Debbie Stabenow

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield for a question?

Ms. STABENOW. Thank you very much. Before asking my question, I want to thank the senior Senator from Washington State for her leadership and passion on behalf of my children and on behalf of myself. As a product of a small rural school in Northern Michigan, my two children went to public school, and my two grandchildren are now going to public schools. I want to thank you for your leadership, and I am so grateful to all of our colleagues and our two Republican colleagues who are joining us today. Would you agree that when we look at this--and I certainly have a bird's-eye view. We in Michigan have lived what has happened in cutting public schools and moving dollars to private, for-profit, nonprofit charters without virtually any accountability. Would you agree that essentially we have a nominee who is looking through a lens of a private sector for-profit model, where in the private sector we have winners and losers, so you can have a business open and close. That is based on our private marketplace. It works well, but in education it is different. We can't afford for any of our children to be losers in education, and it just doesn't work to have this competitive marketplace; that what we need is a quality public school along with public choices. I support public charters with accountability and other choices, but what we have is a view of a nominee, someone who has not been involved in public schools herself, or her children, and so on, who comes at it from this perspective of winners and losers in the private market, and we cannot afford any child to be a loser as it relates to their education.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, before my colleague from Oklahoma leaves the floor, while we disagree on this current debate in terms of voting, I just have to say when I see him that I constantly thank him for his efforts last year to work with us for the community of Flint. We are finding some hope in terms of replacing and addressing the lead contamination, and without the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma, that literally would not have happened. We have things we disagree on and agree on, and this one--coming together with the families of Flint, particularly with the children and the water impacts--he will always have a warm place in the hearts of all of us who care deeply about that issue. I thank my colleague very much. Mr. President, I want to speak today about the nomination of Betsy DeVos. Betsy DeVos's nomination is very personal to many people who live in Michigan because Betsy DeVos is from Michigan, and her vision of education and her actions have unfortunately played a major role in undermining our public schools. Families all across our State can tell the story of her work with Michigan schools firsthand because they have seen it firsthand. They have lived it firsthand. They all say the same thing. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, people who live in cities that are big and small, parents and teachers, principals, and community leaders from across the State-- overwhelmingly, they have told me that Betsy DeVos should not be our next Secretary of Education. Everywhere I go, I can't believe how people will stop me about this and how strongly people feel in Michigan about this. They are saying this because, among other things, she has pushed for policies that have made charter schools in Michigan less accountable and has taken dollars away from public schools where the vast majority of children get their education. These are policies that have hurt our children and put their futures at risk. I have received so many emails and phone calls from people involved every which way; at the grocery store, out at public events, people come up to me. I just want to share a couple of e-mails. Chris is a teacher from Harper Woods and worked as a teacher in the Detroit public schools for over 20 years. He wrote: Betsy DeVos believes in school privatization and vouchers. She has worked to undermine efforts to regulate Michigan charters, even when they clearly fail. The marketplace solutions of DeVos will destroy our democratically governed community schools. Her hostility toward public education disqualifies her. Those were Chris's comments. In Michigan last year, State legislators put together a bipartisan plan, and our State legislature--House and Senate--majority is Republican. They put together a bipartisan plan to increase both funding and accountability for Detroit public schools. There are a lot of wonderful things happening in Detroit. Businesses are coming back to Detroit, and economic development is also, but we have major work to do for our children and their schools. So there was a huge bipartisan effort that came together to increase funding and accountability for the public schools, including charter schools. It was a commonsense proposal. Betsy DeVos led the effort to stop it, particularly the part that brought critically needed public accountability for for-profit and nonprofit charter schools. Unfortunately, right now in Michigan we have a system where anyone can apply to open a charter school. There are no statewide standards for revoking the charter, and taxpayer money is sent to them with virtually no public disclosure requirement. For example, we have for- profit charter management companies that say they are private businesses; therefore, even though they are getting public money, they say they are private businesses, and they should not have to comply with a series of disclosure requirements regarding teachers and other information that, frankly, parents would want to know and taxpayers have a right to know. Thirty-eight percent of charters in Michigan are at the bottom 25 percent of the schools in our State. When you look at the bottom one- fourth, 38 percent of the charters are in that category, and there is unfortunately very little accountability for their performance. Sadly, precious taxpayer dollars have been taken away from public schools--neighborhood schools--to fund these charters. When it comes to funding for public schools, she will not commit to protecting the critical Federal dollars that serve our children. One mom, Hillary Young from Detroit, came to Washington to watch the confirmation hearing on Betsy DeVos in the HELP Committee. She wrote to me. She said that she was not impressed and told a group of parents afterwards: As a parent I can't stand silently and watch other children be subject to similar circumstances to my child in Detroit. My sixth grader was without a math teacher for over half the year last year because of funding reductions. The effect of DeVos's policies is not parents voting with their feet to go to better schools; it is children bearing the burden for fixing the education system they are supposed to be served by. She goes on to say: DeVos's free market school choice system has left our city's education landscape in chaos, leaving less choice, less quality, and even more government bureaucracy. We have seen parents get involved and speak out all across Michigan and, frankly, all across the country. I have received more mail, more emails, more phone calls on this nominee than any other, and I have received a lot on a lot of nominees, but there is a broad outcry. People like Kathleen, who is a farmer and a grandmother from Farmington Hills, wrote to me: We have 15 grandchildren who are in the public school system, and we are terrified that there will be no more public schools and that the quality will be far inferior to charter and other private schools. I am writing you to respectfully ask that you do not vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. I am deeply concerned about what we heard in committee about her views on special education. In the HELP Committee hearing last week, she suggested that States should decide on whether or not to enforce IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Act that has been such a landmark, opening doors of schools in every neighborhood across our country, for children with disabilities. This law was enacted in 1975, and makes sure that children with disabilities have the same educational opportunities as other children. My nephew Barry, who has now gone through the special education system in Michigan, is a wonderful young man with Down syndrome. And I have seen personally how important that was for him, to be able to go on and be successful in the community as a part of the community. It is a very important civil right, frankly, for children with disabilities, as well as an essential part of our educational system. Betsy DeVos, after her hearing, when she was asked about special education, followed up with a letter days later and wrote about expanding the conversation about school choice opportunities for parents of children with disabilities, but she didn't say anything about helping those in traditional public schools or helping students in the schools they are in now. For me, this is not about politics or partisan messaging or even charters or private schools versus traditional public schools; it really is about what is best for our children and for our country. Families in Michigan and all across the country know this. Tens of thousands of people have called me over the last few weeks and sent emails and letters. Who we choose to be the Secretary of Education doesn't just affect the over 50 million children who attend public elementary and secondary schools, it affects the future of our country, and it is a fundamental difference in views. A competitive free market system, with winners and losers, works in the private marketplace. I support that. Business is open. They compete, and if they don't do well, they close, or they do very well and they go on and they grow. That is a strength in our country. But it doesn't work for educating our children because we can't afford losers. We can't afford losers when it comes to something as basic as fundamental education and creating opportunity for our children in the future. We need to provide every opportunity for every child to work hard and succeed. I support having choices. I support magnet schools and public charters--I did that as a State Senator--as well as other choices that are great opportunities for children, if there are equal standards and public accountability for taxpayers' dollars so that parents can have confidence in that accountability, and if it is part of the public school system, the public process, and only if they are in addition to quality neighborhood schools in every neighborhood and in every ZIP Code. It is not just a slogan to say it shouldn't matter where you live, what kind of opportunity you get or that your child has, and that is becoming more and more true. It certainly is in Michigan, where this philosophy has been a test case, and we are seeing it across the country. We can't afford losers. A winners-and-losers system is not good enough for our kids. Betsy DeVos has a record of working against the vision of accountability and standards and choice within a system where every child has a quality neighborhood school in their neighborhood in every ZIP Code. She has worked against that vision. She doesn't believe in it. We have fundamental differences in what will help our children for the future. That is why I will be voting no on her confirmation. Thank you.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. On behalf of the people of Michigan--

