Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. With that representation, I will not object.

Mr. GREGG. Reserving the right to object, there is an appropriations bill we are waiting to bring to the floor this evening. I am interested to know if the Senator will agree to a time agreement as to how much time he will need.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, who controls the time?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I join with the majority leader in congratulating the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from Louisiana for putting forward this excellent proposal on land and water conservation. This is long overdue. I think it is an extraordinarily positive step. The chairman of the key committee, Chairman Murkowski, has decided to put forward this proposal, to support it, and to have the support of the majority leader. Those are two pretty powerful figures in this Senate pushing forward on this extremely positive conservation initiative. From the view of the State of New Hampshire, the stateside land and water conservation fund is something in which we are very interested. There are places in this country today where I think their representative Senators maybe think that the Federal Government owns enough land. Maybe the Member in the Chair is from one of those places, being from Wyoming. But those of us on the eastern seaboard still see critical pieces of land we would like to have protected. We have a huge population, a megalopolis, running from Washington to Boston, that is always moving north. In New Hampshire, there are critical elements of natural resources that need to be protected as we go through these massive expansions and these growth spurts, which are inevitable. The land and water conservation fund, over the years, has always been a positive force for protection and for allowing communities to do things they think are critical to making those communities better places to live--whether it happens to be building a park or a recreational area. Therefore, to refund or replenish the land and water conservation fund using the Outer Continental Shelf is absolutely appropriate and is absolutely critical if States such as New Hampshire, which are, unfortunately, in a wave of population growth, are going to be able to maintain their characteristics of being a rural environment and a pleasant place in which to raise a family. I support Senator Murkowski's bill, and I certainly appreciate the Senator from Mississippi, the majority leader, also being in support of this legislation. That bodes well for it.

