Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Come to community health centers. Why? Because they get the kind of hands-on care, they get many kinds of supportive services. A lot of times there are language barriers that are a problem. They get preventive care, they get all the things that make people feel better about their own quality of health care. So more and more we are finding people who actually have health insurance going to community health centers. I ask if that has been the experience in Vermont?

Mr. HARKIN. I can assure my friend from Vermont that this Senator will be in the forefront of fighting for the maximum possible support, money, and input for community health centers that we can possibly get out of this bill. I can assure him that.

Mr. HARKIN. As long as we get an additional minute.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, do I have 2 minutes?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I listened to my colleague from Iowa earlier talking about the ``meaningless amendments'' and that amendments that do not have any teeth are just meaningless, stuff like that. I listened to that. I want to make it very clear that the Gregg amendment is not a meaningless amendment. It has a lot of meaning because what it does is it kills health reform. Oh, yes, this is a meaningful amendment, make no mistake about it. It goes right to heart of what the health reform is all about: making sure people at the low-income end of the scale have a little bit better coverage; that is, people on Medicaid--that is section 2001--the tax credits and the copays that are in there, again, to help moderate-income people and families be able to afford better coverage for themselves and their families--he guts that too--and, of course, the expansion of SCHIP. So really, yes, I say to my friend from Iowa, this is a meaningful amendment--if you want to kill the bill, if you want to kill it. I suppose since most of my friends on that side of the aisle would like to kill the bill, they will probably vote for the Gregg amendment. But it completely guts it--completely guts it. Why? To help protect the wasteful subsidies to the insurance companies at the expense of families who are struggling to afford insurance and seniors who rely on Medicare. This bill lowers premiums for American families, businesses, and the country as a whole. The Congressional Budget Office just said that this week. It strengthens Medicare, it improves benefits, and it adds years of life to the Medicare trust fund. Let's be clear. Not one dime of the Medicare trust fund is used to pay for this reform, and no guaranteed Medicare benefits will be cut. If anyone can prove otherwise, please come forward. We have had a lot of rhetoric about it, but prove that this statement is not true: Not one dime of the Medicare trust fund is used to pay for reform and no guaranteed Medicare benefits will be cut.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to vote in relation to the Pryor amendment No. 2939; and that upon disposition of that amendment, there be 2 minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to the Gregg amendment No. 2942; that no amendments be in order to either amendment, and that the second vote in this sequence be 10 minutes in duration; that each of the above- referenced amendments be subject to an affirmative 60-vote threshold, and if the amendment achieves that threshold, then it be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that if the amendment does not achieve that threshold, then it be withdrawn; that upon disposition of the above amendments, Senator Nelson of Nebraska be recognized to call up his amendment No. 2962; that once the amendment has been reported by number, it be set aside, and the Republican leader's designee be recognized to call up his motion to commit with instructions.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, will the Senator please repeat what he just asked?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will have to object to that. I have no instructions from Senator Pryor. I believe he wants a vote on his amendment. So I would have to object to that.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I want to modify my request, that the 2 minutes I asked for for debate prior to the vote be evenly divided between the two sides.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will have more to say about this later. But there has been so much talk about fear, fear, fear. Everybody has a fear. Let's get away from that. It is time to quit talking about fear. Let's talk about hope. Let's talk about the realities of what is affecting people out there, what we are trying to do to make their lives better. Why do we always want to inject fear into people? Let's talk about hope. Let's talk about real people and what this bill does. As shown in this picture, this is Sarah Posekany of Cedar Falls, IA. Let me tell you her story. It is incredible. She was diagnosed with Crohn's disease when she was 15 years old. During her first year in college, she ran into complications from the disease and had to drop classes. Because she was no longer a full-time student, her parents' private health insurance company terminated her coverage. Then the medical bills piled up. Four years later, she found herself $180,000 in debt, and was forced to file for bankruptcy. Sarah has undergone seven