Ms. STABENOW.--I vote no.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I want to talk specifically for a few minutes about mental health care and about an amendment that I will be offering this evening. But I do want to start off by stepping back for a moment and indicating that, from my perspective, I know those of us on the Democratic side of the aisle understand that we have work to do together to continue to bring down costs for health care and, in some areas where there is not enough competition, in fact, to create that competition. Affordable health care is the goal for all of us. I have concerns in looking at my small business community that we continue to do things that support them. That is different than what we are being asked to vote on here. What we are being asked to vote on is a repeal of health reform that touches every American and all of the patient protections that we put in place that have moved total control from insurance companies to people with insurance so that we can't quit a job if we get sick. If you have a preexisting condition, are a diabetic, or have heart disease or you had some other challenge or your child has, you know that you will have confidence that you will continue to be able to find insurance and see your doctor. There are all of the provisions that are here--young people up to age 26, all of the efforts that we put in place to make sure that you have the confidence and the ability to know that you have insurance. We need to ensure that if someone has cancer, they are not going to be capped with the amount of care they can get. Yesterday in the capitol in Lansing, MI, there were physicians and pediatricians working with cancer patients, with children and their families, who were talking about the fact that, because of the Affordable Care Act and taking off the caps on the amount and kinds of treatment that children with cancer can get, literally, lives have been saved. Parents are now looking at this body and the Congress as a whole and the new President and are saying: Why in the world would we want to go back to a situation where people can't get the level of care, the quality of care, or, in some cases, the care at all for themselves or their families? So we are proposing that, rather than repealing health reform, which unravels the entire health care system because part of it is Medicare, part of it is prescription drugs going back up--it weakens the Medicare system, and it weakens the Medicaid system, where most of the dollars are going to seniors in nursing homes. It creates a situation where someone who is working very hard at a minimum-wage job and hasn't been able to have insurance because their employer didn't provide it can now have the assurance that they can care for themselves and their families and see a doctor without using the emergency room for regular treatment, which, of course, is the most expensive way to get health care and drives the costs up. What is being proposed is that we unravel all of it and literally create chaos in the system. We are for affordable health care, and we are willing to work with anybody at any time. I, certainly, will be ready and willing to do that. But I reject the idea that we are going to repeal and unravel the entire health care system and create chaos for families, businesses, and communities. There are many communities where the hospital system is the major employer in the community. Health care is one-sixth of the entire economy and is going to be impacted by this. I want to specifically speak about the importance of accessible and affordable mental health services and what we have been able to achieve with protections established by the Affordable Care Act that ensure people can receive care. We have come a long way since over 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Act and put down a marker about the importance of treating health issues above the neck as well as below the neck. Comprehensive health care should affect every organ, every part of the body, every kind of disease. We have made major steps in that direction. We have a long way to go to get the comprehensive care we need in the community, but we have made major steps forward, including bipartisan efforts here related to the Cures Act, as well as the efforts that Senator Roy Blunt and I have been working on to make sure the payments for providing services in the community are the same for mental health and substance abuse services as well as physical health. So we have made steps forward, but the reality is that repealing the Affordable Care Act will take us backwards in a major way. I have introduced, along with colleagues who are also champions on this issue--Senators Cardin, Murphy, Durbin, and a number of other Democratic colleagues--an amendment that would help to prevent passage of any legislation that would reduce or eliminate services and access to mental health care. This is an amendment that should not even be necessary, particularly given the fact that we have worked in a bipartisan way on other pieces of legislation to move forward. I don't know why we would ever pass something that reduces or eliminates access to mental health or substance abuse services such as opioid treatment. Why in the world would this body come together and jeopardize work we have already done, essentially ripping it apart? The repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the cuts to the Medicaid Program do exactly that. Why is this important? Well, nearly one in five adults in our country has a mental illness. About 4 percent of adults have serious mental illness. Unfortunately, even now, with work we have been doing, we still have over 60 percent of people who don't receive the full treatment they need. We should be working together on that, not taking away the access to treatment that people already have. This touches all of us in one way or another. I think all of us--our families, our friends--know someone. In my case it is very personal. I grew up with a loving, wonderful father who became ill when I was in elementary school. He was misdiagnosed and mistreated for years, and finally was accurately diagnosed as being bipolar, meaning he had a chemical imbalance in the brain. So contrary to other people who may have a sugar imbalance and they take their insulin because they are diabetic or they may have some other chemical change or imbalance where they can get treatment that has been covered under health insurance, if it is a chemical imbalance in their brain, up until the Affordable Care Act, it was not required to be covered under health insurance. It was not required, even though we passed policies stating that there should be mental health parity. For the first time, in the Affordable Care Act, we said in every definition that, when we talked about health care, it would include behavioral health, mental health, and substance abuse. As a member of the Finance Committee, that was a top priority for me. I indicated to the chairman at the time that I would not support any health care reform that did not define essential health care benefits as including mental health and substance abuse services. We know that definitions drive every new system, and we were successful in making sure that, in every part of health reform, we defined health care in a comprehensive way for the first time. Mental health used to be considered a preexisting condition--not any more. Health insurance companies can no longer deny you coverage or raise your rates because you need mental health treatment. My dad struggled with that throughout his life. When he was finally diagnosed correctly and got the medications and the help that he needed, he never went back into the hospital again. I have seen what happens when someone doesn't get the help they need and when they do and the challenges to the families as well, and I am committed to making sure that services and treatment are available for every family. Americans now have coverage for preventive services like depression screenings with no cost-share. You can see your doctor to get help without breaking the bank. Mental health and substance abuse are also now guaranteed benefits, as I mentioned before. They are covered as essential health care benefits. Why in the world would we not want to do that? Why would we say we want people to have access to health care, but it depends on what part of the body your disease is in? That makes absolutely no sense. The Affordable Care Act makes sure that our law defines comprehensive health care from your head to your toes. It is the right thing to do. These are all commonsense reforms, and we cannot afford to roll this back. A Harvard Medical School and New York University study released just this morning shows that if the ACA were repealed, 1.2 million Americans with serious mental disorders and 2.8 million Americans with substance abuse disorders would lose some or all of their coverage. This is 4 million people losing treatment that is allowing them to get help, move on with their lives, and be productive citizens as we all want to be and as we all want to have available to our family members. Think of all the millions more who could again be in a situation of not being able to afford insurance once relabeled with a preexisting condition. The opioid treatment gap--the gap between the number of people who seek services and those who can find or afford--would increase by 50 percent if the ACA is repealed. There would be 50 percent more people unable to find or afford services. We just had major debate on the floor and passed grant funding to help with this very serious issue. But why in the world should we say for a critical part of health care affecting every family, one out of five Americans, that it will be only around grants and not a part of our comprehensive health care system? What happens now? The grant runs out: Gosh, I am so sorry you are sick. I am so sorry that you need to see a therapist or that you need medications. I am so sorry the grant ran out. I don't think we would do that to somebody who had a heart attack: I am so sorry you have had a heart attack. You need surgery, but the grant ran out. But with mental health illness, that is what happens every day. That is what happens. Frankly, it is outrageous that we don't have a comprehensive health care system that is completely treating and responding in every way and reimbursing physicians and nurses for all of the different kinds of treatments, services, and medical help they provide. We have put into law in the ACA that insurance companies cannot discriminate, you cannot have larger copays, you cannot have caps on services, you cannot have larger premiums--and this is a fundamental baseline right that we have placed into law as it relates to access to mental health and substance abuse services. To see that ripped away from Americans across the country is unbelievable to me. It is totally unacceptable. The amendment we are offering would create a budget point of order against any legislation that comes to this floor that reduces access to mental health services for children, for adults, for seniors in this country. I would hope that all of us could join together and state through our votes that we understand how important these services are and what a difference they have made. Right now, repeal of the ACA means 4 million people will lose those services, not counting all of the others that would be blocked because of future access problems and preexisting conditions and caps on services and all of those patient protections that go away. I hope that we will join together in a bipartisan way, as we have done on bills such as the Cures Act and others, to say we understand this is the fundamental piece. It starts with mental health parity. To me it is incredibly hypocritical to talk about these issues and want to provide grant funding when the fundamental question of whether mental health and substance abuse services covered under your insurance are ripped away, which is what will happen with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I urge my colleagues to support our amendment. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, let me first say to the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee that we look forward to seeing the replacement as well because that is really the key right now. People across the country are saying: Wait a minute. You are going to unravel a system. You are going to repeal and take away the health care that I have and the patient protections that I have, and we don't even know if it will be better. Why in the world would that be done if the new system wasn't going to be better than the old system? Right now we don't see anything. We see 6 years of repeals coming from the House and Senate and no plans. We still don't see a plan, and we have no idea. More importantly, there are millions of people with insurance who are either getting patient protections or affordable care they couldn't get before or have Medicare strengthened or Medicaid support, and no one knows what will happen next. Doctors, nurses, health care providers--no one knows what is going to happen next. I think it is the most irresponsible approach to addressing one of the basic needs for all of our families that we could ever have. So we know that in the end, when you pull the thread, essentially, you unravel the whole system. That, minimally, creates instability in the entire economy. There is no plan being held up that would improve health care, which we are all for. I am all for making the health care system more affordable for families, strengthening health care. Let's do it. Unravelling and creating chaos in the health care system--no. It makes absolutely no sense, and we know that it is just going to make America sick again. I want to share a couple of stories. First, we hear from Mary of Dundee, who owns a small business and has a 20-year-old daughter with a preexisting condition. For her, coverage--but, also, what we call the Patients' Bill of Rights--is absolutely critical. That is part of the Affordable Care Act that affects everybody with insurance. Seventy-five percent of Americans get their insurance through their employer. In the past, they could get dropped if they got sick, if they had diabetes or had a child with juvenile diabetes or had a heart condition or high blood pressure. Women who were of childbearing years could be viewed as having a preexisting condition. In the past, insurance companies had total control to decide who got coverage, when they got dropped, what would happen when you got sick and needed medical care. That changed with a Patients' Bill of Rights in the Affordable Care Act. There are a whole range of protections to make sure the insurance you pay for every month actually provides the medical care when you need it for you