Mr. GREGG. I ask if the Senator will yield me 3 minutes.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet for a hearing re Review of the Report by the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals regarding the Ninth Circuit and S. 253, the Ninth Circuit Reorganization Act, during the session of the Senate on Friday, July 16, 1999, at 9:30 a.m., in SD628.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, July 16, for purposes of conducting a full committee hearing which is scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. The purpose of this oversight hearing is to receive testimony on damage to the national security from Chinese espionage at DOE nuclear weapons laboratories.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce what I truly believe is Congress's ``last, best hope'' to place Social Security on a course of long-term health in this session of Congress. I strongly urge my colleagues to look carefully at this bipartisan, bicameral, fiscally responsible plan, and to give their support to this, our best chance to meet our important responsibility to take action so as to enable Social Security to continue to meet its historic mission of providing senior citizens with insurance against poverty in old age. The proposal that I will discuss was negotiated over several months between a bipartisan group of committed reformers in the Senate. It already has more cosponsors than any other competing proposal. Those cosponsors include myself, Senator Bob Kerrey, Senator John Breaux, Senator Chuck Grassley, Senator Fred Thompson, Senator Chuck Robb, and Senator Craig Thomas. What I want to do in my remarks is to describe what our proposal would achieve, and then to provide some details as to how it achieves these goals. It would: s Make Social Security solvent. Not simply for 75 years, but perpetually, as far as SSA can estimate. Our proposal would leave the system on a permanently sustainable path. Increase Social Security benefits beyond what the current system can fund. I will follow up with some details as to why and how. It would drastically reduce taxes below current-law levels. Again, I will provide details as to why and how it does this. It will make the system far less costly than current law, and also less costly than competing reform proposals. It will not touch the benefits of current retirees. It will strengthen the ``safety net'' against poverty and provide additional protections for the disabled, for widows, and for other vulnerable sectors of the population. It will vastly reduce the federal government's unfunded liabilities. It would use the best ideas provided by reformers across the political spectrum, and thus offers a practical opportunity for a larger bipartisan agreement. It will provide for fairer treatment across generations, across demographic groups. It would improve the work incentives of the current system. I would like now to explain how our proposal achieves all of these objectives: Our system would make the system solvent for as far as the Social Security Actuaries are able to estimate. How does it do this? Above all else, it accomplishes this through advance funding. As the members of this Committee know, our population is aging rapidly. Currently we have a little more than 3 workers paying into the system for every 1 retiree taking out of it. Within a generation, that ratio will be down to 2:1. As a consequence, if we did nothing, future generations would be assessed skyrocketing tax rates in order to meet benefit promises. The projected cost (tax) rate of the Social Security system, according to the Actuaries, will be almost 18% by 2030. The Trust Fund is not currently scheduled to become insolvent until 2034, but as most acknowledge, the existence of the Trust Fund has nothing to do with the government's ability to pay benefits. President Clinton's submitted budget for this year made the point as well as I possibly could: These balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures--but only in a bookkeeping sense . . . They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large Trust Fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the Government's ability to pay benefits. In other words, we have a problem that arises in 2014, not in 2034, and it quickly becomes an enormous one unless we find a way to put aside savings today. This does not mean simply adding a series of credits to the Social Security Trust Fund, which would have no positive impact, as the quote from the President's budget clearly shows. What we have to do is begin to advance fund the current system, and that means taking some of that surplus Social Security money today out of the federal coffers and into a place where it can be saved, invested--owned by individual beneficiaries. That money would belong to them immediately, even though they could not withdraw it before retirement. But it would be a real asset in their name. By doing this, we can reduce the amount of the benefit that needs to be funded in the future by raising taxes on future generations. This is the critical objective, but it allows for flippant political attacks. If you give someone a part of their benefit today, in their personal account, and less of it later on, some will say that it is a ``cut'' in benefits. It is no such thing. Only in Washington can giving people ownership rights and real funding for a portion of their benefits, and increasing their total real value, be construed as a cut. Accepting such terminology can only lead to one conclusion--that we can't advance fund, because we simply have to be sure that every penny of future benefits comes from taxing future workers. So we need to get out of that rhetorical trap. Our proposal has been certified by the actuaries as attaining actuarial solvency, and in fact it goes so far as to slightly overshoot. We are ``overbalanced'' in the years after 2050, and have some room to modify the proposal in some respects and yet still stay in balance. I would note the consensus that has developed for some form of advance funding. This was one of the few recommendations that united an otherwise divided Social Security Advisory Council in 1996. The major disagreements today among policymakers consist only in the area of who should control and direct the investment opportunities created within Social Security. I believe strongly, and I believe a Congressional majority agrees, that this investment should be directed by individual beneficiaries, not by the federal government or any other public board. We have worked with the Social Security actuaries and the Congressional Research Service to estimate the levels of benefits provided under our plan. There are certain bottom-line points that should be recognized about our plan. Among them: (1) Low-wage earners in every birth cohort measured would experience higher benefits under our plan than current law can sustain, even without including the proceeds from personal accounts. (2) Average earners in every birth cohort measured would experience higher benefits