surgeries--seven. Here is what is disturbing. Two of those came as a direct result of not being able to afford medication. So again, it is an incredible story, but it is a true story. So many people have to go through this. Our bill says: Look, you can stay on your parents' coverage until you are age 26, and--guess what-- no preexisting conditions will apply to you from here on out. Think about Sarah when we are talking about this bill and the hope she needs--and so many like her--that we are going to change this system to make her life better. Second, this is a picture of Tasha Hudson of Des Moines, IA. She is a single mother, with three kids. She had a job which provided health insurance, but she took a new job that paid her more, 50 percent more. You would think: Isn't that the American way? You learn, you get better, you get a better paying job. The problem is, the private sector job did not come with health insurance. Despite the higher pay, she could not afford the coverage. Ironically, her higher pay led to cuts in her Medicaid benefits and the loss of childcare services. As a result, Tasha is now in the process of returning to a lower paying job, despite its limited opportunities, for one reason: because it will provide health insurance for her family. These are real people. These are the people to whom we need to give hope. Here is one last one. Eleanor Pierce lives in Cedar Falls, IA. She lost her job when her company was eliminated. She had the option of purchasing COBRA, but she couldn't afford it. So she searched for coverage, but because of high blood pressure--preexisting condition-- she was denied access. So age 62, suffering from high blood pressure, she had no choice but to go without insurance. That is why we need this bill. Not for fear--let's quit talking about fear. Let's talk about hope for the people I just talked about, the hope that their lives will be better, that they will get the insurance coverage they need, that they will be able to get on with their lives and not have to go so far in debt that they have to go into bankruptcy. If you are a 62-year-old woman with a serious heart condition such as the one Eleanor has, high blood pressure, you just don't have a prayer, you are on your own, and the odds of premature death are disturbingly high. We can and must do better. That is what we ought to be talking about: hope for the future, not fear. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first of all, let me say I am glad we are here this weekend. Oh, I know we like to be with our families, we have Christmas shopping to do and things such as that. It is always nice to be with our families on the weekends. But think about it this way: Millions of Americans today are giving up their weekends, they are giving up their nights, their holidays, because they are either out of work, they are working part time, they are trying to do odd jobs to get enough money together to keep their families intact. So they are working at nights, they are working on weekends. They are not taking time off. They are out there looking for work now or out there doing odd jobs, whatever they can possibly do. They are making sacrifices. They are making sacrifices for their families, but they are also making these sacrifices to pay their medical bills or to afford their needed prescriptions. It seems to me we owe them nothing less than the same level of commitment to the task of bringing quality, affordable health care within their reach. Our leader, Senator Reid, was right to call the Senate into session this weekend. We ought to keep at this bill, this health care reform bill, working hard, until the Senate finishes the job before us. Nothing less will do. I do not plan to spend a lot of time on the debate over Medicare Advantage that we had yesterday. However, after listening to the comments yesterday, I did want to mention briefly editorials that appeared in the Des Moines Register. The first was published 6 years ago when the Senate considered the Republican Medicare drug legislation. The major element of that bill was to give outrageous bonuses to private health plans in Medicare Advantage. In criticizing that proposal, the Register called on Members of Congress ``to remind themselves their job is to serve the interests of the people, not industry lobbyists.'' Sadly, we didn't heed that call that time, 6 years ago. Instead, Congress, under Republican leadership at that time, enacted a bill that provided a massive and unjustified windfall to the insurance industry. The Register revisited the same subject in an editorial this year, May 31 of this year. Here is what they said: Congress encouraged private insurance plans, known as Medicare Advantage plans, which have cost taxpayers more than covering seniors in traditional government-administered Medicare. Congress should not repeat the mistakes it made in 2003 when reforming Medicare--catering to special interests and pushing people into private-sector insurance coverage. Our health bill, the one we have before us, heeds these words. We stand up to the special interests that even today are demanding billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to prop up their inflated profits. So yesterday was a good day. Yesterday we said no to giving the insurance industry a $120 billion bonus for doing the same job that Medicare can do for far less. Today we will consider a proposal