and your family. Let's start with Mary's story. She wanted to express her concern about repealing the Affordable Care Act, and I appreciate very much the fact that she shared her story with me. She says: My family and I have purchased our coverage through the [ACA] marketplace for 2015, 2016, and 2017. This opportunity has allowed us to become self-employed. . . . They could open their own business. They weren't tied to their job because of the need of health insurance. They now have opened their own small business in Dundee, MI. Prior to the ACA, I was working to provide coverage-- How many times have we heard that? I have heard that even in my own extended family-- then I lost my full time status and as a part-time employee, the hours I worked barely covered my portion of my employer provided healthcare. By enrolling for coverage through the marketplace, I was able to pick the coverage needed for our family at an affordable price . . . not knowing what the future held becoming self employed. We have three daughters. Our oldest has life threatening allergies and asthma. I did not need to worry that we would be denied coverage due to preexisting conditions. As Congress proceeds to dismantle the ACA, I am concerned for my oldest daughter who is in her sophomore year at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She is 20 years old. . . . Will she continue to have coverage through our insurance until she is 26 as the ACA provides? If not, what kind of coverage will she be able to afford due to her preexisting conditions? Why put more obstacles in the way of our young adults? That is a really good question, Mary. It makes no sense to do that. She goes on to say: The ACA, we're sure, has faults . . . and like everything, could be improved, but to scrap it and not use it at least as a ``seed'' to grow and improve is beyond my understanding. To suggest that there is nothing to keep is absurd and 20-30 million Americans enrolled . . . agree with us. I agree with you as well, Mary. Thank you for sharing your story. The coverage in the Affordable Care Act and the strengthening of Medicare and Medicaid are critical, as are the patient protections--the Patient Bill of Rights that affects people who buy insurance now, who finally got control back from insurance companies that made every single decision. Being able to know that, if, in fact, you get sick or your child has a serious health condition, they won't be denied care for the rest of their lives, and also being able to have them on your insurance as they start off in life--there are so many protections. The caps on treatments and the number of treatments and services provided have been eliminated. The Patients' Bill of Rights is absolutely critical. I want to take just a moment to speak about another piece of this, which relates to the Patients' Bill of Rights as it relates to women. In the past, the majority of plans--about 70 percent of the insurance plans in the private sector that a woman might try to choose and purchase--wouldn't cover basic maternity care. I couldn't believe it when I first heard that. Wait a minute. It wouldn't cover basic maternity care? Now every plan has to cover basic maternity care. It makes sense. No longer is just being a woman a preexisting condition. That is part of the Patients' Bill of Rights. The capacity to now get preventive care, a mammogram, cancer screenings, and other types of preventive care is done without a copay. So we want people to go and get that checkup and, if there is a problem, to be able to tackle it early. That is most important because it is better for the person, but it also means there will be less cost to the health care system if you can catch something early. So the Patients' Bill of Rights is really critical to that. There is something else that is also in here that is appalling to me and goes directly to the question of women's health care, and that is the fact that this bill repeals Planned Parenthood services and, basically, guts health care for women across Michigan and women across the country. For 75 percent of the women who use a Planned Parenthood clinic in Michigan, their visit will be the only health care they get all year. We have rural counties in northern Michigan where the only health care clinics doing preventive care--cancer screenings, basic services, OB/GYN visits--are the Planned Parenthood clinics. So many women across Michigan will see their access to health care denied if this passes and Planned Parenthood loses its funding. There were 71,000 patients, the majority of them women, in Michigan in 2014, who received care--breast exams, Pap smears, prenatal visits. Again, tying this all together, we want to cover maternity care, but we also want healthy moms and healthy babies, and that means prenatal care. We have communities in these small towns, as well as in the big cities. But it affects small towns and rural communities around Michigan, where women are going to be denied services, and it is the only clinic that is there. I want to share a story from Laurie in Jonesville about the Affordable Care Act and her particular situation. She said: I have had type I diabetes for 54 years and when I needed to retire early at the age of 62 because of complications related to diabetes, I looked at the ACA for health insurance. . . . I couldn't afford COBRA. I was able to buy health insurance at what I consider an affordable price with a small copay for my medications, the most expensive one being insulin at a retail price of $296 a month. As you know, my preexisting conditions of type I diabetes, heart disease and a visual impairment, both complications of diabetes, would have been uninsurable without the ACA. I would have been uninsurable. That is without the Patients' Bill of Rights, which says she has a right to be able to purchase health insurance. In June of 2016 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, luckily diagnosed at Stage 1 in a routine mammogram. Without the ACA I wouldn't have been able to afford the mammogram or the subsequent treatment without depleting our life savings. I quickly reached my maximum out of pocket cost and while some people would complain about having to pay that, not me! My total bill so far is over $150,000. . . . That is for her cancer treatment. There is the combination here of repealing Planned Parenthood funding for health clinics that allow someone like Laurie to go in and get a mammogram rather than waiting until she has a level of breast cancer that cannot be effectively treated or might otherwise cause loss of life. She was able to catch this early because she was able to get a screening--a mammogram--the kind of treatment that women in small towns all over Michigan have the capacity to do now because of the reasonable copays for care and partly because there is no copay for that mammogram but also because they have a clinic available in their community where they can get the care. All of this fits together--the access to preventive care for women, the health care clinics that are available around Michigan and around the country, and the Patients' Bill of Rights, which says you have a right to care. This is not just about the insurance company basing every decision on the fact that they want to make more money rather than cover you. You have a right to make sure that when you get sick, you don't get dropped, and, if you have breast cancer or diabetes, you have a right to have access to affordable health care. So I would hope that our colleagues would join together, stop this craziness of trying to repeal health reform and protections for every single American, and, instead, sit down together and look at how we can make it better. Our Republican colleagues will find willing partners in making the system more affordable and better, but we will continue to be the strongest possible opponents of ripping the system apart and creating chaos for American families. I yield the floor.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first I want to thank my good friend and colleague from Pennsylvania who serves with great distinction with me on the Agriculture Committee. I love that he is speaking about our farmers. In a few minutes, I am going to talk about Sonya, who is a blueberry farmer and small business owner from Michigan. We know there are so many small business owners and farmers who finally have been able to find affordable health care because of what was passed in the health care reform act. I want to thank Senator Casey for being such a strong advocate for those dairy farmers. We have a few dairy farmers in Michigan, as well, and we appreciate very much his advocacy. I want to take a step back and look broadly for a moment at what is really happening here and why we are so concerned and why we have spent all of this evening and are going on into the night to talk on behalf of the people we represent on the impact of what repealing the Affordable Care Act without having a replacement that is as good or better in place at the time would really mean for people. Republicans get sick. Democrats get sick. Independents get sick. People who don't vote get sick. This is not a partisan issue. This is about one of the most basic human needs, most basic things that we care about for our families. People go to bed at night and say: Please God, don't let the kids get sick. Make sure Mom is OK, Dad is OK. Because of the Affordable Care Act, because of the increases in access to affordable health care that we were able to pass a number of years ago, fewer people are having to worry. There are still people worrying, and there are still issues. There are still costs, and there are still things to do. I am anxious to get about the business--all Democrats are anxious to get about the business of making sure that health care is more affordable and doing more to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. I am also concerned about small businesses. There are things that we can do together, that we should be doing on a bipartisan basis, but we shouldn't be repealing health care and unraveling the entire system and creating chaos in the entire system instead of focusing on how we make health care better for families. The bottom line of what is being proposed--and what this budget resolution is really all about--is going to make America sick again. That is the bottom line. We are going to create a situation where more Americans will be sick and not be able to see a doctor, not be able to find affordable insurance, or not be able to have the protections that they currently have under what we like to call the Patient's Bill of Rights--the patient protections for everybody. Seventy-five percent of Americans get their health insurance through their employer, and every one of them--all of us--have benefited from changes in health care that have taken total control out of the hands of insurance companies and given us more assurances that if we get sick, we are not going to get dropped. If we have an illness or our child has juvenile diabetes or cancer or Alzheimer's or leukemia or high blood pressure or if you are a woman of child-bearing age, which is viewed as a preexisting condition so you have higher rates--all of those things were changed in the interest of the American people. Basically, when we look at it, there are four different areas where health care reform has made a difference in people's lives and what we are fighting for tonight. We are fighting for these things. We are fighting to have them not taken away and to have the system not ripped up and not create a situation where we cause incredible harm by what Republican colleagues are talking about doing. The first general category is putting insurance companies back in charge by repealing the patient protections. That is what is being talked about: keeping young people, your son or your daughter, on your insurance until age 26. They graduate from college; they probably already have mounds of debt. Letting them get started in the workplace and stay on your insurance has made an incredible difference for hundreds of thousands of young people across the country. That is gone. Guaranteed access to essential health benefits. I did fight very hard so that we had a benefit package that includes simple things, important things for women, like maternity care. Prior to health care reform, about 70 percent of the insurance policies that were available in the private market--if a woman were to go out and try to find insurance, about 70 percent didn't provide basic maternity care. Now all the policies have to provide maternity care. Policies have to include mental health and addiction services like physical health, so we are saying that if you have an illness above the neck, it ought to be treated the same as an illness below the neck. These are patient protections for all of us. In health care today, you can't have your services capped. I have seen and spoken with so many doctors who treat cancer in children and adults. Families talk about the fact that in the past there would be a financial cap or a number of visits or a number of treatments as a limit, and if you were done with your treatment and your doctor