under our plan than current law can sustain, even if their personal accounts only grew at the projected bond rate of 3.0%. (3) Maximum earners in some birth cohorts would need either to achieve the historical rate of return on stocks, or to put in additional voluntary contributions, in order to exceed benefit levels of current law. However, the tax savings to high-income earners, which I will outline in the next section, will be so great that on balance they would also benefit appreciably from our reform plan. Under current law, a low-wage individual retiring in the year 2040 at the age of 65 would be promised a monthly benefit of $752. However, due to the pending insolvency of the system, only $536 of that can be funded. We cannot know in advance how future generations would distribute the program changes between benefit cuts and tax increases. But we do know that our plan, thanks to advance funding, would offer a higher benefit to that individual, from a fully solvent system that would eliminate the need for those choices. I will provide tables that are based on the research of the Congressional Research Service that make clear all of the above points. The CRS makes projections that assume that under current law, benefits would be paid in full until 2034, and then suddenly cut by more than 25% when the system becomes insolvent. CRS can make no other presumption in the absence of advance knowledge of how Congress would distribute the pain of benefit reductions among birth cohorts. In order to translate the CRS figures into a more plausible outcome, we added a column showing the effects that would come from the benefit reductions under current law being shared equally by all birth cohorts.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I have enjoyed working with the Senators from Nebraska and Louisiana and, recently the Senator from Iowa, in developing this bipartisan plan. The Senator from Nebraska and the Senator from Louisiana have truly done an extraordinary job of bringing to the attention of the American public the essential needs to address soon, quickly, and substantively the issue of Social Security reform. I had the pleasure of serving 15 months as cochair, along with the Senator from Louisiana, of a commission of folks put together--a large cross-section of people--who are truly expert in the area of Social Security. As a result of that commission, we produced a bill that was an excellent piece of legislation. We were joined, in a bipartisan way, by Congressmen Kolbe and Stenholm, Members of the House, on that bill. The Senator from Nebraska has been on his own bill, along with the Senator from New York. They have developed another bill here. Months ago, we decided to get together and see if we could develop an even bigger coalition of membership around one concept of how to reform the Social Security system. That is what we accomplished. It has been accomplished because of the strong and vibrant leadership of those two Senators who are on the floor today, Senators Breaux and Kerrey, and also Senator Grassley, who is not here but may be coming in on a number of other issues that are involved in the Social Security reform matter. His leadership has been excellent. So, first of all, we do have a bipartisan bill. It has been pointed out by the Senator from Nebraska that this bill goes across the aisle, across ideology, and it is a substantive bill. It is a proposal that has been scored by the Social Security actuaries as creating solvency in the Social Security system for the next 100 years, at a minimum. It goes to infinity, but I like to say the next century because it is a more definable event. That is very important. It is a bipartisan effort, which shows it can be done. Second, it works, as scored by the Social Security actuaries. Why is it important? You don't have to look very far to see why. I notice we have many Senate pages with us. These folks are juniors in high school who come here to work. They are either rising juniors, or have completed their junior year in most instances. They come here to work and see Congress in action. When they get finished with their schooling, most of them will go to college. When they get out of college, they are going to go to work. They are going to find that probably the biggest amount that comes out of their paychecks is the FICA tax, a big chunk that comes out of paychecks. They are going to pay that for all their working lives. What are they going to get back under the present system? These wonderful young people are probably hoping I won't speak too long so they can get off for the weekend. But what are they going to get out of this? Actually, they are going to get very little out of it. They will pay out a tremendous amount of taxes during their working lives and they will virtually get nothing back for it. In fact, a person coming into the workforce in their early twenties today--the rate of return on what they pay into Social Security taxes over their working lives, or how much they get back for the amount of taxes they pay, is essentially a wash. They are not going to get any more back than they pay in. That is not much of a return for all the taxes they will pay over all those years. If you happen to be an African American, you actually will get less back, as a group of individuals, than you will end up paying. So the system is broken. Why? It is broken because we have this huge bubble in our society, this huge population bubble called the postwar baby boom generation, of which Bill Clinton is a member, I am a member, the Senator in the Chair is a member, and the Senator from Louisiana is a member. This postwar baby boom generation is the largest demographic group in the history of our country. When Social Security was originally designed, and for all the years it has worked so well, it has always been conceived as a pyramid. It was essentially perceived that there would be many more people paying into the system than would be taking out. So you would have many people earning in order to support the people getting the benefit--a pyramid. In fact, as late as 1950, there were about 15 people paying into the system for every 1 person taking out. By the late part of this century--right about now, in fact--we are down to about 3\1/2\ people paying in for every 1 person taking out. When the baby boomers retire, beginning in the year 2008, it starts to accelerate and it becomes an acute situation by 2014, where 2 people will be paying into the system for every 1 taking out. In that sort of a structure, you can see we simply can't support the benefits. Instead of having a pyramid, we basically have some sort of rectangle. The older generation that will be retired--myself included-- will be demanding too much in the way of benefits for the younger generation to support. As a result, we end up bankrupting the system. To express it in another way, even though there is a lot of debt in the trust fund, even though the Social Security trust fund, as the Senator from Nebraska pointed out, has literally