Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have given assurance to the Senator from Texas, but I wish to see if we can have a short time. She will retain the right to make that request, but let us see if we can't work out the time now with the Finance Committee. Could we try that before getting consent? Because there has been some question about others who wanted to add a number of amendments on both sides, and we are trying to at least dispose of some of those that are on the list. I will give the assurance that this legislation, at least if I have anything to do with it, is not going to pass or be considered or closed out to the Senator from Texas, because, as she has pointed out, she raised these and we gave assurance she would get them. We were prepared on that Thursday evening, as we were running out of time to do the supplemental and to get the Finance Committee over. The Senator mentioned, before the majority leader left, that she wanted to offer that, and I regret I had not gotten the Finance Committee members over here. They were marking up I think the CHIP program earlier in the day. That is my only reservation about setting aside now, because there has been objection on both sides to adding more until we start to dispose of some of the underlying amendments. I will certainly try to get the clearance and work with the Senator and do it within the next few hours, if the Senator would withhold that and give us an opportunity to try to work through that. The Senator is quite correct that we have given her those assurances, and I intend to keep my word to the Senator.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, reserving the right, I just mentioned to the Senator from Texas that there has been an objection. I would like to go to the Cornyn amendment--we have the side-by-side--get started, debate it, and vote on it tonight. That is what I would like to do. If necessary, we will do something over here in the meantime, come back, and deal with the Senator from Texas. We are ready to go. We have a side-by-side. We can get into general descriptions about that, but why don't we get started on the Cornyn amendment. I was asked earlier whether we would agree to debate and dispose of the DeMint amendment, and we said fine. But if we are now going to add more and more amendments on this--I agree with those who say let's get to work. Let's do the Cornyn amendment at this time. Respectfully, as I said, we were ready to deal with the DeMint amendment 10 minutes ago. Even now, if we want to debate it and vote on it and dispose of it, we are ready to go. But that isn't it, it is now to just be filed. How can we do that if we object to the Senator from Texas filing? Why don't we go to the Cornyn amendment, I ask Senator Specter. We will be helpful and try to get the amendment of Senator DeMint up. We are not trying to close him out. We can deal with that later this evening. I am glad to do that later this evening. We are set to go. It deals with health insurance. I am familiar with the issue. I am ready to go on it. We can deal with Cornyn. In the meantime, we can go to the Finance Committee and find out what we want to do with the amendment of the Senator from Texas, and then the leader asked us to try to dispose of DeMint. We were prepared to go ahead with the Sessions amendment that deals with the ITC that the Senator from Alabama wanted earlier. It is not our problem with this. We are ready to go. We are ready to debate and vote. I hope we can go ahead with the Cornyn amendment and the Senator will give us a little time to get this worked out about whether we are going to add and stack additional amendments up. I haven't got anything against the DeMint amendment. I saw it. I think it is a legitimate amendment. Could we ask consent that we go to the Cornyn amendment?

Mr. KENNEDY. Could the Chair restate? Is it the request of the Senator that we consider the Cornyn amendment? We are making available now the side-by-side. It is basically similar to the other one but in greater detail. Is it the request of the Senator that we go to his amendment now, we have a 2-hour debate on it, and that we vote on the side-by-side? Is that the Senator's request?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if I understand the request of the Senator, he wants to be able to have 2 hours on the Cornyn amendment to be voted on tomorrow morning. Hopefully we can debate this this evening. I am more than glad to make the side-by-side available. I certainly support the request. If we can have it more precise, is it just sometime in the morning? Are we going to debate this this evening? I would like to try to get it so at least the leadership and Members know. This is a very important amendment. We want to make sure they are aware--what is the desire of the Senator? That we debate it this evening and we let the leaders set the time for the vote tomorrow but we spend at least 2 hours on the Cornyn amendment and the side-by-side and at some time designated by the leadership we vote on it tomorrow morning at an appropriate time?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we are making that available. I strongly support it and urge it, as I understand the Senator isn't proposing that exactly at this moment but intends to do so, pending the examination of the amendment. I certainly support that process. We will wait. It is not being propounded at this particular time, as I understand it, until he has a chance to look at it, but that would be the intention about the way to proceed. We will make available to him the side-by-side and then hopefully have an opportunity to propose the consent agreement sometime in the very near future. We then would maybe proceed to consider the DeMint amendment, and we will in the meantime get ahold of the Finance Committee to deal with the Senator from Texas, to check with our side to see whether we have an intervening amendment. That is what I would hope. But I hope very much we are going to continue to do the business of the Senate this evening.