didn't feel that you received enough treatments, too bad. Your yearly cap is up or the lifetime cap is up. Right now, that is gone. But with the repeal, those caps come back. Preventive services with no copay. We want folks getting a wellness visit, getting a mammogram, being able to get contraceptive coverage, being able to get preventive cancer screenings. Doing that without a copay has made a tremendous difference in people being able to get the preventive care they need. There are so many other things that have been put in place for everyone who has insurance. All of that gets ripped away with repeal, and there is no excuse for that. There is no way we are going to allow that to happen without continuing to fight as hard as we can. It is outrageous. The second thing is cutting Medicare and Medicaid. All of the health care system is tied together. When we made changes in Medicare, we lengthened the solvency of the trust fund--12 more years of solvency in the trust fund, 12 more years of making sure it is solid, financially viable. That goes away. My colleagues have talked about prescription drugs and the fact that we have closed this gap in coverage. If you have high bills related to the cost of medicine, right now you are covered. When you get to a certain point and there is a complete gap in coverage and you are not covered anymore, and then you are covered again--folks call that the doughnut hole. We are closing that so there is no gap in coverage. With repeal, the doughnut hole comes back. Coverage is lost. Costs for medicine go up. Preventive services under Medicare are ripped away if we see a repeal. And there is not a replacement that is put in place that is equal to or better than what we currently have. Medicaid. We have so many people who are working for minimum wage, working really hard at minimum wage jobs, who never had the opportunity to have health insurance before, and now they do. That is gone if the whole system is ripped up. Most of Medicaid goes for seniors in nursing homes, long-term care. If you look at the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has proposed completely rewriting, ripping up Medicare as we know it, as well as health reform and the Affordable Care Act--if you put all that together with this repeal and somebody who wants dramatic changes--I believe it is $1 trillion in cuts proposed by the current chairman of the Budget Committee or the gentleman who now is being proposed for Secretary of Health and Human Services--Medicare and Medicaid are seriously threatened by all that is talked about right now. We are talking about, in total, kicking 30 million Americans off their insurance. In Michigan, all together, counting Medicaid and those who are purchasing through the new insurance pools, it is over 2 million people. One out of five people in Michigan and their families will lose their access to a doctor and medical care. What does all of this mean? It means costs are going to go up both for coverage and prescription drugs. And for Republican colleagues who say: Well, we are going to repeal it now, but not really because we are going to say it is repealed and then we are going to wait 2 or 3 years--first of all, Republicans have had 6 years of talking about repeal. It has been over 50 times in the House of Representatives. You would think within that time they would have been able to come up with a plan, not a bunch of ideas but a plan to show that, in fact, these things aren't going to happen; that they are not going to unravel the health care system; that they have something bigger, better, greater, but that is not what we are hearing. We are hearing: Well, we don't have it yet; we don't know if we are going to have it. We will try to figure it out somehow, and we will wait 2 or 3 years. What happens in the insurance market when insurance companies don't have predictability? Rates go up. What happens when hospitals--and I have already been told this in Michigan--don't know what is coming? You pull back. You pull back on investments. You pull back on what you are doing in terms of coverage because you don't know what is coming. This makes no sense whatsoever. I understand politics. I understand slogans. I understand all the rhetoric that has been said for years about repealing health care reform, but this is the most irresponsible thing I have ever seen in my life if there is a repeal with no replacement immediately that at least equals what people have today-- the protections, the coverage, the strengthening of Medicare, the lowering of prescription drug prices under Medicare, the help for people who work hard every day on minimum wage and are finding access to a regular doctor instead of using the emergency room, which, by the way, raises health care costs. The truth is, we all are here because we care deeply about this. If our colleagues want to stop this craziness of running the cow off the cliff and decide that maybe we are going to work on just fixing it together, we are ready, willing, and able to do that. We know, as with any major change in form, that after they work a while, you have to figure things out and you have to fix problems. We are more than willing; we want to do that. We have been offering to do that and suggesting that for the last several years. But this approach is outrageous and completely irresponsible, and, in fact, it will make America sick again. Let me conclude by just sharing a couple of stories from constituents in Michigan. I have heard from a lot of people, particularly small business owners, people who have the freedom now to be able to leave their job where they were working only because of the insurance. That has happened to my own family and friends, where folks are in a job that does not work for them but at least they have insurance. The Affordable Care Act has given the flexibility for someone to step away, to be able to start their own business or their own farm, like Sonia who is a blueberry farmer in Michigan. She has written me, indicating they are extremely fearful that they are going to lose their insurance under the new administration because of what Republicans are talking about. She says: A number of years back in 2000 I quit my traditional job and my husband, who had been laid off, and I bought my step- dad's blueberry farm. He had passed away in 1995, and we took care of my mom who had inherited the farm, and lived with us for a year and a half until her death. We are full-time farmers, small farmers, about 15 acres of blueberries. We also have a small garden center, Sweet Summer Gardens, which is open from May to September, and a small bead store, the Enchanted Bead. It is open year round. She says: We are hard-working people who love the life that we have carved out for ourselves, but there some drawbacks to being self-employed and small business owners. In 2012, I tore the meniscus in my right knee. I did nothing to take care of it because I did not have insurance. But then in April of 2015, 3 years after the injury, I finally got to the point where I could no longer take the pain. Luckily, we had signed up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act. I was able to have the severe tear repaired. Then she goes on to talk about how a little later there was a cancer scare, and she had to go in for ultrasounds and lab work and an outpatient D&C. Because she was able to do that, she was fortunately able to find out it was not cancer, thank goodness. Again, because of the Affordable Care Act and her insurance, she was able to get the services she needed. She goes on to talk about a number of different health challenges for them, including the following: Finally we have coverage for preventive care. My husband had a physical, the first time since high school, and we found out that there was an issue that needed to be addressed. He was referred to an orthopedic surgeon, discovered he had severe arthritis. It was causing constant pain. Again, we were able to have insurance coverage. Because of the Affordable Care Act, he was able to have this repaired. She says: We are hard-working people. We have never asked for help. But we are extremely concerned because we could not afford our insurance right now without the tax credits--the subsidy. She says: This morning, watching the news, we were met with a story that the Republicans are all ready to repeal ObamaCare. They said that while they couldn't take away the insurance, they could take away the subsidies. This would put insurance out of our range and we would no longer be able to afford it. My husband Larry said to me, ``they couldn't just throw us out to the dogs, could they?'' She says: My reply was, ``anything is possible.'' I know the Affordable Care Act isn't perfect. I know that not everyone has taken advantage of it, but there has to be a way to fix it without hurting the millions of people who have been helped by it. In fact, Sonia, there is a way to fix it without hurting you and your husband, full-time farmers and small business owners. I have a number of other stories. I am going to pause because I have other colleagues who I know want to speak who care deeply about this as well. I will share those at a later point. Let me just say, what we are talking about is not a game. It is not. This is about real people with real lives who are encountering situations that could happen to any of us. Too many people are not in a situation, without Medicare or Medicaid coverage or access to health care through the exchanges, to be able to see the doctor and get the care they need. That has changed in the last number of years. There is more to do. We can work together to make it even better, but the idea that people are not being helped today, that small business owners and farmers and families are not getting medical care today because of what was done is just not true. It is just not true. The reality is, we are in a better spot with more to do. Pulling the thread and unraveling the entire system and creating chaos in the entire system makes no sense. So we as Democrats are going to do whatever we can. We know that ultimately the votes are there. If the Republicans in the House and the Senate and the new President want to completely dismantle the health care system, unravel the health care system, weaken Medicare, and weaken Medicaid, you can do it. You have the votes to do it. People right now who get care, the millions of people, the over 2 million people in Michigan alone who have been directly helped by the Affordable Care Act, they know that. They will know when that is no longer available to them. It will hurt many, many people. We hope colleagues will take a second look and decide to work with us in a way to move forward on health care that will allow people to get the care they need at an affordable price for themselves and their families. I know that is what we all want for our families. We should be doing everything humanly possible to make sure people have the affordable care they need and the protections they need to get care when they need it. I yield the floor.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. I will be happy to.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first let me comment on what my friend, the distinguished Senator from Texas, said. If my car goes into a ditch, the first thing I don't do is dismantle the car. That doesn't help me get anywhere in terms of transportation. First of all, let me speak on process before talking about the substance of what we are really talking about and how it affects people. We have a bill in front of us that creates a process for the majority to be able to unravel and repeal essentially our whole health care system. You pull a thread and it goes through not only employer- based care, patient protections, people who have insurance, Medicare, Medicaid. All of it begins to unravel. Interestingly, also in this bill, in the text it adds $1 trillion to the deficit--$1 trillion to the deficit in the bill that our colleagues just voted to proceed to pass. We need to be very clear on this: If colleagues want to work with us to fix problems and improve health care, we can start this afternoon. It is almost 3:30. By 4 o'clock we could put together a group of people. I am sure our distinguished Democratic leader on the Budget Committee would be happy to sit down and work together on ways to make health care reform better and make health care more affordable and make it more available to people. If that is what we want to do, count us in, but that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about this crazy idea that no one in their real life would do. It is like deciding you want a new house, so you tear down the old house. That is the easy part. Then your family is homeless. Then you say: Well, gosh, you know, maybe I better have a plan to get a new house for my family and figure out a way to pay for it, to be able to afford it. Nobody would do that. Nobody would start by saying: We are going to rip apart the entire health care system and create chaos. We are going to undermine Medicare. We are going to undermine Medicaid. We are going to take away patient protections for everybody who has insurance through