from Senator Lincoln to say no to the outrageous salaries that top executives in these companies receive. Chief executive officers at the seven leading insurance companies made a combined $118.6 million in 2007 alone, an average of $11.9 million each. Let's compare that to the wages of millions of Americans or the minimum wage. For someone making the minimum wage, it would take nearly 800 years to make what these insurance company executives make in 1 year. Again, here is the CEO compensation. For United Health Group, they made $2.9 billion in profit in 2008 and they paid their CEO $9.4 million; WellPoint, $9.8 million; Aetna, $24.3 million; Humana, $47.3 million; Coventry Health Care, $11 million; Cigna, $4.4 million. That is the CEO compensation. That probably is not the whole package when you consider all the other benefits they get, deferred compensation and on and on--golden parachutes, all that kind of stuff. That is basically their CEO compensation for the year. As you can see, they get paid pretty well and $11.9 million is the average. Here is Aetna, $24 million a year. They had a profit of $1.3 billion that year. So they did well, their shareholders did well, their CEO did well. But how about the consumers, the working families? In 2003, by the way, Aetna, this company right here, making all this money, paying their CEO $24 million a year--in 2003 Aetna settled a lawsuit. You know, usually when you settle lawsuits it is because you think you are going to get hit worse down the line. They settled a lawsuit brought by who? Brought by physicians, a whole group of physicians brought a class action against Aetna because they had a history of shortchanging patient care. Aetna settled for $470 million, just to get away from it, in 2003. There was not any money to help them afford the coverage patients need, but they had billions for profits and they had millions for salaries--nothing for working families. The reality for working families across America is simply this: Insurance premiums have skyrocketed, outpacing the growth in wages over the same period. Quality affordable health care is slipping further and further from the grasp of middle-class Americans. Between 1999 and 2007, the average American worker saw wages increase 29 percent. Insurance premiums during that same time rose more than 120 percent. They see the premiums skyrocketing, but their health care is slipping away. There is something else. The profit margins of the insurance industry soared. Over the last 7 years the profits of the seven largest publicly traded health insurance companies increased by 428 percent. Profits increased by 428 percent, from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion. Yet look at what our workers' wages went up--29 percent. Now you begin to understand why people in this country are upset and discouraged and outright mad about their lack of health insurance coverage, about the affordability of that coverage and the quality of that coverage. Yet with all of this money that is going to their CEOs and huge increases in the profits they make, our Republican friends on the other side of the aisle say they still need a Federal handout. The industry cannot find a dime to bring down prices for consumers but they can find millions to lobby for more special favors. The Wall Street Journal reported that the health care industry boosted their efforts in lobbying this year. In a quote from the Wall Street Journal: Overall, the health-care sector reported a five percent increase in lobbying expenditures to $133 million, making it the single largest spender on lobbying of the 10 major industry sectors tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics. Health-insurance companies increased lobbying activity by 11 percent to $7.8 million, according to the data. An increase of 11 percent. You wonder why all this health sector this year had $133 million in lobbying expenditures. I think, if I am not mistaken, the supposed, stated purpose of health insurance is to protect Americans from the cost of illness. Supposedly their purpose is to keep the American people healthy and productive for the benefit of society. Yet over some 60 years, this industry, the health insurance industry, has transformed itself from an industry that is there to help you to an industry that is there to take money from you when you are healthy and avoid paying your bills when you get sick. This is an industry with armies of actuaries and functionaries whose job is to prevent you from enrolling if you have a preexisting condition. It is an industry that looks at the fine details of your medical records when you get sick so they can figure out how to cancel your policy and leave you high and dry when you need their help the most, as has been said many times around here. The majority, actually 62 percent of bankruptcies in America, is because of medical costs, and 80 percent of that group had health insurance. They actually had health insurance, but they had to file for bankruptcy because--they didn't know it, but in their contract, in their policy, there was some fine print called a rescission clause, or there is fine print in there on terms of their annual or lifetime caps, which most people do not even know are in their policies. But when they got very sick, all of a sudden their policy got rescinded, which means when it came up for renewal the insurance