Al Franken

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 8 minutes.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. I urge my colleagues to join me in quickly moving forward on a bill to put Americans back to work. I urge them to join me in support of the SEED Act, Strengthening our Economy through Employment and Development. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. I urge my colleagues to join me in quickly moving forward on a bill to put Americans back to work. I urge them to join me in support of the SEED Act, Strengthening our Economy through Employment and Development. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, the Compassionate Care for Servicewomen Act, which I am introducing today with my friend and colleague, Senator Snowe, is a straightforward but vital piece of legislation. It would ensure that servicewomen in our military have reliable and timely access to emergency contraception when they need it. Emergency contraception, or Plan B as it is more commonly known under its brand name, is Food and Drug Administration-approved medication that prevents pregnancy. It is safe and, if taken shortly after pregnancy, highly effective. Since 2006, the FDA has approved it for over-the-counter sale. Currently, women 17 years old and older may purchase emergency contraception over the counter, while those younger require a prescription. Emergency contraception is widely available at pharmacies throughout the U.S. The problem this legislation is meant to address is that there's no guarantee that emergency contraception be available to our servicewomen in the military. The military health care system includes what is called a basic core formulary, which lists the medications that must be stocked at all Department of Defense medical facilities, including those overseas. Emergency contraception is not currently on the basic core formulary. Consequently, emergency contraception is not systematically and reliably available at all medical military facilities. It is allowed to be stocked at such facilities, so it is available in some places. In that regard, the bill that Senator Snowe and I are introducing today is not a dramatic departure from existing practice. But there is no guarantee that a servicewoman will have access to it. Immediate accessibility is especially important in the case of emergency contraception because it is only effective if taken within a short window of time. Once a pregnancy is established, it doesn't work. There is no good reason why servicewomen shouldn't have the same access to emergency contraception that civilians here in the U.S. have. That is just what this legislation would do. It would guarantee that all military health care treatment facilities stock emergency contraception by placing that medication on the basic core formulary. All servicewomen should be able to have access to emergency contraception in order to prevent unwanted pregnancy. The fact that more than 2,900 sexual assaults were reported last year in the military only heightens the need to ensure emergency contraception is always available. This is legislation that has been endorsed by a wide range of organizations both in Minnesota and nationally. I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting this commonsense legislation. I thank Senator Snowe for joining me in introducing this bill, and I thank all my colleagues who have signed on as cosponsors. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a list of supporters be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Let me go into this term ``Cadillac.'' You know, I never had a Cadillac, but that was the thing, right?--a Cadillac? That was an incredible extravagance--a gold-plated extravagance. But, in fact, this would be taxing plans that provide basic comprehensive coverage for thousands of middle-class workers and their families. One of the problems with the excise tax is that it categorizes plans based on their actuarial cost, not solely on the generosity of their benefits. Plan characteristics explain only a small percentage of the differential in cost. Some reports suggest only 6 percent of the difference in cost is explained by generosity of benefits. Let me give an example: A small business that employs many older workers is going to face--actuarially, it is going to be considered higher than a business with a young workforce. So even if both of these employers provide the exact same benefits, their costs will be different. The employer with the older workforce faces a higher risk of falling under this tax--not due to the richness of the benefits but due to the age of its employees. The same goes for small workforces. If a small business offers one set of health benefits and a large company offers the exact same set of benefits, the cost for the smaller employer is higher because its risk pool is smaller. Do we really want to penalize small businesses or workplaces that retain older workers? Senator Sanders.

Mr. FRANKEN. One second. I want to explain the end of this. So this was the unfunded liability--assuming people lived to 150 and still retired at 67. That meant an 83-year retirement and that we would live to 150. I assume the first 50 years would be great, the next 50 years not so great, and the last 50 years horrible. Ridiculous stuff. Let's have an honest debate, for goodness' sake. Let's not put up charts that contend one thing and that are just not true. I yield to Senator Sanders.

Mr. FRANKEN. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will prohibit insurance from imposing lifetime limits on benefits starting on day one--starting on day one, Senator. He doesn't want to hear it. We are entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts. The fact is, benefits kick in on day one and the large majority of benefits kick in on day one, and we shouldn't be standing up here with charts that say the exact opposite. Senator McCain, a week ago, said: Facts are stubborn things. These are stubborn things. Small business tax credits will kick in immediately. The Senator from South Dakota just said that no payments, nothing that costs any money will kick in right away. That is not true. We are not entitled to our own facts. I stand here day after day and hear my colleagues, my good friends from the other side, say things that are not based on fact. We hear about this $78 trillion unfunded liability. You know, I remember during the Social Security debate that we used to hear about this $11 trillion unfunded mandate for Social Security. They asked the Actuary what that was about--Treasury Secretary Snowe--because the American Actuarial Society got mad about this. You know what it was? It was into the infinite horizon, was the liability. It was into infinity. That was a figure used by the President of the United States--George Bush at the time--that we have an $11 trillion unfunded mandate. What was the actuarial thinking behind it? Into infinity, and that people would live to be 150 years old.