their employer, and then we will figure out later what we are going to do to replace it, if anything. I know there is a division on the Republican side. Certainly Members in the House don't think it should even be replaced at all. It is interesting. We are talking about one-sixth of the economy that would be destabilized. There is no question that if you do a repeal and insurance companies don't know what is coming--I have talked to hospitals, and they don't know what is coming--behavior will begin to change. Rates will begin to go up. Different decisions will be made because, as businesses, they will not know how to plan. Their investors will not know how to plan. There is no question about it. When you repeal without creating certainty in the marketplace, you begin a process that results in chaos. We have an interesting example, one that I have been involved with for a lot of years, where we wanted to change just one piece of the health care system, the reimbursement system for doctors. I was in the House when they passed Medicare changes. We put in place a new policy. We were going to write a new policy to reimburse physicians for quality instead of quantity. It makes sense. It took 18 years to get agreement. We got agreement last year. It doesn't even take effect for 4 years. Everybody here knows about this thing called the doc fix. It is an inside term--or SGR, which is even more insider. The truth is, we were trying to change just one thing and could not get agreement to do it for 18 years. Anyone who thinks that there is going to be a repeal without an ACA extender going on has not looked at past processes. What is most important, though, is what this means to real people. This really is about a plan of ripping apart the health care system. There is nothing in its place immediately so we don't even know what will be coming. This is going to make America sick again. We are talking about a process and a plan that for real people is not a political game. It is not smoke and mirrors. It shouldn't be about politics. It is about the moms and dads who go to bed at night and say: Please, God, don't let the kids get sick. Now, many of them--close to 30 million counting everybody with new coverage--don't have to say that. They can say a different kind of prayer because they can go see the doctor. We know that when you unravel that system with nothing responsible in its place, we are talking about making America sick again. We want affordable care, not chaos. This plan goes from affordable care to chaos. We talk about some parts of what we passed in health reform, but there are a lot of things we don't emphasize that I think are important to recognize in this debate. First of all, what we pass in terms of changes in quality care affects every single American with health insurance. A lot of people in my State are fortunate to have employer-based insurance. We have a lot of folks at the collective bargaining table fighting every year to make sure they keep their insurance--150 million people across the country. All of them have benefited from the patient protections we put into health reform. When we take those away, then immediately the insurance companies will be back in charge. If you get sick, you can get dropped. Right now they can't do that. If you are sick or if your child is sick, right now you can't be blocked from buying insurance. We call it a preexisting condition. But before health reform, insurance companies were doing that every single day--a child with juvenile diabetes, someone with cancer or Alzheimer's disease. I think about a very good friend of mine who just found out her grandson has leukemia. He is 2 years old. He is going through treatment. We pray he is going to be able to get through it successfully. He is going to have a preexisting condition for the rest of his life. With this repeal, there is no guarantee he will ever be able to get insurance. On top of that, if he has to have treatments that go on for some period of time, caps will be reinstituted on the amount of care you can get, the amount of treatment per year, dollar amount, or amount of visits you can get, and there is no guarantee that this little boy will be able to get the treatment he needs so that he can live a healthy, successful life going forward. In talking with pediatric cancer doctors a couple of weeks ago, it was so amazing and gratifying to me to hear them talk about children whose lives have been extended, whose quality of life has been extended because of the fact that they are able to fully treat these children and insurance companies can't put caps on how much they will pay or how many treatments. Now there is a whole other range of protections for everybody. One of the fights I was proud to lead in the Finance Committee when we passed the ACA was to make sure that the basic insurance package every company has to provide has to include maternity care. That seems like a no-brainer. People were shocked that it didn't. Before we passed health reform, 70 percent of the insurance companies--the policies you buy in the private market didn't include maternity care. In fact, women were viewed as having a preexisting condition because they might get pregnant, might have a baby. That is not true anymore. Women are not rated differently than men, and maternity care is now available regardless of the kind of insurance you have. That is a pretty good deal. Right now I have a son and a daughter with growing families, and I can tell you that is a very big deal in my family. There is a whole range of things. We all know about young people who are able to stay on their parents' insurance. They get out of college and they are wrestling with a huge debt, and one thing they don't have to worry about is whether they can stay on their parents' insurance until they can find a job. That goes away with repeal. Something I care deeply about is mental health. We have all worked together on opioids and substance abuse treatment. Because of what we did in health care reform, insurance companies cannot discriminate if it is mental health or substance abuse treatment rather than physical health treatment. Prior to what we passed, they could charge much higher copays, higher premiums, but not anymore. So the whole body-- above the neck as well as below the neck--is now being treated equally with our insurance reforms. So there are a multitude of things--preventive health services with no copays, such as cancer screenings for mammograms and contraception. I was talking to someone who said she thought it was so wonderful that her drugstore wasn't charging her for copays anymore on her contraception. I said: Well, you know, that is actually the law. That was changed when we passed the Affordable Care Act. So there is a whole range of things that relate to reviewing premium increases, if you get removed from your insurance, you have the right to appeal. There is a whole range of things. So that is under the first step. Everybody will feel it when insurance companies are back in charge and, through this vote and the subsequent actions, patient protections are repealed for everybody. Secondly, this includes cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. Through what we did in health reform, we closed the gap on the high costs of prescription drugs. We called it the doughnut hole. That was in the process of being closed. If you have a lot of medicines and a lot of costs, you suddenly get to a point where there is a gap in coverage and you have to pay the full cost. That goes away and the doughnut hole comes back. What we did added 12 years of solvency to the Medicare trust fund to keep it strong longer. That goes away. Wellness visits for seniors-- every year they are able to go in and get a physical without a copay-- that goes away. So Medicare is undermined. Then, unfortunately, when you add the incoming nominee as Secretary of Health and Human Services and couple that with the proposals that the Speaker has had and others that I am sure we are going to see to turn Medicare into a voucher--you go into the private market. Here is your voucher. Good luck. That is part of what the new regime is promoting, which only adds to this. Eighty percent of Medicaid spending is seniors in nursing homes. And we know that the majority of those who--many who have gotten care, in addition to the exchanges, have been folks who have been working hard every single day in minimum wage jobs and who couldn't afford or find insurance before. Now they are covered if their State or their Governor is willing to do that. We have a whole bunch of folks who are working hard every day at minimum wage who at least know they have access to health care and a doctor. Interestingly, this helps our hospitals, whether they are rural hospitals upstate or up north in Michigan or whether they are our great urban hospitals, safety net hospitals in Detroit and other areas, instead of people walking into the emergency room and not having insurance and having the cost put on everybody who does. Because of the Medicaid expansion, when a working person comes in with Medicaid, they are able to pay for their own care rather than having everybody else with insurance carry the brunt of that, which is the way it was prior to that. So there are Medicare and Medicaid cuts. Next, we do know that altogether, counting Medicaid and people using the new exchanges, we have about 30 million people who will be kicked off of their insurance, folks who, like anybody else, want to have health insurance for their families. Can we design that in a better way? I would love to work with you on that. I am not going to kick them off first. I don't want to say: We are going to rip your insurance away. We are going to rip the small businesses I have talked to--rip their insurance away. And then, by the way, don't worry, further down the road we will figure out something else. We don't know what it is, we don't know what it will cost, but trust me. I wouldn't be trusting that would happen if I were counting on that for my insurance. The fourth item is that there is no question that costs will go up by destabilizing the marketplace. We know the cost of prescription drugs will go up as a result of taking away the extra help for prescription drugs. There is no question that costs are going to go up for everybody else who has insurance. When we look at this, I don't know how anybody looking at this outside of a political lens or a rigid ideological lens could say this makes any sense. It doesn't make any sense. We have a President-elect who is coming in who said that he would not do anything to hurt Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security. Yet the first thing on the floor definitely undermines Medicare and Medicaid. We have a President-elect who said he wants to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. Yet, by undermining Medicare prescription drug coverage, those prices are going to go up. People who have the most medical needs and need the most medicine are going to see their costs go up. What would be better would be if the new incoming HHS Secretary would be given the ability to negotiate through Medicare for prescription drugs--something we have all fought for, for a long time. Let's allow drug reimportation. Our leader on the budget--and I have as well--put seniors on buses in the past to demonstrate the differences in cost across the bridge between Windsor and Detroit, the cost of the same drug, with the very same safety provisions. That would bring down costs. Taking away Medicare coverage and increasing the gap in coverage is exactly the wrong thing to be doing if, in fact, the incoming President really means it when he says he wants to bring down drug prices. So there are a number of things we care deeply about on health care. As someone who has worked on this for years--in fact, it was health care and health policy that first got me into politics, leading an effort to save a nursing home in my community. I care deeply about this. I am one of the folks way down deep in the weeds on this. But we don't improve a health system by ripping it out by its roots, by undermining the whole system without figuring out what comes next. That only happens if you really don't care what comes next because if you care, that is not a responsible position. So, Mr. President, and my colleagues, I feel very strongly that with everything we know that has been made available to strengthen quality, to give people back their own decisionmaking instead of the insurance companies on basics like providing care for themselves and their families, the strengthening of Medicare and Medicaid, the coverage that has been made available, we know there is a way to work together to make things better, and this is not it.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Thank you very much. First, I wish to thank the chairman of EPW for his very hard work on behalf of the 100,000 people in the city of Flint and his incredible staff, all of his staff who have been following this. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of all of the staff. I want to make sure they are in the Record so we can properly thank all of them.

