Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 11 o'clock today, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to amendment No. 972 and that the amendment now be considered as being proposed by Senators Snowe, Bingaman, and Hatch; further, that following that vote, there be 2 minutes equally divided for further debate prior to a vote in relation to the Edwards amendment, No. 985, to be followed by 2 minutes equally divided and a vote in relation to the Graham amendment, No. 956, with no second-degree amendments in order prior to the vote. Finally, I ask unanimous consent that the time until the votes be equally divided between the two managers or their designees, and I further modify the request to allow 4 minutes equally divided prior to the Edwards vote.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield the 2 minutes on this side to the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the U.S. Postal Service provides a vital and important communication link for the Nation and the citizens of my home State of Iowa. Rural Letter Carriers play a special role and have a proud history as an important link in assuring the delivery of our mail. Rural letter carriers first delivered the mail with their own horses and buggies, later with their own motorcycles, and now in their own cars and trucks. They are responsible for maintenance and operation of their vehicles in all types of weather and road conditions. In the winter, snow and ice is their enemy, while in the spring, the melting snow and ice causes potholes and washboard roads. In spite of these quite adverse conditions, rural letter carriers daily drive over 3 million miles and serve 24 million American families on over 66,000 routes. Although the mission of rural carriers has not changed since the horse and buggy days, the amount of mail they deliver has changed dramatically. As the Nation's mail volume has increased throughout the years, the Postal Service is now delivering more than 200 billion pieces of mail a year. The average carrier delivers about 2,300 pieces of mail a day to about 500 addresses. Most recently, e-commerce has changed the type of mail rural letter carriers deliver. This fact was confirmed in a GAO study entitled ``U.S. Postal Service: Challenges to Sustaining Performance Improvements Remain Formidable on the Brink of the 21st Century,'' dated October 21, 1999. As this report explains, the Postal Service expects declines in its core business, which is essentially letter mail, in the coming years. The growth of e-mail on the Internet, electronic communications, and electronic commerce has the potential to substantially affect the Postal Service's mail volume. First-Class mail has always been the bread and butter of the Postal Service's revenue, but the amount of revenue from First-Class letters is declining. E-commerce is providing the Postal Service with another opportunity to increase another part of its business. That is because what individuals and companies order over the Internet must be delivered, sometimes by the Postal Service and often by rural letter carriers. Currently, the Postal Service had about 33 percent of the parcel business. Rural letter carriers are now delivering larger volumes of business mail, parcels, and priority mail packages. But, more parcel business means more cargo capacity is necessary in postal delivery vehicles, especially in those owned and operated by rural letter carriers. When delivering greeting cards or bills, or packages ordered over the Internet, rural letter carriers use vehicles they currently purchase, operate and maintain. In exchange, they receive a reimbursement from the Postal Service. This reimbursement is called an Equipment Maintenance Allowance, EMA. Congress recognizes that providing a personal vehicle to delivery the U.S. Mail is not typical vehicle use. So, when a rural letter carrier is ready to sell such a vehicle, it's going to have little trade-in value because of the typically high mileage, extraordinary wear and tear, and the fact that it is probably right-hand drive. Therefore, Congress intended to exempt the EMA allowance from taxation in 1988 through a specific provision for rural mail carriers in the Technical and Miscellaneous Revenue Act of 1988. That provision allowed an employee of the U.S. Postal Service who was involved in the collection and delivery of mail on a rural route, to compute their business use mileage deduction as 150 percent of the standard mileage rate for all business use mileage. As an alternative, rural letter carrier taxpayers could elect to utilize the actual expense method, business portion of actual operation and maintenance of the vehicle, plus depreciation. If EMA exceeded the allowable vehicle expense deductions, the excess was subject to tax. If EMA fell short of the allowable vehicle expenses, a deduction was allowed only to the extent that the sum of the shortfall and all other miscellaneous itemized deductions exceeded two percent of the taxpayer's adjusted gross income. The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 further simplified the tax returns of rural letter carriers. That Act permitted the EMA income and expenses ``to wash,'' so that neither income nor expenses would have to be reported on a rural letter carrier's return. That simplified taxes for approximately 120,000 taxpayers, but the provision eliminated the option of filing the actual expense method for employee business vehicle expenses. The lack of this option, combined with the dramatic changes the Internet is having on the mail, specifically on rural letter carriers and their vehicles, is a problem I believe Congress must address. The mail mix is changing and already Postal Service management has, understandably, encouraged rural letter carriers to purchase larger right-hand drive vehicles, such