the sandy hook support fund, but it also broke the world record for attendance. in millions of actions large and small in connecticut, all around the country, the people of newtown and connecticut and the country showed what compassion and giving and kindness really mean in action. they chose to honor them by action. and often the compassion and kindness unleashed by the newtown tragedy took many other forms that were unheralded and unreported and unspoken, acts of kindness that were not in the newspapers or in the public view but simply acts that meant something to the recipient and to the giver.

these fund-raisers and vigils, e-mails and postcards, small and large signs of recognition and love from our colleagues, from people across the country, are a form of giving back. and they give me hope that eventually we will prevail in this effort to make a differen difference. scarlet lewis, jesse's mom, is also a hero. she heard about the cruz family, who had lost two of their children to a drunk driver. scarlet responded with that same resilience and strength by offering to give a fund-raiser for the cruz family. and when she asked -- was asked about her family and about what she had done, she explained -- quote -- "what brings meaning to the suffering is doing something for someone else. in doing something for them, i'm

also helping my own healing." nearly 90% of americans support commonsense measures like background checks, a number that is virtually unchanged since the issue soared to the forefront of our political discourse in the wake of sandy hook. even in gun-owning households, the support is virtually identical, 88%. that figure hasn't changed. and a mountain of public support has failed to produce measures, but our resolve is unchanged. because those memories of sandy hook, those examples of kindness and compassion will drive us forward. and so will the more than 10,000 other victims, including at least 194 children under the age of 12 in 43 different states. congress has shamefully and disgracefully failed to act, but

that is not the end of the story. there has been one vote and we've lost, but that vote is not the end he of this -- end of this movement. because newtown is not a moment, it is a movement. and surrender is unacceptable. the status quo is inexcusable. the families and newtown community have refused to surrender to personal despair and we cannot surrender to political dismay or difficulty. i was moved the other day when i saw a clip of ronald reagan endorsing the brady bill. ronald reagan as president was a victim of gun violence, and so was james brady, who was paralyzed by the same hail of bullets that struck the

president of the united states when they were fired by a deranged person, john hinckley. 12 years passed before the brady bill was passed. 12 years of struggle and work, resolve and courage by sarah and jim brady. and eventually an endorsement by ronald reagan. so the sadness and anger that i feel today prompted by the memory of that tragedy and this body's failure to respond is mitigated by the knowledge that history is on our side, that america is better than that vote that we took in april. the people of newtown have not

failed. the people of america have not failed, and this body has not yet failed. we can and we will do better because newtown and that vote will be with us. newtown is more than a moment, it's a movement that eventually will prevail. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. burr burr: mr. president, ie to address the nomination of cornelia pillard for the d.c. district court. this nomination's a good example of government yoa government reh that's led by obamacare. let me say to my colleagues who took to the floor to talk about

newtown. i had the opportunity to spend an hour with parents of newtown children. what a compelling personal story that they shared. and no parent should have to watch a child die. no parent should have to live and a child die. and my heart still goes out to those that lost children at newtown. mr. president, today, with the affordable care act fresh on my mind, i ventured back to think about what a guy came on the floor in 2009 and said in front of my colleagues in the united states senate and to the american people and i'd like to spend the balance of this second half of hour sort of rehashing some of the things that i came to the floor and talked about. there were numerous opportunities before that legislation was passed, if i

remember, very close to christmas in december of 2009. i said this -- "premiums will increase for younger and healthier individuals because the new federally mandated rating rules, over 40% of the uninsured are ages 18-34, the same group that will be hit with the highest price increases if this bill passes." what do we hear americans focused on today? young people -- are they going to join? today their insurance is three times lower than what it's going to be in january of 2014. why? because of the affordable care act. two, premiums will increase because a new federally mandated insurance standards. experts estimate many of the health plans purchased today by individuals and small businesses will not meet the minimum requirements mandated by this bill, which means that all americans will be forced to buy richer plans. let me remind those that are listening -- this was in 2009 on