Ms. STABENOW. This is, on the one hand, a very important time where we finally are saying to the people we have been fighting for, for over a year: We see you, we hear you, and we are going to be able to get something done so you can turn the faucet on and actually have clean, safe water come out of the faucet. We all take that for granted. I have to say it is also bittersweet, though, when I look to my colleagues, Senator Boxer and Senator Cantwell, who have spent more time working than anyone else I have worked with, other than working with Senator Inhofe and his staff. They have worked so hard to help us get to this point, only to find us in this situation because of what the House did, where we can't all be unified. It is something I feel very sad about and regret deeply. Senator Murkowski and Senator Cantwell were very instrumental in spending hours and hours early on in the year trying to get something done as it related to the Energy bill. I regret that the Energy bill is not part of what is being done by the end of this year. The Democratic leader, the majority leader, certainly Senator Peters, and I have been fighting together for a year and beyond in terms of what the people of Flint need. But I want to say just one thing to really focus on this. There are many needs, there are many issues, but there are people whose health is literally permanently damaged; 9,000 children under the age of 6 who have been so exposed to lead that they may not have the opportunity to have a healthy, full life, where they can focus in the future as they otherwise would, because of developmental concerns. So we have people who are in a crisis situation. This bill needs to get passed for them. They have waited and waited while other things have been done the entire year. It is time for them to stop having to wait. This is the opportunity for us to actually take an entire city--no place else in the country is there an entire city that has not been able to use their water system because of fear of lead poisoning. That is what is happening in this community. And this bill authorizes funding to be able to fix that and give them the dignity we all take for granted of safe drinking water. Thank you.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, today I wish to honor the service of my friend, the Senator from Nevada, and the Democratic leader, Harry Reid. Senator Reid's career on Capitol Hill began long before any of us. Back in 1961, Senator Reid came to work at the U.S. Capitol for the first time, though not as a Member. While Senator Reid was working his way through Law School, he spent his nights as an officer for the U.S. Capitol Police, the force that protects the U.S. Congress, in order to support his family. Senator Reid is an inspiration to us all and an incredible fighter. By the way, I do mean that literally. We all know about his early career as a boxer. In fact, two champion ``Boxers'' in the Senate are retiring at the end of this session, and we are going to miss both of them. I also mean that Harry Reid never gives up. When he was in high school, he walked 40 miles twice a week so he could get an education. When he and his wife Landra fell in love--he was told by her family that they could never be together. They have had a lifelong love affair and are so proud of their five children and now their grandchildren. From the beginning in public service, Senator Reid has fought for the best interests of the people of Nevada and the American people. In the Nevada State Assembly, he wrote Nevada's first air pollution legislation and worked on issues like consumer protection and public land usage. As chair of the Nevada Gaming Commission, he ignored threats and cleaned up the gaming industry. Since being elected in the Senate in 1987, Senator Reid's accomplishments are almost too numerous to count. The list goes on and on. Through it all, he has never ever given up. He has fought to defend the environment of his beautiful home State. He made strides in combatting ALS--writing legislation creating a registry that provides researchers with the critical knowledge they need to combat that terrible disease. He has shepherded some of the most critical legislative accomplishments in the past 8 years through the Senate. He led the effort to create and pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, saving millions of jobs. He helped our economy begin to recover. He was responsible for making sure the ACA passed in 2010. So many people have gotten the care they have needed, their lives have been saved, by the work that he has done. As leader of the Caucus, he has been responsible for bringing so many of us into this Chamber. He said it himself: ``You have to stand up, even when you think you're not gonna win, if you think something's right.'' He stood up. He fought the good fight. He fought for all of us. I know that he still have so much to give. Senator, thank you for your incredible service. Thank you for being such a generous and wonderful friend to me and to my family. I wish you, Landra, and your family many more years of happiness and good work. We will all miss you dearly.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I join my colleagues today in honoring you and thanking you for the incredible devotion you have shown to the United States Senate and to express my deep respect for you--respect that I know the people of Michigan share. You have been a longtime friend to me and to the people of my home State. One thing we have always had in common: our parents were both in the automobile industry. As of course you know, your dad was a car salesman, and my father owned an Oldsmobile dealership. So we have both known, from the very beginning, how critically important American manufacturing is for so many people in Michigan and across the country. We worked together, both when you were the Senator from Delaware and then as the Vice President of the United States, to save the auto industry back in 2008. You know that the only way we succeed is if we do everything we can to support and grow America's middle class, which you have done your entire career. There are countless instances over your 40 years of service when you were on the right side of history: when you led the passage of the Violence Against Women Act; in your work as the chair of the Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committee; through your wise counsel as Vice President and your ability to work with us to get so much done over the last 8 years; with Dr. Biden, who is here today, for your work supporting Michigan's military families and community colleges; and now in your effort to cure cancer through the Cancer Moonshot. Early on in your career, you said that the work that we do here allows us to ``literally have the chance to shape the future--to put our own stamp on the face and character of America, to bend history just a little bit.'' I would believe, as every one of my colleagues does, that you have done more than bend the future of America ``just a little bit.'' You have changed this Nation and you have changed this Senate for the better. There is a great quote from a poet I know that you admire very much, William Butler Yeats. It is a piece of advice that he gave out frequently to young writers. It goes: ``Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.'' Yeats--like you Mr. President--understood that the best way to reach people is by appealing to their heart, meeting them where they are. And I think, moving forward, we have to remember that we all have to reach people's hearts and strive to serve as well as you have. Thank you for your service to this Senate and to the American people.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I wish to speak about Senator Mikulski and then also Senator Boxer, the two great Senator Barbaras who have been such giants in the Senate. We are so grateful to both of them. Barbara Mikulski Madam President, I do have to say that among the many things with which I have been honored and have appreciated was when Senator Mikulski accepted my offer to stay at the Stabenow bed and breakfast after long session nights and days when the Appropriations Committee was negotiating and doing the incredible work that had to be done. I had the honor of being able to put up a plaque in my home that says: Senator Barb slept here. I will always be honored to have had that opportunity on top of all of the other ways we have worked together. It really is an honor to stand here. I can't imagine the Senate without Senator Mikulski and Senator Boxer. I can't imagine the Senate without the incredible service of my dear friend and colleague, who is our dean in every sense of the word--the senior Senator from the State of Maryland. For over 30 years she has worked tireless. We know that. We hear it every day. We know what the people in Baltimore, the Chesapeake Bay area, and all of Maryland care about. She has been fighting and standing up for them every single moment of every single day. I so admire that, and I am so grateful. She has been a wonderful inspiration and mentor to me. We have all heard about our dinners and the power briefings on appropriations. She has been a continual source of inspiration and a mentor to me. She reached out to me, as she does to all of our colleagues, when I was first elected. She welcomed me and showed me what it meant to be a good Senator representing my State of Michigan and how to get things done. Senator Mikulski has always been willing to lend a helping hand and has never given up when it comes to fighting for the people she represents and being a trailblazer. I came into the Senate with a master's degree in social work. Senator Mikulski has often said that we are the two official do-gooders in the Senate. We have taken our interest from helping people individually to another level by becoming policymakers, thereby giving us the opportunity to touch more lives by using our skills and our background in education as well. We all know--but I think it is important to remind ourselves--that she was only 26 when Senator Mikulski talked about the highway proposal that would have destroyed a neighborhood full of working people. She spoke up. She was noticed, and she wasn't afraid to say exactly what she was thinking. She was and is absolutely fearless in every good sense of that word. She brought that fearlessness to the Senate. That fearlessness made her the first woman to serve as chair of the Appropriations Committee of the Senate. It doesn't get more important than that in setting policy and having an impact on people's lives in our country by prioritizing the interests of the American people in every funding decision. That fearlessness was on display when she helped bring us closer to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, making it closer to having equal pay for equal work than it has ever been before. Senator Mikulski fought for health care. I was proud to join her in making sure that women could receive preventive care without a copay. She made sure that women were truly represented and that our needs were met in health care reform, and that will continue to impact all of the lives of women across the country. When she turned her eyes to the stars, wondering what was up there, she made sure that the Goddard Space Flight Center was a leader in exploring the unknown. Like the supernova named after her, she has absolutely astonished us with her brilliance, and nothing will be quite the same after she leaves here. Her work in the Senate has made it possible for so many women and girls across America to put their hat in the ring and say: I want to run for office, and I can do it. Senator Mikulski said it best--there are so many wonderful quotes I will always use--when she said: Put your lipstick on, square your shoulders, and suit up. Go into the fight and get things done. That has become a mantra for us in working together. I thank Senator Barb. You will be greatly missed, but I know you have so much more to give. I know you will always make a difference in people's lives in every single thing you do every single day, and we will be forever grateful.

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, as her name suggests, Senator Boxer has always been a fighter, a champion for the people of California, and a good friend. Though Senator Boxer began her life in Brooklyn, California has always been her home. It is where she got elected to the Marin County Board of Supervisors, becoming the first woman to hold the board's presidency. It is where she first got elected to the House of Representatives, where she quickly rose and became a leader we could all aspire to be. And as Senator, she has worked tirelessly for families, children, consumers, everyone in the State of California and Americans everywhere. Senator Boxer has always been a wonderful mentor to me, and she has been relentless on moving forward on some of the most critically important issues of our time. As the first woman to chair the Environment and Public Works Committee, she has provided the support that has kept America's air and water safe and to fight climate change. She defended mercury and lead standards and installed choking warnings on packages. I will personally always be grateful for her tireless advocacy and support for the 100,000 Flint citizens who have been poisoned by lead in their water. We have her to thank when we know that children and families all over the country can be safer and more secure in their own neighborhood. She has been an incredible supporter of transportation, extending the highway trust fund, helping protect over 1 million jobs. Or her Mat Map-21 Transportation Bill, which modernized Federal highway, highway safety, and transportation programs. And she has fought for children and families, her work in the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act-- providing extra services for young adults under 21 and helping some of America's young people who need it most. On a personal note, I have greatly enjoyed sharing a love of music with my friend, Barbara. Her creativity and passion for song has been a special part of who she is. Her retirement, while well earned, will be a loss for all of us. Thank you so much for your service.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first, we got a little out of order on the speaking schedule as to how it should have started this afternoon. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Nelson go immediately after me. He has been courteous enough to allow me to speak, and I ask unanimous consent that he speak after I am done speaking.