as Sports Utility Vehicles, SUVs, to handle the increase in parcel loads. Large SUVs are much more expensive than traditional vehicles. So without the ability to use the actual expense method and depreciation, rural letter carriers must use their salaries to cover vehicle expenses. Additionally, the Postal Service has placed 11,000 postal vehicles on rural routes, which means those carriers receive no EMA. These developments have created a situation that is contrary to the historical Congressional intent of using reimbursement to fund the government service of delivering mail, and also has created an inequitable tax situation for rural letter carriers. If actual business expenses exceed the EMA, a deduction for those expenses should be allowed. To correct this inequity, I am introducing a bill today that reinstates the ability of a rural letter carrier to choose between using the actual expense method for computing the deduction allowable for business use of a vehicle, or using the current practice of deducting the reimbursed EMA expenses. Rural letter carriers perform a necessary and valuable service and face may changes and challenges in this new Internet era. We must make sure that these public servants receive fair and equitable tax treatment as they perform their essential role in fulfilling the Postal Service's mandate of binding the Nation together. I urge my colleagues to join Senators Bingaman, Daschle, Bunning, Rockefeller, Snowe, Thomas, Smith of Oregon, Conrad, Graham of Florida, Kerry, Breaux, Lincoln and myself in sponsoring this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Long-Term Care and Retirement Security Act. This legislation, which I sponsored in the 106th and 107th Congress with my distinguished colleague from Florida, Senator Bob Graham, would ease the tremendous cost of long- term care. The bill that Senator Graham and I are re-introducing today would allow individuals a tax deduction for the cost of long-term care insurance premiums. Increasingly, Americans are interested in private long-term care insurance to pay for nursing home stays, assisted living, home health aides, and other services. However, most people find the policies unaffordable. The younger the person, the lower the insurance premium, yet most people aren't ready to buy a policy until retirement. A deduction would encourage more people to buy long-term insurance. Our proposal would also give individuals or their care givers a $3,000 tax credit to help cover their long-term care expenses. This would apply to those who have been certified by a doctor as needing help with at least three activities of daily living, such as eating, bathing, or dressing. This credit would help care givers pay for medical supplies, nursing care and any other expenses incurred while caring for family members with disabilities. One family that would benefit from this legislation is the Gardner family of Waterloo, IA. Ruth Gardner is a 70-year-old mother of nine who suffers from a degenerative tissue disorder, Scleroderma, atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure and is a breast cancer survivor. For the last 3 years her nine children, their spouses and numerous grandchildren have worked tirelessly to fulfill Ms. Gardner's wish of spending her last months with dignity and respect at home. While Ms. Gardner's wish may seem small, the task of managing her care is not. Each week family members meet to organize their schedules in an effort to provide over 20 hours of daily care for Ms. Gardner. Working relentlessly, and at a considerable cost, the Gardner family manages to provide around-the-clock care while balancing both work and their family lives. All this effort comes at a great cost, both emotionally and financially. The Gardners have been able to locate some funding to help support the care for Ms. Gardner; however, the family continues to bear considerable costs. These costs include weekly nursing visits that cost $102 per visit, emergency response service at $30 a month, daily hospice service at $32 an hour and not to mention the hours and hours of personal time donated by the family. The Long-Term Care and Retirement Security Act would help the 22 million family caregivers like the Gardners. A $3,000 tax credit would help to pay for Ms. Gardner's monthly hospice care, weekly nurse visits or help to hire a nurse to cover some of the time that the family currently donates. This legislation would also help the increasing number of families placed in the difficult situation by allowing them to purchase long-term care insurance. Had this legislation been enacted earlier, long-term care insurance would have been an affordable option for Ms. Gardner, alleviating the difficult situation that her family currently faces. As it has in the past, the bill that Senator Graham and I are introducing today has been endorsed by both the AARP and the Health Insurance Association of America. A companion bill sponsored by Representatives Nancy Johnson, Karen Thurman and Earl Pomeroy is pending in the House of Representatives. An aging nation has no time to waste in preparing for long-term care, and the need to help people afford long-term care is more pressing than ever. I look forward to working with Senator Graham and our colleagues in the Senate to get our bill passed into law as soon as possible. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 9:15 tomorrow morning, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to Harkin amendment No. 991, to be followed by a vote in relationship to the Edwards amendment No. 1052; provided further that there be 2 minutes equally divided before each vote and that no second-degree amendments be in order to the amendments prior to the vote.

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I call up amendments Nos. 941, 961, and 983 en bloc.