billions of dollars of IOUs in it, they are simply that; they are paper IOUs. What drives the Social Security problem is the fact that when the baby boom generation retires, there is a benefit that is guaranteed, a defined benefit. As a retiree, under Social Security, when we hit 2010, or whenever I take retirement, I am guaranteed a benefit, a fixed sum of money that I will get under our system of Social Security, a defined benefit. Is there something there to pay that benefit? No, nothing. There are notes held by the Social Security trust, but those notes are not assets in the sense that there is something to back them up that is a physical asset. What backs it up is the taxing of power of the United States. The only way you can pay that defined benefit is to raise taxes on the earners of America to pay the benefits of the retired in America. Because this generation is so huge and the defined benefit becomes so huge, we will have a massive tax increase on the earners of America, starting about the year 2014, and it accelerates radically to the point where we are literally talking, under the President's proposal on Social Security, about $1 trillion annually in new taxes, simply to support those people who are retired by the year 2035--I think it might be a little later. The fact is, it is a huge tax increase. Where do the taxes come from? The earnings of American people. They will come from the general fund, and they will end up essentially bankrupting this country. Something needs to be done. Why have we put this plan forward? You say: It won't happen until the year 2014; that is a long way away; I don't have to worry about that. We have to worry today because we can't answer this type of problem when it happens. We have to anticipate; we have to work to try to correct the problem before we hit the problem. Unfortunately, we are not doing much to get ready for this problem. To address this, we have put forward this bill. What is the basic theme of this bill? The basic theme of this bill is that the way to address the problem of the Social Security liability in the outyears is to begin to save in the early years, say to the American worker today: Start saving for retirement and have some ownership in that savings. Today you think you are saving for retirement under Social Security because you are paying the Social Security taxes, but that doesn't mean anything. The Social Security taxes are being spent by the Federal Government. There is no asset we are building up which the retiree will own. We say under our bill to the wage earner, people earning money in the marketplace--whether the job is a restaurant, a computer store, or whether they are working for the Government--we are going to let you start to save some of the assets you are paying in taxes today for your Social Security. We will allow you to start saving and owning those assets. We will take 2 percent of your present payroll tax and put it in a savings account which you control--you, the wage earner control, which you own. You own that account. You make the decision in a broad term as to how that is invested. We do put limitations on the investment structure so you can't take high-risk investments or speculate. We take an asset, for all Americans paying Social Security tax, which they will physically have and own throughout their earning life, which will grow as they put more into it and which, when they retire, will be available to support their retirement and to support the costs of the Social Security system. This concept, which is called personal savings accounts, is at the core of what we are proposing as a solution to the problem. These personal savings accounts don't solve the problem completely. I wish we could do it completely with these accounts, but we can't. As the Senator from Nebraska so eloquently and effectively pointed out--I won't retread that water--the fact is, you have to make decisions on the benefit side or you have to make decisions on the tax increase side. That is the only way you can get long-term solvency, unless you have the capacity to refund liability dramatically at a level you can't do because of the cost of supporting the present beneficiaries under the system. There are three ways to solve the Social Security outyear problem: You can raise taxes, cut benefits, or ``prefund'' the liability. What we do is combine two of those. We prefund the liability and adjust the benefit structure. We adjust it in a constructive and effective way, as pointed out by the Senator from Nebraska. The fundamental philosophical change in our bill is giving people ownership over part of their Social Security taxes. We say to folks: You can invest that, you can save it, and when you retire, it will be yours. In fact, it will be yours before you retire. Under the present law, you pay all these Social Security taxes, and if you are unlucky enough to get hit by a train when you are 59 years old, you get nothing, absolutely nothing, from all the taxes you have paid in. What an unfair system that is. We say to people: You are going to have that asset; it will be yours. If you are, unfortunately, hit by a train when you are 59, your family will own that asset. Whoever you want to pass it on to will own that-- your wife, your children, cousins, nephews. We give people the opportunity to participate in that extraordinary thing called American capitalism, the marketplace where people can create wealth. Is there a risk? Very little. The way we structured this, we tracked what Federal employees have been doing for years in the Federal Thrift Savings Plan. Any Federal employee can participate in it and have an option of placing some of their pension plan into the marketplace by choosing four different funds in which to invest. Those funds are managed by trustees under the Federal Thrift Savings Plan. One is very conservative, one is a moderate investment, and one is a more aggressive investment. We will use the same type of structure. It will be the Social Security trustees investing these funds. Wage earners will have the right to choose whether they want to aggressively invest, moderately invest, or very conservatively invest. It is your choice. In any event, the rate of return on those assets is going to be dramatically better than the rate of return on the amount of taxes presently paid in the Social Security system. The average rate of return on taxes paid into Social Security is 2.7 percent. As I mentioned, for an earner in their twenties it is essentially zero, and for certain groups it is negative. Under our bill, the lowest rate of return possible is the rate of return of Treasury bills, which is about 3 percent. One could get significantly better than that, obviously. The average rate of return of the equities market over any 20-year period, including the Depression period, has been about 5\1/2\ percent. So presume 5\1/2\ percent is a number by which one reasonably assumes their assets will increase. That is the essence of what we are doing. We are setting up a plan which, first, is