Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Ashcroft.

Mr. NICKLES. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Pennsylvania, also a very strong contributor to the membership of our task force.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, how much time remains for both sides?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I call on the chairman of the HELP Committee, Senator Jeffords, for 2 minutes.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I appreciate the clarification made by our colleague from Tennessee. My colleague from Tennessee said we have this appeal process which applies to all plans, State-regulated plans as well as federally regulated plans, and that is very important. For people to say this would not have an appeal process, it would not apply to them, they are absolutely wrong. Any employer plan in the country would, from the internal and external appeal under the bill which hopefully we will be passing shortly. For the information of our colleagues, we are going to be voting in the next minute or two on the pending amendment, and then we will take final action on the substitute that will be offered by Senator Lott and myself and others. We expect to be voting on that, just for the information of our colleagues, by 8:15, hopefully no later than 8:30. We are going to be wrapping this up. I have one final comment. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the pending amendment. The pending amendment deals with continuity of care, all of which we support, but it tells the States: We don't care what you are doing. It is another one of these examples of we know better, we can define continuity of care better from Washington, DC, than the States. That is a serious mistake. In addition to overruling State laws, it also takes away an existing right under ERISA. It eliminates injunctive relief which would apply to everybody in the plan. It eliminates class action and injunctive relief on page 8 in the amendment. I do not know why they put it in. It is wrong. It is in the amendment. A person can go to court and say: I am entitled to the benefit under the plan, and the judge can agree, but the court can only agree for that one individual. It cannot agree for all the participants in that plan. That is a violation of current law which takes away rights in existing law. It is a serious mistake and should not be allowed. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the underlying amendment. I yield back the remainder of our time. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Yes. Sure.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, how much time do we have remaining?

Mr. NICKLES. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, how much times remains?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, for the information of our colleagues, we are coming to closure on this bill. I think the procedure is that now the Democrats, if we continue our alternation, have a second-degree amendment which will be offered to the underlying amendment, and we will consider that. We will vote on it. Then it is our expectation that we will have the passage of the substitute amendment, to be offered by Senator Lott on behalf of us, that will be wrapping up some of the changes we made to S. 326 in the consideration of this bill. We will offer that immediately following disposition of the Democrat amendment, and that will be the final vote of the evening. At least that is our expectation. For Members' information, we will be voting on the next amendment no later than 6:50, hopefully before 6:50. Then it is our intention to vote on final passage no later than an hour or 2 hours after that. That would be closer to 9. It is our hope that we can shave off some time and have final passage much closer to 8 than 9. Members can plan accordingly. Please plan on two more votes, one on the Democrat amendment, which will be offered momentarily, and then basically the final passage or the Republican wraparound amendment--we might call it that--or a substitute. It would incorporate all the changes we have made on the floor to S. 326. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Vote on Amendment No. 1252

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, previously I indicated we would have two rollcall votes back to back. Since we found out there is a Special Olympics luncheon several of our colleagues wish to go to, I ask unanimous consent the pending Collins amendment No. 1243 be temporarily laid aside and the vote occur on the amendment first in the next series of votes.

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

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, for the information of all Senators, I think we are ready to vote on the Gregg amendment, which strikes the liability provision. I also notify Senators that immediately following that vote, there will be a vote on the first-degree amendment, the amendment offered by Senator Collins dealing with long-term care deductibility and also dealing with ER and OB/GYN and access. So that vote will be immediately after the Gregg amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. I want to be clear. The Governors do not want us micromanaging their health care. The Governors, frankly, do not want us driving up health care costs. The Governors do not want to have a bill that is not really for patients rights, but rather for trial lawyers' rights. It would be great for lawsuits, but it would be terrible for health care. It basically would have people dropping health care all across the country because, not only do you sue HMOs, but you sue employers as well. Maybe many people have missed that part of the debate. The Kennedy bill says, let's sue employers. If your health care is not good enough, sue your employers. The employers say: We do not have to provide health care; we are going to drop it. Employees, I hope you take care of it on your own. If you want to increase the number of uninsured, pass the Kennedy bill. This amendment would strike the provision. I think it would be very positive for health care in America.

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from the Republican Governors Association, signed by Governor Keating from Oklahoma, Ed Schafer, Governor of North Dakota, and Don Sundquist, Governor of Tennessee, all urging us to defeat the Kennedy bill.

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I ask that the Senator from New Hampshire yield me 1 minute.