company didn't renew it, and here you are with an expensive chronic disease or illness such as cancer or heart disease or disability, and they cancel your policy. You are left with only one recourse--file for bankruptcy. This is an industry which defines being a victim of domestic violence as a preexisting condition. I spoke about this previously. Only in America, with this health insurance industry running everything in terms of our health care coverage, only here would we have a situation where a woman can be the victim of domestic violence, be battered, get medical help, go to the hospital perhaps, a victim of domestic abuse, and then later on find that she can't get her policy renewed because she has a preexisting condition, the preexisting condition of being the victim of domestic violence. You may think that is outlandish, but it is true, and it happens. All we are seeking is competition, openness, transparency, and fairness. The insurance industry, what are they seeking? They are seeking to preserve and protect a sweet deal they have been enjoying on the backs of middle-class Americans and seniors. The proposal Senator Lincoln is offering says basically: Enough is enough. In defense of their outlandish salaries, the insurance company CEOs cite the difficulty of their jobs and the complexity of their tasks. The President of the United States probably has a pretty difficult job. He has a few complex tasks to confront. There is no reason insurance company CEOs should get a tax break on salaries higher than the President's. That is exactly what the Lincoln amendment does. I thank Senator Lincoln for her commonsense proposal. I think consumers across America should know that when they pay their hard- earned dollars to cover the soaring cost of premiums, they are not just chipping in to pay for the CEOs' next new yacht or the newest Mercedes in the driveway. In homes across Iowa people are clipping coupons and making do with secondhand, patching up instead of buying new. They have had to make sacrifice after sacrifice to afford premiums that provide coverage for their health care. It is outrageous that their hard-earned cash goes for gold-plated salaries and bonuses. Senator Lincoln is right to take a stand against these excesses. I urge my colleagues to support her amendment. The Lincoln amendment is consistent with a major theme of our legislation. It is basically standing up to the health insurance industry on behalf of consumers. Her proposal will add one more important item to the list of benefits our legislation will bring to American patients. As I said before, this bill ends the practice of denying coverage because a person has a preexisting medical condition. I would wager probably every Member of this Senate has some kind of a preexisting condition of some sort, and every one of us could be turned down if we didn't have the kind of secured program under the Federal employees program. Why shouldn't the rest of the American people have the same kind of security? This legislation ends the lifetime limits and bans unreasonable annual limits. Our bill gives young people better options to stay on their family's and parents' plan until they are age 26. It also ends the outrageous practice of charging women higher prices for the same policy, the exact same policy a man gets. I can remember, during my town meetings back in August, talking about this issue. People were startled to learn that an insurance company can charge a woman up to twice as much for the same policy--same age, all the same parameters, same occupation, same kind of history. They can charge a woman up to twice as much as a man for the exact same coverage, the exact same policy. We get rid of that in this bill. We do not allow that kind of discrimination in any other kind of industry. Why should we allow it in this industry? Our bill provides better options for individuals, small businesses, farms, for the self-employed. I have said many times the biggest winners in our health care reform bill are small businesses and the self-employed. Right now they are sort of at the end of their rope. They have no bargaining power whatsoever. Our bill will create exchanges so they will be able to go on the exchange and pool with other people for more options, more competition, more transparency available. Some places in Iowa we have only one insurance company offering policies. There is absolutely no competition. Setting up the exchanges will allow our self-employed and small businesses to get more bargaining power. These are the kinds of measures the American people want and need to make sure they get a fair deal on the coverage they buy. We need a health insurance industry that is a partner for employers and ordinary Americans, charges fair premiums, treats us right, and pays our bills when we get sick. That is what our bill is all about. It is to end a lot of these outrageous practices that have gone on for far too long in the health insurance industry. A lot of times people say: You are always beating up on the health insurance industry. Not really. We are just taking them to task for where they have gone. Years ago when they first started out, they were doing a good job. Then the greed, the normal human nature and greed for more profits, higher CEO salaries, $24 million salaries for CEOs, gold- plated benefits packages for all their CEOs and corporate executives; it