the senate floor. listen to the comments of those today that say, well, we never anticipated some of these things would happen. if they didn't anticipate, it's not because people weren't on the senate floor and it wasn't because we made this up, it's because people who were experts, c.m.s. actuaries, c.b.o. administrators were sharing with us what would happen if this legislation became law. premiums will increase because new federally mandated benefit packages. the bill empowers the secretary of health and human services to decide which benefits are covered and which benefits are not. what are americans learning every single day now that they can get on the exchange? they're finding that they're 60, 65 years old and they've got to have maternity coverage. well, mr. president, let me say, i just turned 58. my wife has pretty much informed me we're not going to have any more children. but i can't buy health care

without maternity coverage. why? because they want to charge me more to shift that cost. we didn't have health reform. we just changed where we're shifting the costs from. now we're embedding the cost in the premium versus charging more at the delivery point of health care and shifting it within the delivery system. now we're shifting it within the population by charging those of us that are a little bit older more because we mandate that we've got to have services we're never going to use, and younger people who are healthy that probably are never going to need to go to the doctor. i hope they do because prevention is actually one of the most beneficial things that we can promote. but now we're going to charge them three times what they were paying and we believe that they'll take it? premiums will increase -- excuse me, premiums will increase because the new excise tax on medical devices. innovation is what saves health

care dollars yet in the affordable care act, or some call the obamacare, we actually put new taxes on medical devices so every time you've got a stint that's inserted, every time there's a medical device that's used on you, your health care bill goes up because we've now taxed the device that they're using. well, if the device goes up, if the price goes up, if the reimbursement goes up, the premium goes up. starting to make some sense. this again is 2009, before we passed the bill -- premiums will increase because of a new excise tax on health plans. we actually taxed the same health plans that are in the exchange that we told everybody would save them money. premiums will increase because the new excise tax on prescription drugs. wait a minute. i thought we were bringing down the cost of health care.

in 2009, again -- new taxes on devices, new taxes on health plans, new taxes on prescription drugs. these were all things that we all knew. the president knew it. my colleagues that voted for the plan knew it. but everybody seems to have amnesia today. oh, my gosh, how could the costs go up? i never knew that this was going to require people to buy a health insurance policy that had benefits that they would never use. premiums will increase because a new fee to sell plans in the mandated exchanges. this phenomenal exchange market that we created competition, we now created a new fee to enter into it on the part of insurers. premiums will increase because a new tax for comparative effectiveness. comparative effectiveness means that we're trying to bring new generics, whether they're in pharmaceuticals or biologics, to the marketplace.

and we've decided to tax that process. premiums will increase because the bill forces 15 million more americans to enroll in medicaid. why does that happen? it happens because doctors are paid so little on medicaid that they have to charge more for everybody else. so we're cost-shifting when we purchase the premium and now all of a sudden we're learning we're cost-shifting even when the service is delivered. reform? no. 2009, again, i came to the floor and i talked about the affordable care act, obamacare. zero times did it mention provisions prohibiting the rationing of health care. zero. nine times it mentioned new taxes created in the bill.

13 pages in the table of contents. the bill weighed 20.8 pounds. 36 pages it took for the c.b.o. to estimate the price tag of obamacare. 70 government programs authorized by the bill. 1,697 times in the affordable care act the secretary of health and human services was given the authority to create, determine, and define things in the bill. a bureaucrat that we allowed 1,697 times to determine what congress' intent was in the legislation. almost 3,000 pages. 3,607 times the word "shall" --

not "may,," "shall" were in the bill. $6.8 million cost to taxpayers per word. i remind you, this is what i came to the floor and talked about in 2009 before the united states senate passed this legislation in the dark of night. 24 million people left without health care. this is the bill that was supposed to insure everybody. 24 million people without health insurance. $1.2 billion cost to the taxpayer per page. $5 billion to $10 billion of additional funding needed for i.r.s. implementation of the bill. in other words, we're going to fund $5 billion to $10 billion for the i.r.s. to chase down people that owe a penalty because they made a determination i can't afo afforr i don't need health care insurance. $8 billion on taxes levied on