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I wish to congratulate everyone who has worked on the Cures bill. There are many areas that I have concerns about, and there are many positive things. I am looking forward to coming back as well and working with colleagues on how we complete the job on mental health by providing full funding for community mental health care across the country, which is not in the bill. But there are some positive steps forward on health care. Medicare I think it is very important, as we are coming to the end of this session in the next week or two, that we talk about the fact that when we come back, there will be incredibly important debates on health care, and one of them is what will happen to Medicare for tens of millions of seniors and people with disabilities going forward in our country. I want to take a moment to speak to that. First of all, Medicare and Social Security are great American success stories. Those two programs have lifted a generation of seniors out of poverty and created a quality of life for them and a guarantee, after paying in all their lives, that health care and some basic economic security will be there. I am particularly concerned right now, though, about the comments we are hearing about proposals to fundamentally change Medicare and undermine Medicare. We are hearing every day now that Medicare, as we know it, is in jeopardy of being dismantled, taking away the security and the peace of mind of tens of millions of Americans and their families across the country who are currently on Medicare--the health care guarantee of Medicare--or those who care for others or those who within the next few years will be on Medicare or who are concerned about their children. Why are we expressing this now? First of all, the Speaker of the House said on Sunday that Medicare is burning through the budget. He has consistently said Medicare is on the verge of bankruptcy, which is not true. It appears the goal is to scare people by telling us Medicare will not be there for our children. It will not be there only if we don't keep our commitments to Medicare and the people of this country. I think I have heard almost every single day since the 1980s that if we want to save Medicare, we have to destroy it as a guaranteed health care system somehow. Now, we know there was a huge difference of opinion and a partisan split back when Medicare was created between Democrats and Republicans, and I am proud as a Democrat that we created Medicare and have been able to expand prescription drug coverage and other quality measures and other coverage that is so critical, but it seems like we are constantly going back in some way redebating whether Medicare should exist as we know it. So we hear that to save Medicare, we have to destroy it as a guaranteed health care system--which I completely reject, as do my Democratic colleagues. We are hearing we have to cut Medicare, we have to change it from a guarantee into a ``maybe.'' We also hear all kinds of different names used, whether it is a voucher system, where you get a certain amount of money in a voucher and you go to the private sector and try to buy coverage, and whatever is not covered by the voucher, you have to make up the difference. I would remind people that Medicare came into being because the private sector was not providing affordable health care for seniors and people with disabilities so we have absolutely no reason to believe that would not be the case today. We hear about eligibility changes, premium support, means testing, and all kinds of other things that go to the very essence of what Medicare is all about. Again, Medicare is a great American success story that Americans of all ages want to see continue and be expanded upon. Regardless of what kinds of names are used, the end result is still the same. These plans are plans to take away the benefits Americans have worked their entire lives for, a system they pay into that lets them know that as we all get older, we will have the health care we need for ourselves and our families. What is also not mentioned is the fact that Medicare is solvent through 2028, thanks to the Affordable Care Act which extended the fiscal sovereignty of Medicare. The Affordable Care Act also closed the gap in coverage--what has been called the doughnut hole--for prescription drug coverage. By the way, if the ACA is repealed, there will be another hole in that coverage and seniors' Medicare prescription drug costs are going to go back up. We have seen that Medicare, in fact, is solvent to 2028. It now actually costs less for a prescription drug today than it used to cost, and we are seeing quality efforts going on every day, preventive efforts, to continue to extend sovereignty and bring down costs. I am all for improving Medicare. I have supported efforts to bring additional accountability and credibility into Medicare. We will continue to do that. We want to make sure it continues to be more and more effective. We want to strengthen Medicare. Cutting it, taking it from a guarantee to a maybe, is not the way to do that. In fact, it is not--despite the Speaker's own hashtag--a better way. It is not a better way. Why am I concerned at this point? Why do we think Republicans are serious about trying to undermine Medicare as well as Medicaid, of which 80 percent of the spending goes to long-term care for senior citizens? There are two things that are deeply concerning to me. First, in every House Republican budget since 2011, everyone has effectively turned Medicare into a voucher for people eligible after 2023, 6 years from now. It would raise the costs. It would take away the certainty and the guarantee of Medicare. It would reopen the gap in prescription drug coverage. For millions of people across Michigan and across America, you don't need to make health care harder. It needs to be easier. In addition to comments from the Speaker of the House about changing Medicare and making it a priority in the budget, creating payoffs in the system, taking away the universal guarantee, we now have the President-elect nominating Dr. Tom Price, a current House Member, for Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has supported that budget privatizing Medicare, block granting, and cutting Medicaid and long- term care for seniors in nursing homes and so on. We are told by the nominee that he expects Republicans in Congress to move quickly on this legislation in the new year, even though President-Elect Donald Trump promised throughout his campaign that Medicare would be safe on his watch. He made that promise to the people I represent--the people we all represent--and I can assure you, I am going to be doing everything possible to make sure that promise is kept. The only thing gutting Medicare is going to do is create chaos for tens of millions of seniors, people with disabilities, and for the health care system in general. Seniors and people with disabilities-- all Americans--deserve better than this. As we enter the new year, Democrats will fight tooth and nail to protect Medicare, to make sure Medicaid and long-term care is available for our seniors, to make sure the health care guarantee that has been there for a generation of retirees and people with disabilities is continued. Medicare is a great American success story, and we are ready to do everything possible to protect it and strengthen it as a guarantee for Americans in the future. Thank you, Mr. President.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the continuing resolution that the Senate will soon be voting on, which regretfully, I am unable to support. For the past year, I along with my colleague from Michigan, Senator Peters, worked to craft a bipartisan agreement with funding to help fix the city of Flint's water system that exposed 100,000 people to lead laced drinking water. And thanks to the leadership of Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Inhofe and Ranking Member Boxer, the Senate a few weeks ago voted 95-3 to approve the Water Resources Development Act with this desperately needed funding. Unfortunately, the CR before us today addresses disaster funding for flooding in Louisiana and other communities, but asks the families of Flint to wait at the back of the line again. I cannot support a CR that includes funding for other communities but not Flint, whose residents have waited too long for much-needed aid. However, because of the stalwart support of my colleagues-- particularly vice chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee Barbara Mikulski, Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Barbara Boxer, and Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi-- Republicans in the House of Representatives have agreed to a path forward for enacting legislation this year that contains assistance for the people of Flint. I would also thank Majority Leader McConnell for his commitment to ensuring that Congress does not adjourn this year without enacting WRDA legislation that contains the Senate approved funding for fixing Flint's water pipes and addressing drinking water problems that communities across the country face. While the absence of assistance for Flint prevents me from supporting the continuing resolution, I am very pleased that it contains $1.1 billion to combat the spread of the Zika virus. More than 2,000 pregnant women in the Nation and our territories have evidence of being infected by Zika, more than 20 babies have been born with Zika-related birth defects such as microcephaly, and at least six pregnancies ended because of the virus. In Puerto Rico, the Surgeon General said that 25 percent of residents will be infected by Zika virus by the end of this year. In southern Florida, health officials are combating the mosquitoes spreading the virus there in the hopes of slowing the virus's path. With funding to combat Zika now secured, the hard work begins to end the threat Zika presents to our families. I am also grateful that the short-term spending agreement contains the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill, which provides funding to ensure that our military facilities are mission ready and that Michigan's 698,000 veterans can access the care and benefits they have earned. The fiscal year 2017 Military Construction and Veterans bill includes $11.3 billion more in mandatory funding and $2.6 billion more in discretionary funding than last year's budget. Although discretionary funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs is below the amount that was included in the bill approved by the Senate earlier this year, the total amount in the CR still exceeds last year's enacted level by $2.9 billion. I strongly support this funding that provides for essential medical care, disability compensations, mental health services, long- term care, veteran specific medical research, and claims processing improvements.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I wish to thank the majority leader for his comments and for the conversations we have had--publicly and privately--and our Senate Democratic leader, as well, for being such a stalwart, as well as all of our colleagues. We in the Senate have done the right thing and moved forward on a WRDA bill that has an important package for Flint and other communities that have lead-in-water issues. At the beginning of this week, there was a House bill that did not include anything for Flint or anything around that contamination. We now have a commitment. There is going to be something in the House WRDA bill and a commitment that the final bill will include the work that we did in the Senate. So I wish to thank again Senator Inhofe, Senator Boxer, and all of our colleagues. This is a very positive step forward. I will just remind people that folks in Flint are literally bathing with bottled water every single day, and the sense of urgency only grows. So I am anxious to work with our leadership to get this done. Thank you.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first of all, I want to thank two really great leaders on the Environment and Public Works Committee--the chairman and ranking member. I absolutely take the chairman at his word. I have since the beginning. Chairman Inhofe has been an extraordinary leader on this issue and other infrastructure issues. I believe him completely in terms of what he wants to get done, and the same goes for our ranking member, Senator Boxer. I have no doubts whatsoever. Two weeks ago, when we passed the WRDA bill 95 to 3 in the Senate-- the bill that helped the people of Flint as well as other communities that have water and lead-in-water issues--I was prepared to go and, in fact, went to House colleagues, Democratic colleagues, and said: I trust the chairman and ranking member. Let's get the bill going in the House, even if Flint is not in it. Let's get it to a conference committee and work it out because I trust them, and we will make sure it is in the final package. Well, the bill didn't get taken up in the House due to whatever problems they had a week ago. Then we began to hear there was not support for Flint in a final bill. We heard, on the one hand, from the Speaker that the CR was not the appropriate place--that WRDA was the appropriate place to help families in Flint. But, by the way, he said: I don't support helping the families in Flint in WRDA. It was the same thing with the chairman of the committee. I know there are multiple jurisdictions. The distinguished chairman of the committee that has jurisdiction in the House, Congressman Fred Upton, supports the provision, and we are very grateful for his leadership and help as well. So this is easily worked out in terms of the jurisdictions because the people with the jurisdiction are not objecting to this. We have been given every signal now, coming from the Republican majority in the House, that there is not a willingness to help. As late as yesterday, with the Committee on Rules, there was an amendment offered to put it in order to vote on it in the House, and it was rejected. We were looking for some sign that was concrete, that was real, that we can actually do this, and over and over we are getting exactly the opposite messages. So then we find ourselves in a situation where the one thing we do know is going to happen is the short-term continuing resolution, and another State, other communities--Louisiana being the principal one with flooding--are going to get help. I support that. I have supported every disaster effort that has come before the U.S. Senate on behalf of many, many, many other States and communities that are not even close to Michigan because I think that is what we should do. So the people in Flint, MI, have been waiting and waiting and waiting every day--bottled water--every day, trying to figure out how to get more bottled water, and once again they are being told wait and maybe something will happen--maybe something will happen--but Louisiana is so important, we are going to do it now. I don't think it should matter what your ZIP Code is or whether you have Democratic or Republican Senators. I believe it is our requirement--our obligation--to help. Then, to add insult to injury, we are the only disaster situation coming forward that is fully paid for by eliminating a program. We phase out a program I authored in 2007 that predominantly affects my State in order to pay for help for Flint and other communities--we are not just helping Flint but other communities with lead and water problems because it is so important. It is about lifesaving measures, literally, for people. It is easy to put this on the CR. It is totally paid for. We are not cutting another program to put the $500 million in for Louisiana, but the fund for Flint and other communities is totally paid for. So it adds insult to injury to families in Flint who have waited so long. Again, I trust the chairman completely. What I don't trust is what I am hearing from the House of Representatives. Given that fact and given the fact that we have the ability to actually help them right now through the CR, I believe we should do that.