just got out of hand. It became a situation where almost one health insurance company was trying to outdo the others in terms of how much money they could squeeze out of the consumers. It is just a system that sort of ran amok. Now it is up to us in the Congress to rein it in, to make the health insurance industry what it ought to be--a fair and reasonable, competitive system for the consumers. That is what this bill does. To me, that is the American way. That is why we have to stay here on the weekends, if we have to. If we have to be here today, fine; and tomorrow, fine; and all next week, fine; and next weekend; and, if we have to, right through the holidays. The American people are looking to us to get this job done. We are going to get the job done. No matter how much our friends on the Republican side want to delay, delay, delay, and try to kill this bill, it is not going to happen. This bill is unstoppable because the American people are demanding that we do something about it. We are responding to that, and we are going to get the job done. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to thank our friend and leader on this issue, Senator Dodd, for his eloquence in supporting what so many of our elderly in this country want more desperately than just about anything else; that is, the peace of mind of knowing that if they should become disabled, they will not be forced to go into a nursing home, they will have some support, and they will be able to live in their homes in their communities. Talk to anyone with a disability--not just the elderly, anyone with a disability--and they will tell you how important it is that you have that kind of assurance that if, God forbid, you become disabled, your only hope will not be to go into a nursing home for the rest of your natural life. Senator Kennedy worked on this for years. The couple times I talked to him this summer and this spring, this is what he wanted to talk to me about: making sure we included this in the bill. This was his cause, to make sure we had a program people could contribute to that would afford them some support if, in fact, they became disabled. I do not understand the move by my Republican friends to strike this. This is not a mandatory program. This does not force anyone to pay a dime. It is all voluntary. We say, if you want to, you can put some money aside during your working years in a fund that will vest so that if you become disabled, you can get some support to stay at home, maybe with your own family, maybe with just enough support so you can get another job and work even though you have a disability. This is voluntary. I ask my friends on the other side of the aisle, why are you against a voluntary program that will enable people to have that kind of peace of mind? Well, I have heard it said: Well, maybe the taxpayers will have to pay for this and everything. I will tell you this: In the committee, Senator Gregg--Senator Gregg from New Hampshire, Republican Senator Gregg, my good friend--offered an amendment to make sure the contributions were the only things that would sustain this program, that it would not become an entitlement. Here is what he said, his own words: I offered an amendment, which was ultimately accepted, that would require that CLASS Act premiums be based on a 75-year actuarial analysis of the program's costs. My amendment ensures that instead of promising more than we can deliver, the program will be fiscally solvent and we won't be passing the buck--or really, passing the debt--to future generations. I'm pleased the HELP Committee unanimously accepted this amendment. The CBO has scored this. This is completely paid for over 75 years-- over 75 years. I do not understand why anyone would want to strike it. What Senator Whitehouse has said--again, I think this is very appropriate for us--is that any savings we get from this be reinvested either in the CLASS Act--so when people do get disabled, maybe they will get a little bit more money. So we have some savings in the CLASS Act. What Senator Whitehouse has said is, put those savings back in the CLASS Act or Social Security. It makes sense to me. So again, I think it is an improvement on the bill, what Senator Whitehouse is suggesting. I plead--I plead--with my fellow Senators, do not kill this program aborning. We stood here on this floor 19 years ago, on July 20, 1990. We stood on this floor to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act. There were a few votes against it. In fact, there are one or two people still here who voted against it. I think if you asked them now, they would say it has been a pretty darn good bill. It has broken down a lot of barriers, opened a lot of doors for people with disabilities in our country, changed our environment in this country, not only in terms of physical access, but I think, more importantly, it has changed how we view people with disabilities, no longer looking at people with a disability to say, what is their disability, we now look at those people and say, what are your abilities, what can you do--not just looking at someone's disability. So we have come a long way. The one thing we have never been able to really do is to set up a functioning system so people could put some money aside to protect themselves in case they got disabled. Well, this is it. This is our chance. This is a big part of this health care bill, a big