Wednesday, May 10, 2006

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Madam President, I was here about 15 minutes ago, and I learned one inevitable fact: this body is long on rhetoric and oftentimes short on results. In the case of health insurance and health coverage for the American people, we stand at a point in time when we have a chance to produce real results.

I have listened to the arguments over the last couple of days. In fact, I presided last night and got to listen to some of these negative arguments about S. 1955. I wish to try, in a positive way, to talk about the result that it affords and brings to the American people. I want to do it by, first of all, trying to establish credibility.

The reason I say that is, most of us come to the Chamber and speak oftentimes on subjects about which we have had few life experiences. Most of the Members--certainly a majority--have never really been in the private sector. Certainly, a lot have not been independent contractors. None of us right now are in the marketplace for health insurance in America.

For 33 years before coming to the Senate, I ran a small business. I had 200 employees but 800 independent contractors. My employees had medical benefits because we qualified under ERISA. My independent contractors, who were my salespeople, the assets of the company, because of Federal law and IRS treatment, were not allowed to be offered a benefit. They were subject to the free market, to buy spot insurance. They weren't the young and healthy. They were middle age, second- and third-career people, mostly women, and some men. They were very difficult people to cover in the spot market.

As a legislator during those 33 years, while I ran a small business, I did a ton of work on health care. In fact, I was the author of one of the State mandates in Georgia for direct access for dermatological coverage. I did so for a passionate reason: I am the survivor of a melanoma. My doctor caught it in time, and it was removed in time, and I am here today. I have great respect for that mandate for direct access.

As some of the people who have spoken--in fact, many on the other side have talked about the horrible thing this bill does by not including all of the mandates required of all of the States in this country.

And the ads we see in some of the periodicals we read portend we are removing the possibility of people to have coverages that are mandated in their States. Let me address that and make the record straight.

Currently, in the United States, there are 109 mandated medical coverages in the 50 States and the District of Columbia. My State of Georgia has 39. This bill doesn't preclude any of those from being offered, but it doesn't mandate that they be offered, and it doesn't allow small businesses to associate across the Nation, form a large enough risk pool to be competitive in the marketplace and be able to compete and provide insurance to the American people who do not have insurance.

The first fantasy that has been purported as fact is that this bill takes away mandates. It doesn't take a mandate away from a single person who has it. What it does is give people who don't have any insurance at all the chance to get good, solid, basic health care, and when they get it, when they make their purchase decision, this requires they make that decision by being shown, at the same time they are presented with a basic policy, a policy that contains all the mandates contained in the five most populous States in the country. The consumer gets the choice that right now they do not have.

For the other side to allege we are taking away benefits, what we are doing is providing opportunity to folks who have no opportunity. I defy you to be 45 years old, a working carpenter with a wife and two kids, out in the marketplace trying to buy spot insurance. Can you buy it? Sure, if you want to pay $2,000, $2,500 a month, a price you can't afford to pay and put food on the table and shelter as well. So what do they do? They fly without coverage. When they get sick and they are really sick, they go to emergency rooms, and they end up raising the cost of health care to everybody, which raises the cost of health insurance to everybody.

What this bill does and what Chairman Enzi has done, which is the genius of it, it brings forth the ability of small businesses and people who cannot afford the coverage to go into the marketplace and buy health insurance.

On the mandate issue, there is no question that some of the insurance that will come out of this process will not include every mandate, maybe not all of the mandates, maybe not half the mandates. But what it will include is good, basic health care, and if a family that doesn't have good, basic health care coverage now all of a sudden has it, what happens? They start practicing better health. They start having more wellness. They start seeing physicians before they are sick rather than after they are sick and in pain. What happens is, we have more wellness, more preventive health care, and we have a lower cost of health care in this country to all the Americans who have coverage.

For the other side to say that what we are trying to do is take benefits away from people is disingenuous and wrong. We are trying to preserve the benefits of people in America, and to the 45 million who don't have any, we are trying to give them the opportunity.

For those who think the State knows best and therefore we ought to mandate they can't do this, they are denying choice of the most basic need in the United States of America, and that is the choice for a man and a woman and their children to be covered in the medical needs they have.

I can tell you that I spent most of my time running my business trying to make sure there was some access to affordable health care for those independent contractors to whom I could not legally provide it. Over the 20 years I ran the company, it became more and more difficult. And over those same 20 years, the cost of health insurance went higher, higher, and higher. It went higher because the mandates became more and more difficult to provide to those individuals, in part because of the State mandates as well.

This opens a new door. It opens hope and opportunity for 45 million Americans. It gives us the chance to cover maybe 11 million, maybe 12, maybe 13. Senator Burr thinks 900,000 in North Carolina. The number I have heard for Georgia is the same. But whatever the number, S. 1955 offers hope and opportunity for affordable health insurance and better health care to millions of Americans. It takes away mandates from no one and ensures that the customer always has the choice of buying the product and the coverage they want and they can afford.

Chairman Enzi and the committee have done a great service to the American people. It is time for this Senate to do great service to their constituents. Give them a chance to have access to affordable, accessible health insurance for the 45 million Americans who do not have it.

I yield the floor.