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. I am doing this for Senator Craig. I am going to yield the floor because Senator Craig is going to discuss his amendment tomorrow. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY. This is an amendment I have worked out with Senator Baucus after considerable consultation with many colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The amendment has two parts. First, it would permit the Secretary, starting in 2009, to designate an alternative payment system for PPOs in a limited number of regions that the Secretary has determined to be highly competitive. This alternate payment system would permit the Secretary to set the Federal contribution for participation plans solely based on the bids they submit to the Secretary. The Secretary would still be required to choose the three plans with the lowest credible bids to participate. The Federal contribution would be set for the three plans participating by the second lowest bid submitted. The second thing the amendment would do is authorize the Secretary, also starting in 2009, to establish a number of projects in the fee- for-service Medicare Program. These projects would be designed to provide enhanced services or benefits to improve the quality of care provided to Medicare beneficiaries, to improve the health care delivery system under the Medicare Program, and lower expenditures in that program. The enhanced services or benefits would include preventive services, chronic care coordination, disease management services, or other services the Secretary determines will advance the purposes of these projects. The total cost of this amendment would be $12 billion starting in the year 2009 and would be equally divided between the alternative payment system and the fee-for-service projects. Mr. President, this amendment represents a very reasonable compromise on the question of how to introduce into the Medicare Advantage Program a more competitive payment system. I thank everyone, and most especially Senator Baucus, for working so hard and in a cooperative spirit to develop this amendment now before the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I appreciate the intent of the amendment. However, I have significant concerns and must oppose it. The research provided by this amendment is unnecessary. It duplicates, in fact, existing authority in the HHS. More importantly, this amendment contains two damaging provisions. It directs the Food and Drug Administration to include information coming from these studies in approved product labeling, effectively taking the sole authority of the FDA to regulate prescription drug labeling and giving it to other, nonexpert sources. This amendment also changes the fundamental research mission of the National Institutes of Health. Further, these changes have not been considered by the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which has jurisdiction over these programs. This amendment is unnecessary. I urge my colleagues to defeat it.

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I rise to offer an amendment for Senator Craig. I send the amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be agreed to en bloc and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc: Amendments Nos. 941, 967, as modified; 961, 974, 983, and 1010.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for raising this important issue. He is correct that I have been working with the physician community, as well as the U.S. House of Representatives, to obtain a fuller understanding regarding the adequacy of the current physician formula under Medicare. We have learned that Medicare's current payment formula for physicians is problematic, and I agree that this issue should be addressed. We will continue our discussion, and objectively evaluate proposals that will update the payment formula for physicians.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. You would have 1 minute and I would have 1 minute.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I might consume. I know the Senator from Connecticut has well-intentioned motivations behind his amendment. The reason why I oppose the amendment is not because of any ill intent. But we have very carefully crafted this product before us after the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan and the open season and the practice there. As far as I know, we do not run into Federal employees complaining because they cannot change more often than once a year. So I am going to ask my colleagues to vote against this amendment. It has some costs. I will speak about that. The open enrollment period in S. 1, as I said, is modeled after the annual open enrollment period of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. I believe this program has been in place for more than 40 years, so we have a lot of experience with it. Consequently, it is a good pattern for us to craft the legislation before us for senior citizens in retirement for their health benefits. Each year seniors would be able to examine the choice of plans and select the plan that is best suited to their needs. The amendment before us proposes to allow seniors to change plans more than once during a continuous open enrollment period that would last for 2 years. While this may seem a good idea on the surface, it is an invitation, I believe, to more expensive health care for our seniors. I think it is going to lead to chaos and plan instability. It is very important, at least in the opening years, as we get these new programs underway that there be some predictability in order to encourage more plans to compete. The more plans competing, the better benefits we ought to get for our seniors at a lower price. It seems to me that providing a long, continuous open enrollment period allows any and all seniors to wait until they are sick before enrolling in a more comprehensive plan. You can understand that we need to have a situation where people are seen buying insurance and doing it in a way in which they manage their own risk as opposed to doing it in the case of only an emergency. This is where you get the insurance aspect that is so important in what we are trying to accomplish. So if you do that, as the Senator from Connecticut suggests, it is going to add costs to the program because it permits healthy enrollees to stay in the cheaper basic plan until an illness drives them to a generous plan. The generous plan then would become the plan just for sick enrollees. I have a statement here that the CBO says this would have a cost of $8 billion over the years 2004 to 2008, and $23 billion for the 10-year period 2004 to 2013. I am going to yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an equal 30 seconds.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield back my time and wish to vote now. I ask for the yeas and nays.