part. Well, maybe, I suppose, if you are trying to kill the bill, you would want to kill the CLASS Act. But this is vitally important for our country. It is really the next logical step after the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is going to provide for so many people in this country that security and that peace of mind of knowing they will not have to go into a nursing home or an institution if they become disabled. And it can happen to any one of us here on the Senate floor, our families, our staff, our loved ones. No one knows what might happen to us either from an accident or a physical ailment. No one knows. But shouldn't we at least have some part of this health care bill that provides that kind of voluntary program? No one is forced into anything. I guess that is what perplexes me more than anything else-- why my Republican friends want to prevent something like a voluntary program--a voluntary program--from going into existence that would do this, that is fiscally sound for 75 years. I just do not get it. So I hope we will support the Whitehouse amendment and make sure this fund is totally solvent. I think he is on the right track, that if there are savings, to put the money back in there, so maybe that $75 a day could be maybe $80 a day, or something like that, to help people. I see, Mr. President, we now have a statement from the AARP about the CLASS program. Here is what they said. They said: Decades of talking to our members tell us that older Americans want to live in their homes as they age. That's why AARP strongly supports the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program, which recognizes that older individuals and people with disabilities should have the right to live independently in their own homes and communities, and to receive the help they need without having to spend down to poverty. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have that statement from the AARP printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am going to put this in personal terms-- personal terms. I have told this story before, and I am going to tell it again because I think it indicates why we need a program such as this. I have a nephew, Kelly; my sister's boy. He got injured at a very young age; he was only 19 years old. It made him a severe paraplegic, almost a quadriplegic. My sister and her husband did not have any money at all. Yet Kelly was able to go to college--go to school. He was able to get a job, able to live in a house by himself. He had his own little home. He had his own van he drove that had a lift on it, and he could get his wheelchair in there and drive it to work. He actually started a small business and employed some people. He has lived a full life. He is now a man of about 50. He has had a great life. Even with that disability, he has been able to get around and do things. He is a taxpayer. He has paid taxes. He has employed people. Every night when he goes home, he has to have a nurse come in the home and get him ready for bed and for him to do his exercises and things such as that. Then, in the morning, he has to have another nurse to get him out of bed and take care of his needs, get him ready to go. Actually, Kelly gets his own meals and stuff. Then he goes off to work and comes back. This happens every day. How was he able to afford to do that? He did not have any money. He did not have any insurance. How was he able to afford to do that? He got injured in the military. He got injured in the military. So for all these years, the Veterans' Administration has been paying for this. It has been wonderful. It has kept him out of an institution, kept him out of a nursing home, and it has allowed him to live by himself, to go to school, to go to work, to be with his family, to be with his friends. I have often thought, this is wonderful, but why should that just be for people who are injured in the military? What about so many other people who get injured like my nephew Kelly who are not in the military, maybe even injured before they could go into the military? He was only 19 when it happened to him. So for all these years, I have thought we should have some system in this country that would allow people like my nephew--who were not in the military but who, through an unfortunate accident, became disabled--that they could have that same kind of life, where they could live in their own homes in their own communities with their own families, have their own friends. That is why this is so important. This is perhaps one of the most important things we have done since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act to make sure people with disabilities have a full, enjoyable, productive, quality life. I hope Senators will decisively defeat the amendment that wants to strike this. Say yes. Say yes to so many people with disabilities and young people today and working people today. Say yes that we are going to have a system whereby you will have the peace of mind of knowing that if you want to contribute the money, you will be able to do so. Say no to the amendment that would strike that, and say yes to the Whitehouse amendment that actually supports the CLASS Act, makes sure that any savings from it are reinvested in that program. I thank the President and I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. HARKIN. Parliamentary inquiry: How much time remains?