bipartisan; second, it creates solvency in the trust fund for 100 years, the next century; third, it gives people ownership over parts of the assets which they are now paying in taxes over which they have absolutely no ownership. A couple of other points should be made. We do not impact anybody presently in the Social Security system or about to come in the Social Security system. We say to those folks: The system is in place; you are comfortable with it; that is your system; we are not going to touch you in any way. When the scare letters come out from the various groups which use Social Security as a way to try to raise money so people can drive around the city in their limousines and go to fancy restaurants, when the scare letters come out in envelopes looking like Social Security checks, and the letters say they will devastate your Social Security benefits, and they are directed at people already on Social Security, unfortunately, we don't have the wherewithal to send a counter letter. But if people have time to listen, they will know that is not case. We don't impact anyone presently on the Social Security system. Our bill, more than any other that is presently pending on Social Security reform, is progressive. In other words, people at the lower income levels get a much better benefit under the proposal we put forward than people at the higher levels, and they get a better benefit than they would get in the present Social Security system or under any other Social Security proposal out there today, whether they have been scored as solvent or not. It is a progressive system. In fact, a low-income person not only gets to save 2 percent, they can save about 3\1/2\ percent in the personal savings account because we set up a system for the next dollar after the 2 percent. They get a $100 match by the Federal Government. It works out so you basically can almost save 3.5 percent if you are in a low-income bracket, and that is a big increase in your net worth over 40 years, a huge increase in your net worth over 40 years, which is the average earning experience in America today. In addition, our plan most importantly treats generations fairly. We are headed into a period, when our generation retires, the baby boom generation retires, when we are simply going to be unfair to younger generations. What we are going to do to them under the present Social Security system is absolutely wrong. We are going to tax this younger generation into a much lower level quality of life in order to support our retirement. Is that right? Of course, it is not right, but that is exactly what is going to happen if we do not address the Social Security problem and address it soon so we can start to build the assets necessary to prefund the liabilities, as I mentioned earlier. Our bill addresses that issue. Our bill tries to right that shift of fairness between our generation and the younger generation, and it does it very effectively, and it is an important effort. Importantly, our bill creates an atmosphere where people will have confidence in the Social Security system. There are a lot of people who say: I am not going to get anything when I retire. I am just going to pay a lot of taxes. I am not going to get anything. And they are right if they happen to be a certain ethnic group or certain age level. Our bill will restore the confidence in the Social Security system, and that is absolutely critical. In addition, we understand women have especially been disproportionately impacted by the present system. They are not treated as fairly as they should be. There are two reasons: No. 1, because many women weren't in the workforce, and No. 2, because they live longer. Our bill makes some very significant efforts in order to address the special needs of women, especially widows, in the Social Security benefits area. These were put together by the Senator from Iowa, to a large extent. They are positive efforts to give women the opportunity to get the benefit structure that is fair to them and also encourage women to raise children at home. It could be a man, of course, but in most cases it would be a woman who wants to leave her job and raise her child for up to 5 years. She will be able to do that without being penalized by the Social Security system for having taken those 5 years out of the workforce and then coming back into the workforce. It is a very important step towards fairness towards women and especially women who decide to raise children. I know the Senator from Louisiana wants to speak on this. He has certainly been a core player, a key player on this issue, as well as so many others. But on Medicare specifically, let me say this. We, as policy people, have an absolute obligation to pursue and accomplish Social Security reform in this Congress. There is no way we can justify passing up this opportunity. We have a President who does not have to run for reelection, so he is under no political pressure to make a political decision. He has the flexibility and freedom to make the decisions that should be made in order to resolve this type of problem. We know if we do not act, we will begin to run out of time quickly. We know if we cannot set up these personal accounts to start creating assets and letting those assets grow through compounded interest--which Einstein said was the greatest force known to mankind--we know if we do not get those assets started and get those accounts begun, we are going to end up running out of time, and we will not be able to solve the problem effectively. So we know we have to act. It is similar to that old oil filter ad, ``You can pay me now or pay me later.'' We know we have to act now, so we should be taking action. We know it can be done because this bill proves it. It can be done in a bipartisan way and it can be done in a way that can be scored and approved by the Social Security trustees as working, so there is no argument about doing it and being able to do it. All we need now is the political will to do it, and that is going to take Presidential leadership. Although the President has spoken on this issue a number of times, he has not given us the type of leadership we need to accomplish the goal. But if he wants to step forward, this is a great opportunity to do it. This bill gives him the vehicle to do it. I certainly hope he will take advantage of that chance. In any event, I thank my fellow Senators who have worked so hard on this. I believe we have laid out a method that can control and move this forward in a positive way. I hope we can move from only the academic discussion of a bill to the passage of a law. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Thursday, July 15, 1999, immediately following the committee executive session at 9:30 a.m. on NTSB reauthorization.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the subcommittees on economic policy, and International Trade and Finance of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 15, 1999, to conduct a hearing on ``Official Dollarization in Latin America.''