Mr. KENNEDY. I see the Senator on the floor. I was going to try to see if we could not get Senator DeMint over to do that in a timely way. It is on health insurance. We will do it in a timely way. In the meantime, we are working with the Finance Committee to try to be able to deal with the Senator from Texas. I would like to try to do that. I was going to suggest the absence of a quorum. I will not do so.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we have the Hutchison amendment. I have no intention to try to exclude the Senator. We are making a note at this particular time--we have been trying to cooperate. We have been trying to get an amendment up for the last hour or so. But there were others on our side who wanted to offer theirs, and at least our leaders wanted us to try to dispose of the underlying ones before we add one. I will reluctantly object to it, but I give personal assurances we will do everything we can to get it up in a timely way, but at this time I have to object to that consideration.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if I can have the attention of the Senator from South Carolina. His amendment will maintain a minimum level of health coverage through a qualified health plan in the meaning of 223(C) of the Internal Revenue Code. Is that right?

Mr. KENNEDY. That is the health savings accounts?

Mr. KENNEDY. So if they had other kinds of health coverage at all, they still would not be--unless they have this particular coverage, the high deductible, they would not be able to make--adjust their status.

Mr. KENNEDY. Is the Senator aware now that the undocumented or aliens are not eligible for any of the Medicaid proposals at the present time?

Mr. KENNEDY. Why did the Senator select just this particular health coverage rather than being able to participate in HMOs or other kinds of programs?

Mr. KENNEDY. What is the estimate that the Senator has for this coverage? What is the estimate that they would have to pay out for this coverage?

Mr. KENNEDY. If there are preexisting conditions--how does this amendment affect preexisting conditions?

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, we have 47 million Americans who don't have coverage at the present time. But you want to insist that anyone, these undocumented are going to be mandated individual coverage in order to be able to adjust their status?

Mr. KENNEDY. Of course, CBO studies which have been released in the last few days show that immigrant workers contribute much more in terms of taxes than they use in terms of services by about $24 billion over the estimate of the length of this plan.

Mr. KENNEDY. I have heard studies quoted. Generally, around here we use Congressional Budget Office figures for actions in the State. They reach a rather dramatically different conclusion than the studies the Senator has mentioned.

Mr. KENNEDY. Of course, the workers themselves have to contribute $550 as part of their cost anyway, their contribution to the State. In terms of consideration of covering any of the costs, that was sort of put into the legislation itself, in terms of the additional fees and additional fines as well, that addition to help offset any of the expenses that would be carried in the State itself.

Mr. KENNEDY. It is important to get health care and health care coverage for all who do not have it. The real issue is the best way to pursue that. That is something we have to take a look at. I see the Senator from West Virginia is here and wishes to address the Senate on an important matter about our friend and colleague from Wyoming. I yield the floor and thank the Senator.