Mr. HARKIN. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. HARKIN. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. HARKIN. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. HARKIN. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, it was interesting to hear the last speaker say: Don't take away the option for seniors in Medicare Advantage. Yet they have an amendment to take away the option for people who buy insurance against having a disability so they can stay in their own homes and have support. It is voluntary. It is not mandatory. No one is forcing them to do anything, I say to my friend from Texas. Yet there is an amendment on that side to take away that voluntary program, the CLASS Act, so that people can voluntarily put money into it to protect themselves against a future disability. Let's kind of keep our arguments a little bit straight. A lot of people have talked about Medicare Advantage. I will not close the argument on that. I will close on the necessity of keeping the CLASS Act in this bill. I have spoken many times about that. It is not a partisan issue. It is like when we passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was not a partisan issue. This should not be a partisan issue too. We should not let politics get involved. Over 275 groups representing people with disabilities of all ages, from AARP to Paralyzed Veterans of America to the Interfaith Coalition, support the CLASS Act. It was unanimously adopted by the HELP Committee, unanimously adopted by Republicans and Democrats. Senator Gregg offered an amendment to insist that it be actuarially sound over 75 years, and it is actuarially sound over 75 years. Secretary Sebelius said the administration supports it. President Obama supports it. There is broad-based support for the CLASS Act. Today we received some letters from people around the country. I don't have time to read them all but just a couple. Here is one from Arkansas: My wife has a journalism degree, cerebral palsy and brings money to the state of Arkansas with her stay at home job with occasional travel. If her health worsens she could still earn money for the state under the CLASS Act working from home with the assistance from an attendant, [rather than having to go to a nursing home.] Here is Virginia: I don't currently need the services under the CLASS Act, but having been born with a disability I've always been acutely aware of the possibility of serious issues down the road . . . it would be a good thing for me, a thirty-year-old working person, [to be able to put some money away.] I beg my colleagues, for the sake of people with disabilities, let's not adopt the amendment of the Republicans to take away the CLASS Act. It was Senator Kennedy's premier goal.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I heard the distinguished minority leader earlier in his comments say that one of the reasons they are slowing this bill down and having all this debate is it has been a strictly partisan venture thus far. I beg to differ with the minority leader. I see our distinguished ranking member of the HELP Committee here on the floor. In the HELP Committee, for the enlightenment of Senators, we had 13 days of markup, 54 hours, 788 amendments were filed, 287 amendments were considered and debated and voted on or accepted, and 161 Republican amendments were adopted. No one was denied the opportunity to offer any amendment, to discuss them, debate them, and get a vote or have it accepted, whatever the case might be. To me, this is truly a bipartisan way of proceeding. The minority leader's argument basically goes to the fact that the people of this country overwhelmingly elected Democrats to guide and make changes for the future. One of the biggest changes is in our health care system. One of the responsibilities of being a majority party is to propose. That is what we have done. We are proposing changes in the health care system. The function of the minority is to offer amendments, constructive amendments, offer different ideas, and if their ideas are better or if they receive majority approval, then the bill is thus changed. That happened in the HELP Committee. As I said, 161 Republican amendments were adopted. To me, that is bipartisan. That is what we have been doing. What is kind of not acceptable is this idea that things are just going to slow down for the purposes of delaying and eventually making sure we don't have a bill. Let me say that after all that lengthy debate we had in the HELP Committee, we passed a bill. The same will happen here on the Senate floor. I don't care how many times the minority wants to drag it out and slow it down to try to kill this bill, this bill will pass the Senate, we will go to conference, and we will have it on the President's desk early next year.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, parliamentary inquiry: There is time between now and the hour of 11:45 a.m. equally divided between the Republican side and the Democratic side; is that correct?

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I assume, then, the normal thing will be to go back and forth from one side to the other, the Republican side and the Democratic side?