Mr. NICKLES. First, I compliment my colleague and friend, Senator Daschle--this has been a good debate--as well as Senator Reid and Senator Kennedy. We have had a good debate, good discussion of the issue. We have never had a cross word. We have had some good debate, excited debate. I want to call on an additional couple members of our task force-- first Senator Collins.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Massachusetts for his statement, as well as Senator Reid. It has been a pleasure to work with both. This has been a very productive and fruitful debate. As a result, we ended up with a very good bill. I am going to call on several members of our task force who helped put this bill together and worked very hard, not just for a week, not just for this week but, frankly, for the last year and a half. We had countless meetings and a lot of people, a lot of staff, put in a lot of effort. This was an effort that we felt very strongly about because we wanted to improve the quality of health care without increasing costs and increasing the number of uninsured, and I think we have done it.

Mr. NICKLES. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from New Hampshire to manage this portion of the bill.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, one, I understand some of my colleagues made the statement, what about a blue slip? If we pass a tax cut, won't the House of Representatives automatically blue-slip it? For those people who are not aware of what that means--and probably a lot of people watching do not have the faintest idea what that means and what that has to do with health care--the idea of a blue slip is that the Constitution of the United States says: All revenue measures must originate in the House. If the Senate originates a tax cut or revenue measure, the House can refuse to take it. They can blue-slip it and not have it go anywhere. We do not plan on having that on this particular bill. We have seen it before. I might mention, in the unanimous-consent agreement that was agreed to, that outlined the procedures for the bill. We agreed: That following passage of the bill, should the bill upon passage contain any revenue blue slip matter, the bill remain at the Desk; that when the Senate receives the House companion bill, the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of the Senate-passed bill be inserted in lieu thereof, and the bill, as amended, be passed; and that the Senate insist on its amendment and request a conference with the House, all without any intervening action or debate. What that means is, obviously, we knew in the Senate bill it was our intention to deal with tax issues because we want to increase access; we want to improve access; we want to increase the number of people who are insured. Unfortunately, our colleagues' bill, the Democrat bill, the Kennedy bill, will increase the number of people who are uninsured. It is estimated by people to increase the number of uninsured by 1.8 million, maybe 2 million people who would lose their insurance. We don't want to do that. I stated on the floor of the Senate, maybe 2 years ago, that whatever we did we should do no harm, we should not increase health care costs, and we should not increase the number of uninsured. We should be doing just the opposite. We should be increasing the number of insured. In the amendment the Senator from Maine has offered, we have given a tax credit for people with long-term health care, a provision I believe and I hope and expect will improve the access to long-term health care, which is a problem for millions of Americans. That will improve it dramatically. It will be a very positive change. I compliment my friend and colleague from Maine for basically saying: We want this in our bill. Long-term health care is a very significant problem. There are a lot of people going into nursing homes and they are going bankrupt or their families are going bankrupt trying to take care of loved ones in nursing homes. Shouldn't we do something to address that? In the Tax Code we have incentives to help with health care, rather significant incentives. Large corporations get to deduct 100 percent. Unfortunately, the self- employed only get to deduct 45 percent. We have already addressed that. That was one of the amendments we agreed to yesterday, allowing 100- percent deductibility for the self-employed. That is a positive change. This change, as offered by our colleague from Maine, and others, is a very positive change saying, let's give a tax deduction for people in purchasing long-term health care coverage so they will not be so dependent on their kids or their grandkids, in some cases, or other family members, so they can start working on preparing for their later years and making that available for them now. That will improve their quality of health care now, or they will be ready for it now. Most people do not do that. Most companies do not do it. Most plans do not do it. We want to encourage it. We want to jump start it. We want to make it a common option, a common fringe benefit that, frankly, right now is not there. Most people do not have it, do not think about it until it is too late, until a loved one goes into a nursing home or maybe a loved one has a real problem with Alzheimer's or something, and the expenses are very large. So the provision my friend and colleague, Senator Collins, has offered allows individuals with no employer subsidy to deduct 100 percent of the cost of long-term care insurance and allows long-term care benefits to be offered through a cafeteria plan. The estimated cost--I think somebody asked that--is $5.4 billion over 5 years and would benefit an estimated 3.8 million taxpayers. I make that clear. One of my colleagues said: How is it paid for? How are you going to pay for it? What is your intention on how to pay for it? We actually do intend on having some offsets. We have not introduced those yet. We will at the appropriate time. I have been somewhat critical and maybe have had a little fun with my colleague, Senator Kennedy, because he had some tax increase in some of the provisions including Superfund and others. I do not think Superfund belongs in this bill. We do plan on having some offsets at the appropriate time. We do not have to, under this UC, have them in the bill at this point or else my colleague could make a point of order on it. That is not allowed in the unanimous consent agreement that was already reached by both sides, and so I just mention that. But at the appropriate time we expect to have an offset. Even if we did not have an offset, the bill would not pass the Senate; it would be held at the desk until we received the appropriate vehicle from the House of Representatives. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES. How much time remains on the amendment?

Mr. NICKLES. Let me make a couple comments on the bill in general. I am assuming I am on our time.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield me 1 minute?