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

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, to give some information to the Members, as I understand, Senator Hutchison and the members of the Finance Committee are meeting. As a point of information, the Senator from Texas, Mrs. Hutchison, and staff are meeting with the Finance Committee staff to consider those particular proposals. We have given the assurance to her that the Senate will address those issues at some time, but since it was just dealing with Social Security, although there are provisions in here that deal with Social Security, it is entirely appropriate that we ought to have the Finance Committee work on that. The Senator from New Mexico has offered an alternative on the temporary worker program that is a serious amendment, and we could, if we are--we will have to find out what the pathway is between voting on one side and voting on the other, to be able to consider that, but that is an important alternative to what is the underlying legislation. I know there is going to be some response to that from Members very shortly. On the amendment of Senator DeMint, he had indicated he was going to come to the floor to offer it. We were hopeful we might be able to consider that and have a vote on that later on as well. At the present time, we are trying to work to see if we cannot find a situation where we can get two votes, one from the Democratic side and one from the Republican side, on measures that have been included on that list that have been talked about earlier, and the Members of the staffs on the Republican and Democratic side are working to see if we can't refine the list of different amendments to see what might be acceptable and then what might be germane and see if we can't refine this list. So that, I know for people outside the Senate, doesn't sound like much of an explanation about what is going on, but it is important and often produces additional motions here in the Senate. So we will have more information on this. A very brief word on the DeMint amendment. His amendment requires a high deductible health insurance for each undocumented; otherwise, they would not be able to proceed with their earned legalization program which includes payments of the fines, demonstration of the work product, the investigations that show they have not had challenges in terms of the law, and the series of requirements that are out there. He would add to this the additional expenditures which would be necessary for coverage with a high deductible health insurance. There are several points to mention here. First of all, in the underlying legislation, we have included a payment, some $500, that will be paid by each of the 12.5 million immigrants who are out there, many of whom will adjust their status. If they pay that $500, that is in excess of $1 billion--$1 billion that will be paid to those high- impact States, which is not insignificant, to help offset any of the kinds of utilization of these individuals in terms of the services within these various States. That is not insignificant. Secondly, all of us are hopeful of trying to get universal coverage for people in this country, but we know we have 47 million who don't, and the ones who don't, it isn't that they don't want to have health insurance, it is because they cannot afford it. When you look at these individuals whom we are talking about, the undocumented and their income, we are talking about individuals who are earning $8,000, $9,000, $10,000 a year. If they have the adjustment of the status, they are going to be part of the whole kind of American system, hopefully, and meeting the other kinds of requirements, and therefore their enhanced opportunities are going to be there so they will be able to afford health care in the future. But making the requirement now will only state to those individuals to keep them in the shadows. It is one more barrier that is going to prohibit them from being involved. A final point--and I ask unanimous consent to have this material printed in the record--the utilization of these health care facilities as we have seen in the most recent study, particularly in the State of Texas, which shows that, by and large, these are individuals who are younger, have used these health emergency centers very rarely. We have the studies that have been done, particularly the most recent one in Texas.

Mr. KENNEDY. So at the appropriate time, I hope the DeMint amendment would not be accepted. We might have more time to consider it, if the Senator wants to, when we have more of our colleagues here later, prior to the disposal of it. I was sort of hoping we could see a continued movement on several of these amendments, but we are being told now we have to have this clearance from the leadership on some of these measures, but we are hopeful we will announce to our colleagues very shortly what the plan is for the rest of the evening. We are prepared to stay here, remain here and go through to dispose of these amendments. We have made important progress in the past. We have some important amendments which are pending. I think Senator Specter and I and the others who are interested in this--I see my good friend from Colorado, Senator Salazar, and others who are more than willing to have a good discussion about these amendments, and we would welcome the opportunity to have the Senate express itself with votes. That is certainly our desire. We wish to see continued progress on this extremely important legislation. As one of those with others who has been a part of this process, we want to try. We know it is complicated and difficult. We know there are strong emotions. But I think all of us, after the period of this Memorial Day recess, understand full well the American people are expecting us to take action. They know that failure is not an alternative. They know it is complex. They know there are great emotions. There are a good many who know nothing out there--people who distort, misrepresent, misstate the legislation, and then differ with it, and that has certainly been done with regard to this legislation. We have, at least to date, had good debates and discussions on substantive matters, and the Senate has reached conclusions on a number of these matters. It is certainly our desire to continue that process to work with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to continue.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I was in consultation. Could the Senator restate his request? I apologize to him.

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator chooses to call up his amendment. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, what we were attempting to do is, as we have been moving from one side to the other, Republican and Democrat, to have the introduction of amendments on both sides. That is what we would like to do. We have had a flurry right now of amendments. I hope we get an opportunity--I think, quite frankly, there are more amendments on that side than on this side, as a factual matter. What they have tried to do is match amendment for amendment on both sides. That has been what they have tried to do through the day today. Whether that will be the way it will be in the future, I don't know. As I mentioned, there are more amendments on that side. So, obviously, we are going to have to deal with more. At the present time, they are trying to match one side with the other side in terms of amendments. So I hope that if we have amendments on this side, the Democrats would notify us so we can match them up and propose them together. I necessarily have to object at the present time. I hope we will not have to object when we get our final list. To try to maintain at least that balance, which was at least the way we were attempting to proceed, I have to do it at the present time. I will do everything in my power to make sure that, having done so, his amendment will certainly be considered in a timely way so it doesn't work to his disadvantage.