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I will yield to the Senator from Alabama in a second. I do want to point out the Senator from North Dakota, although well informed in most instances, on the issue of suing health care plans of Senators he is not informed. The fact is, under our plan we cannot sue the insurer. We are limited in our rights to sue, and our ability to recover is also significantly limited--in fact, about the same way it is limited in our bill. I would point that out as a point of clarification. The Senator from Alabama.

Mr. GREGG. I yield the Senator from Alabama 10 minutes.

Mr. GREGG. I yield 1 minute.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from Washington.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I note for the Record that the bill sponsored by the Democratic side does allow employers to be sued under subsection A(302). It says specifically ``shall not preclude any cause of action described in paragraph one against employer.''

Mr. GREGG. Under the Senator's time.

Mr. GREGG. Actually, the language says ``discretionary authority,'' which is a very broad term. I yield the Senator from Oregon 7 minutes.

Mr. GREGG. I yield the Senator from Oklahoma 1 minute.

Mr. GREGG. I yield, off the bill, to the Senator from Pennsylvania, 3 minutes.

Mr. GREGG. I yield the Senator 30 seconds.

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator suspend?

Mr. GREGG. I understand this is your last speaker. We have Senator Domenici, and then I will close. If Senator Domenici can go in between that.

Mr. GREGG. I yield 5 minutes off the bill to Senator Domenici.