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Ms. STABENOW. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, the first thing I want to do is thank our very distinguished Democratic ranking member on the Committee on Appropriations, the former chair, Senator Mikulski. She has been with us every step of the way. I have learned a lot about lead exposure. I thought I knew a lot, but by sitting down with Senator Mikulski, when we have had an opportunity to have discussions about potential treatments to help and impacts regarding the lead, I have learned how very frightening it is, particularly for children what lead poisoning means. Over the years, I have appreciated Senator Mikulski's advocacy and leadership with the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and in other areas on health care. That leadership has made a tremendous difference, including helping to create a way to have some options on treatment for children. So I want to thank her. We are going to greatly miss her. I don't think we are going to let her go. She is just amazing, as is her staff and their commitment and support and understanding of what the people in Flint are going through. Two weeks ago now, we were feeling like we were on our way finally. We spent the last 8 months getting through various procedural hurdles and objections to get help for Flint and other communities with lead poisoning and other water issues. We had a bill come to the floor, and I greatly appreciate the majority leader bringing it to the floor. We had a terrific bipartisan team, with Senator Inhofe and Senator Boxer leading us in passing a very important bill. As I have said, it passed 95 to 3. That doesn't happen a lot around here--95 to 3. We thought we were on our way. The families of Flint were in town at that time, and we felt like, finally, maybe there was some hope. We were told WRDA would be coming up quickly the next week in the House. That didn't happen. What we saw instead were comments that House leadership--the Speaker and the chairman of the committee--would not support Flint being a part of the House WRDA bill. We have heard, on the one hand, that we should wait for WRDA, and then the same people say, but we don't support putting Flint in WRDA. OK. We have the same people saying this is a local issue, while the House Government and Oversight Committee and Chairman Chaffetz held hearings, bringing in the EPA Administrator and challenging her to step down because of what the EPA did in Flint. So, OK, it is local. No, it is the EPA, which is Federal. We feel like we are being bounced back and forth and back and forth, and the bottom line is, people in Flint still can't drink the water. Since mid-August, we have had more than 611,000 cases of bottled water delivered to families in Flint. In fact, ``delivered'' is the wrong word because most of the time they have to figure out a way to pick it up. If you are riding a bus, walking, or if you have a car, you are trying to figure out when you are going to get the bottled water to bathe in, feed your children with, cook with. This has gone on day after day after day. So while we thought we had a path, now it is extremely unclear. I trust our leaders here--Senator Inhofe and Senator Boxer--in the Senate, but we are getting a very different message from the House of Representatives, and then all of a sudden we have a short-term appropriations bill, a continuing resolution, where we could, in fact, stop all the back-and-forth, ping-ponging, and get this done for the people of Flint. We are told no. The people of Flint are told no. Then all of a sudden there is help for Louisiana. I am happy to support the people of Louisiana. It would be a tragedy and, frankly, an outrageous way to make decisions if the answer, after all of this, is, OK, we won't help Louisiana, either. That is not what we are suggesting. We are saying that whether it is hurricanes, floods, disaster assistance; whether it is livestock disaster assistance, which I put in the last farm bill, which affects very few people in Michigan but an awful lot of people in the West and the South; whether it is that or a fertilizer plant explosion caused by various issues of malfeasance in West Texas that exposed people to chemicals, and the Federal Government came in to help--wherever it is, we step up together in extraordinary circumstances when there is an emergency, a disaster beyond the control of the citizens and the community involved, and we help. This has not been partisan in the past. We have not decided by ZIP Code or whether you had a Republican Senator or a Democratic Senator representing you. We have stepped up together to support efforts, and I supported every single one of them. What is different about Flint, MI? That is the question. The only thing I know that is different is that we have actually agreed to eliminate a program to fully pay for what we are doing to help. Normally it is not paid for; it goes on the deficit. We don't see a program being eliminated to fund the floods in Louisiana or other areas, but we took the extra step. We are actually phasing out a program that affects predominantly Michigan, that I authored in the 2007 Energy bill, because of the urgency and the dire circumstances in the city of Flint. That is the only difference I see, is that it costs nothing to do this--nothing. We could do it by unanimous consent today. It costs nothing. So then the real question is, well, why? Why is there such a problem? Why is there such a problem including something that costs nothing on this short-term appropriations bill? I don't get it. The people of Flint don't get it. The fact is, I hear from people all over the country who don't get it. This is an opportunity today, and I am strongly urging that we reject the continuing resolution in front of us and ask the leaders to go back to the drawing board and get it right and to indicate that we see, we hear, and we care about 100,000 people in Flint, MI; about 9,000 children under the age of 6; about people who live in homes that have some lead levels higher than a toxic waste dump; about the mom who was here 2 weeks ago whose daughter was bright and engaged and going to school and now, after lead exposure, is lethargic, is not focused, and she can't eat a sandwich because her teeth are crumbling because she had zero vitamin D--zero. When she was tested, the doctors immediately put her into the hospital to give her massive doses of vitamin D for her bones. How do I tell that mom that we could help her now and it is not going to happen? I don't get it. It is time to vote no on this procedural motion on the CR and get back to work and make sure that families who had floods in Louisiana, in West Virginia, and other places get the support they need and that we help in partnering--to help, not total, but help with some of the costs that will put the water back on in Flint. When you turn on the faucet today, wherever you are, think about what would happen if you didn't have confidence that what came out of that faucet wasn't going to poison you. This is the United States of America. We can do better than this. This body has supported doing better than this. It is time to get it done.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. I thank the Chair.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, this has been a roller coaster time for those of us who care deeply about what happened over 2\1/2\ years ago in the city of Flint with a system that was not treated properly and exposed 100,000 people in Flint to lead poisoning. We had a great vote last week, and I am very grateful to Senator Inhofe and Senator Boxer, who came together, working with Senator Peters and me, to put together a larger water bill that included an effort to help Flint families as well as other communities that have exposure to lead in their water. That effort had a final vote of 95 to 3. This was a very positive moment. Today, just a little while ago, it was just the opposite. We have an opportunity to complete the job we started last week and include this fully offset package in this budget bill in front of us, the continuing resolution. Yet the Republican leader did not do that. What adds insult to injury is, there is help for Louisiana but not for the families of Flint, and I might add, ours is fully offset. There is no offset in spending, there are no other programs cut to pay for the help for Louisiana, but I offered to phase out a program I sponsored in 2007-- that doesn't happen a lot around here--in order to pay for this emergency in Flint and help other communities with lead in their water across the country. So we have something fully paid for and for which there should be absolutely no objection. I would love to know the objection to helping a group of people-- 100,000 people in Flint and other families across the country in Jackson, MS, New York, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Texas, and across the country--with something fully paid for. What is the objection to putting that into this continuing resolution if the other side of the aisle is willing to put in something that doesn't have an offset in it to help the people in Louisiana? I support helping the people in Louisiana. I believe we are in this together as a country. As Americans, I think, no matter the emergency, we should be willing to help each other. We have had a variety of emergencies over the years, such as the fertilizer company in West, TX, where there was an explosion a few years ago. It was not a flood, not a hurricane, not a drought but a fertilizer explosion, and people were exposed. The Federal Government stepped in to help, and that wasn't fully paid for either. Here we have a situation with 100,000 people--9,000 children under the age of 6--who are seriously exposed to lead and that exposure will affect their development, physically and mentally, for the rest of their lives. They have now waited--they have waited--over 1 year since they knew what was happening. We have finally gotten to a point where we have strong bipartisan support in the Senate, and this is easy to put this in this bill--easy. But we are in a situation where we are saying to the people of Flint: Well, wait just 3 more months. Wait until the end of the year. I guess the other question is, Why don't people in Louisiana wait until the end of the year? I think we should help both of them now. In Flint, we literally have people getting up in the morning and saying: OK. I have to take the kids to the school. Should I pick up the bottle of water before I take them to school or after? Gosh. Now, I don't have a car, but can I get somebody to help me go over before I go to work--pick up the bottle of water now or later? We are going to have to spend some time because it is not easy to use bottled water and do a shower for yourself and the kids, let alone for cooking and all of the other things we take for granted every day. People in Flint, for almost 2 years, have been having to deal with this every single day. If this were happening to us, we would view it as an emergency. A decade ago--I don't know, 10 or 12 years ago--when Washington, DC, had lead in the water, somehow everybody came together to get that fixed. There was a concern about the water in the Cannon House Office Building, and that got fixed. I have a funny feeling if something happened in Wisconsin, the Speaker would decide that was serious enough to fix that, but we have a group of people in Flint, MI, who trusted their elected officials and who have been waiting--actually, incredibly patiently--for action so they can turn on the faucet and have clean water. They had such hopes last week. This was a great moment of people coming together, 95 to 3, on a bill that would not only help families in Flint but across the country. That is how we are supposed to govern. We did that concerning the lead in the water in Flint. We went the extra mile to make sure that was fully offset by phasing out another program to pay for it. Literally, this package could go anywhere. It could go by itself by voice vote today. It could go any number of places, but it needs to happen now. To see the continuing resolution come to the floor with help for Louisiana and not for the families of Flint is outrageous. It is just outrageous. I will do everything in my power to make sure this does not happen. We are not--we are not, I am not--going to support an effort that says to the people of Flint: You don't count. Your child doesn't count. We care about people in Louisiana. Oh, they count, but people in Flint, MI, don't count. We don't see them. We don't care. Well, we do see them. We do care about them. We spent 8 months putting together a bipartisan coalition in the Senate, and I am grateful for that. As I said before, Senator Inhofe has been terrific to work with. We were so pleased last week that we were on track to get this done and then to find out that when we now have this opportunity and we had this huge vote--a bipartisan, fully offset, paid-for package to move it forward--suddenly Flint doesn't count. Flint families don't count. Flint children don't count. But for Louisiana, which wasn't in the WRDA bill--or so far we haven't voted on it separately--we need to help Louisiana. By the way, let me say again, I am happy to support Louisiana, but the help for Louisiana and the help for Flint need to be done the same. Let me finally say----