Mr. FRANKEN. We have our time, and the Senator from South Dakota just said, when he gave his presentation, nothing that we are paying for starts until 1,800 days from now. There is a whole list of things that start. The Patient Protection Affordable Care Act----

Mr. FRANKEN. We have our time now.

Mr. FRANKEN. I yield.

Mr. FRANKEN. I have the floor. The Senator from South Dakota said: Did I realize he was talking about the spending doesn't start for 1,800 days on health care--that the benefits don't start. Well, here is one: $5 billion in immediate Federal support starts immediately for a new program to provide affordable coverage to uninsured Americans with a preexisting condition. I don't know about anyone else in this body----

Mr. FRANKEN. Has to what?

Mr. FRANKEN. I asked a question. I yielded to you for a question. I am asking you a question. Does the Senator----

Mr. FRANKEN. Does the Senator understand that spending benefits start right away?

Mr. FRANKEN. Absolutely.

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with my colleagues from Vermont and Ohio.

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I rise today to urge my colleagues in the Senate to support Senate amendment No. 3135 to replace the proposed excise tax with a surtax that would affect only those making literally millions of dollars a year. Senator Brown and Senator Sanders, with whom I will engage in this colloquy, have shown tremendous leadership on the issue, and I thank them and join them in their efforts. Before I get into this, though, I want to answer a couple of things I have seen and heard on the Senate floor. I walked in and my colleague from South Dakota, Senator Thune, had a chart up. He had a chart up that said when your taxes will kick in and when your benefits will kick in. So I didn't hear the whole speech, and I felt bad about that--not having heard his whole speech--and I went up to him and said: I didn't hear your whole speech. And he said: Oh, man, that's too bad. But I said: Did you actually happen to mention any of the benefits that do kick in right away? And he said: No. So I think we are entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts. Benefits kick in right away. If you are going to hold up a chart that says when taxes kick in and when benefits kick in, and you say 1,800 days, you better include the benefits that do kick in right away.

Mr. FRANKEN. I thank the Senator. I thank both of my colleagues from Vermont and Ohio, and urge my colleagues to support amendment No. 3135. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN. One last word on the deficit and the debt. May I remind everyone that when the Republicans were in the majority and President Bush came to Washington, we had a surplus, a record surplus. At the time the Chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, testified to Congress that we had a new problem. The new problem was that because of the projected surpluses, we were, in a number of years, going to have too much money, that we were going to pay off the debt and the Federal Government would be forced to buy private equities and that this would not have a maximizing effect on our economy. That is what he said, after Bush became President. That was what he said. He said we were going to have too much money. That is what the Chairman of the Fed said. So we handed the ball off to President Bush, and we handed the ball off to these Republicans. The problem was, we were going to have too much money. That is not a problem anymore, is it? Now you hear them screaming about the deficit. Think about the deficit they left us. Think about the economic circumstances they left us in. We are talking about getting rid of this excise tax, but we are talking about paying for it. The CBO has scored this bill as cutting the debt in the next 10 years by $179 billion and then $500 billion in the next 10. That is responsible. What we saw in the years that we had a Republican President and a Republican House and a Republican Senate was an explosion in the deficit. I don't want to hear lectures about the deficit. When I hear presentations from my colleagues, I want them to remember what Senator McCain said when he said facts are stubborn things. When we debate in this Hall on this floor, let's stick to the facts. So many of the benefits in this bill start immediately. It is simply not fact to say they don't.

Mr. FRANKEN. Plus 1 percent. That is not what we have seen from medical costs.

Mr. FRANKEN. Let's get back to the excise tax and what it is purportedly supposed to do. It is supposed to bring down costs and generate revenues. Those are both necessary objectives. I have been submitting stuff over and over again to bring down costs, including a 90-percent medical loss ratio, including uniform standardized insurance forms which will save billions of dollars. I don't think this excise tax is the best way to bring down costs and generate revenue. We should be focusing on actually bringing down the cost of services instead of trying to limit the availability of care. One way to actually bring down the cost of services is the value index in the bill, which Senator Cantwell introduced in the Finance Committee and which is still in this bill, and which Senator Klobuchar fought for, and many of us from high-value States. That will change the Medicare reimbursement rates to incentivize value. Another unintended consequence of the excise tax is its effective penalty on comprehensive benefit packages secured for workers by their unions. Again, I come back to these unions who gave up salary benefits, who gave up earning benefits. As soon as this gets going, this is going to be returning year after year as we see medical inflation go up and up. This is the cost of living index plus 1; right?

Mr. FRANKEN. Maybe I do that to a fault, and I apologize to our side.

Mr. FRANKEN. I just want to bend over backward to be fair to my colleagues on the other side.

Mr. FRANKEN. Yes, in theory.