Mr. GREGG. I yield myself 5 minutes off the bill. I will be the last speaker, so Members can understand there will be a vote in about 5 minutes--two votes. I stand corrected. There have been a lot of representations in this argument in the last hour and a half or so. Let me make a couple points. First off, once again, the Senator from Illinois cites the wrong number of people covered by this proposal. That does not really go to the core of the issue, but it should be clarified. The Senator from New Jersey said there are only two classes of people who are covered by this type of situation, diplomats and insurance companies. Actually Senators and members of the Government are covered in the same way. In fact, it was an OPM directive from the Clinton administration on April 5, 1996. I will simply quote from it. It says: Legal actions to review actions by OPM involving such denials of health benefits must be brought against OPM and not against the carrier or the carrier subcontractor. It further states those actions can only be for certain limited amounts of recovery. So essentially we are tracking that proposal which is what Senators are presently covered by. Also, the Senator from Massachusetts said--and this point was made by the Senator from Washington--that, yes, our proposals cost $13 billion and, yes, your proposals cost billions of dollars. But there is a little bit of difference. We cut taxes. We give people assets. We put money in their pockets. We say to your folks: You can go out and use that money to benefit your family. Your proposals increase the cost of premiums and drive people out of the health care system and create more uninsured people. There is a fairly significant difference between the two cost functions of these two bills. But this amendment goes to the fact that the proposal from the other side of the aisle essentially dramatically expands the number of lawsuits which will be brought in the United States, lawsuits which will be brought in all these different areas by aggressive and creative attorneys, lawsuits which today and under our bill would be settled under a procedure which is reasonable, which has independent doctors looking at the issue. Those decisions, by doctors who are independently chosen by independent authorities, are binding, binding on the health care provider group. So we take out all these lawyers, all these attorneys. I think of this one procedure I cited before where you have literally 137 doctors talking about 82 different ways to treat one different type of health complication. That can be multiplied by thousands, if not millions, giving literally millions upon millions of opportunities for attorneys to bring lawsuits because one doctor shows treatment A and another doctor chose treatment A-82 or B-82. The fact is the decision should not be made by an attorney. That decision should be made by an outside doctor who has independence, who is chosen by an independent group, and who has binding authority. The end product of this bill will be to create a lot of new attorneys in this country having a lot of new opportunities to bring a lot of new lawsuits. In fact, there has been an lot of hyperbole on this floor. I want to put it in perspective. It might be hyperbole, but it is still fairly accurate. There is a show on Saturday morning that I enjoy listening to on National Public Radio. Some may be surprised that I enjoy listening to National Public Radio, but I do. The show is called ``Car Talk.'' In ``Car Talk,'' there is a law firm in Cambridge, MA. I know it is euphemistic, but they call them, so far: Dewey, Cheatum & Howe? They represent the folks on ``Car Talk.'' Their offices are somewhere in Cambridge in Car Talk Plaza, and they represent the Tappet Brothers. Today I think they have three attorneys: Dewey, Cheatum & Howe. If this bill is passed, Dewey, Cheatum & Howe are going to have to build a new building in Cambridge, and they are going to have all these attorneys working for them because that is how many people will be needed to bring all the lawsuits that are going to be proposed under this bill as a result of its expansion. What is the serious, ultimate outcome of this? It drives up costs. That is the serious ultimate outcome. It was almost treated as if that was an irrelevancy by one of the other speakers. Well, 1.4 percent of the premiums are going to go up. That does not mean anything? I say 1.4 percent translates into 600,000 people. There have been a lot of pictures brought to the floor about people who have not gotten adequate health care, and I am sure their stories are compelling. But this floor would be filled if we put up the 600,000 pictures of people who will lose their health care insurance--filled right up to the ceiling by people who no longer have health care insurance as a result of all these lawsuits driving up all these costs for health care. As the Senator from Pennsylvania pointed out, what will be the outcome of that? What will be the outcome of all these people being put out of their health care insurance because the cost has gone up so much? These are CBO's estimates, not mine. It will be that somebody will come to the floor from the other side of the aisle saying: We have to nationalize the whole system in order to take care of all the uninsured we just created by creating all these lawsuits for all these attorneys to pursue. What a disingenuous approach to health care, in my opinion. The Republican plan has a constructive way to approach this. It leaves the decision of care to the patient, to be reviewed by a doctor, who is independently chosen, who is in the specialty where the patient needs the care. That decision is binding, binding on the health care provider. I hope Senators will join me in supporting my amendment which voids the language which expands the lawyers' part of this bill. I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.