic heart disease. The interesting thing about that is that a third of those 50 million people don't know they have it. That is why I am taking time on the Senate floor to address it. Because if it is 50 million and a third of them don't know they have it, all you have to do is put a blood pressure cup on your arm and then we have treatment for it. We can save thousands of lives if people will just act. I also want to relate that to what I just mentioned about Medicare itself. As legislation comes through this body, it is important for us to think like that, to take every opportunity to improve the legislation, if it can be as direct as that in terms of saving lives. With the Medicare prescription drug bill this body passed, that the President signed in December, for the first time in the history of this great Medicare Program, once you hit 65, that blood pressure cup and that physical exam becomes part of the program. That is amazing to me. Traditionally, people who came into Medicare didn't get that physical exam because it was not provided in the program. It is today. It was not 2 months ago. Thus, if you had hypertension throughout your life and you hadn't gone to the doctor because you hadn't been in a motor vehicle accident or you didn't like doctors, when you got to be 65 and on Medicare, at 70 and 75, and you have hypertension, it is never diagnosed. But in this Medicare bill, we included an entry physical exam so you make the diagnosis. That is step No. 1. Also in this Medicare bill for the first time in the history of Medicare--a wonderful program, 40 years we have had this fantastic program; I just told you diagnosis is there for the first time--there is the treatment. Never before in the history of Medicare have prescription drugs, which is the way you treat most hypertension today, been available through the Medicare Program itself. Yet that benefit, that better health care, because we passed this prescription drug bill and Medicare bill, is available. So those two things: Diagnosis is going to be made. Remember, 16 million people in the country don't know they have it. So we are going to make the diagnosis. And then after the diagnosis, we don't leave people high and dry. We give them help. We don't give them all their prescription drugs. We never promised we would give them all their prescription drugs, and we shouldn't give them all their prescription drugs. We probably can't afford it. But we have helped every senior who has hypertension who didn't have access to prescription drugs to get prescription drugs. We have helped every single one and low income. We have really helped. We see why this Medicare bill was important. People argue $400 billion is too much, or it is too little. Everybody is getting it from both sides. The point is, for the first time we have preventive care, we have early detection, and we increase the likelihood that a senior can get treatment for this life-threatening disease. I should also mention that African Americans, of that 50 million people with hypertension, are disproportionately affected. So they have this additional benefit both in terms of diagnosis and treatment. Look at hypertension and high blood pressure today. African Americans are disproportionately affected. I am gratified for this major advance in the Medicare bill. There are lots of things in the Medicare bill such as this that we didn't talk very much about on the floor of the Senate, but because we made reforms like that to Medicare, lives will be saved. More Americans are going to get the care that they deserve, and more Americans are going to get the treatments they need. That is what is in this bill. Hypertension is a good example. More lives will be saved. Let me go back to the question I asked: do you know what your blood pressure is? What is it? I know what my number is. I am a physician. I think about it all the time. But you need to be able to know. Is it high or low? No. 2, if you haven't had it checked recently, go have it checked. It is as simple as having a blood pressure cup put on your arm. Thirdly, if you are over the age of 65, because of the President's Medicare bill, you are going to receive more help to get the prescription drugs you need if you need them to help save your life. Are you positively sure you don't have high blood pressure? I yield the floor.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning the Senate resumes consideration of S. 1072, the highway bill. As we announced last night, there will be no rollcall votes today. Chairman Inhofe will be on the floor this morning, and Senators are encouraged to come to the floor to speak on the bill. When we complete our business today, we will reconvene on Monday for more work on the highway bill. As I previously announced, we expect to complete this bill next week. I will be consulting with the chairman and the Democratic leader as to the specific schedule and will announce that later today.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on today's Executive Calendar: Calendar Nos. 546 through 552, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk. These are military promotions reported by the Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. I further ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.