uninsured individuals. now, there's a way to make health care affordable -- tax people that don't have it. $25 billion of additional medicaid mandates placed on states. $28 billion in new taxes on employers not providing the government -- government-approved plans. $100 million estimated annually in fraud and medicare and medicaid. $118 billion in cuts in medicare advantage to seniors all across this country that found this product to be the one that provided the most security and benefits for them. $465 billion in cuts to medicare. cuts to medicare. a health care system that was at that time projected to be insolvent in 2017. $494 billion in revenue from new taxes, fees, levied on american

families and businesses. $2.5 trillion costs for full implementation of the legislation. at that time, mr. president, we have $12 trillion debt. today $17 trillion debt. health care was supposed to be more affordable because we reformed it. we didn't reform it. we took it over. the federal government took it over. let me go to another process that i talked about in 2009. it's all marked up. it's been in my desk drawer since then. 4,677 times that legislation said shall, must or require. 899 times it said tax, fee or revenue. 470 times it said agency, department, commission, panel, or bureau.

196 times it said regulate or regulation. 134 times it mentioned treatment. 180 times it mentioned prevention. 40 times it mentioned choice. 25 times it mentioned innovation. 13 times it mentioned competition. you know, if you listen to those that are out selling this awful plan today, what are the three words you hear? choice, innovation, competition. those things mentioned lease in almost 3,000 pages of health care legislation in 2009. this bill wasn't reform. this bill spent trillions of dollars at a time of record deficits and debt. when fully implemented, i said

then, this bill is projected to cost $2.5 trillion over ten years. c.b.o. said at the time this bill will increase federal health costs, not lower it. what have we heard the president? it's going to lower health costs, bring it down, be more affordable. middle class, this is the greatest deal for you. the bill raised taxes by more than $500 billion at a time of record unemployment. the bill violated the president's own pledge to protect the middle class. who gets taxed in this bill? this is in 2009 on the senate floor right here before the vote. uninsured americans, insured americans, families with high-value insurance plans. high health costs, small business, individuals who need medicines or medical devices and employers that provide retiree drug coverage. employers that provide retiree drug coverage, we taxed them.

the bill cut $466 billion in medicare to fund new government programs. medicare faced at that time a $38 trillion underfunded liability and insolvency that was projected to be 2017. instead of fixing those problems, this bill raided medicare to start a new government entitlement. the bill cut medicare advantage. it cut hospitals. it cut nursing homes, cut home health. it cut hospice. nobody in the administration can go out today and say my gosh, we didn't know this was going to happen. we talked about it right here day after day after day. these are not things that we made up. if we did, we would be prophets because they're all coming true. everything is aligning with what we said. the bill would increase premiums

making care more expensive, not less. let's get past what was the easy part, and that was setting up the exchange, setting up the web site, or at least it should have been. new taxes in this bill will get passed on to consumers, increasing yearly premiums. this is what i said thefpblt listen to this. the average premiums would increase by $2,100 for a family policy in the individual market. there are individuals that are seeing $488 a month in increase. and in addition to that, a deductible that they've never had applied to them before. this bill imposes costly new burdens on struggling states. it imposes health care choices with a tangled web of new rules, regulations and government-run plan. the government will require to

you purchase insurance or face a fine. it will tell you what kind of insurance you have to have, even if you like what you currently have. mr. president, i'm not a prophet. i was going by what the experts said reading the bill. so for everybody who went out and said if you like your insurance you can keep it, if you like your doctor, you can keep it, if you like your hospital you can keep it. we were on the senate floor saying that's not what the bill says. it's not going to happen. this bill cut $135 billion from hospitals, $120 billion from 11 million seniors on medicare advantage. nearly $15 billion from nursing homes. nearly $40 billion from home health agencies. nearly $7 billion from hospice.

cutting medicare to fund a new government program in my book is not reform. it's ignorance. the c.m.s. office of the actuary, let me tell you the actuary is like the gold standard. the c.m.s. actuary is like the guy who puts that stamp of approval on and there is nobody higher from a standpoint of what the actuary said. he said the bill increases national health expenditures. national health expenditures under this bill would increase by an estimate of a total of $234 billion, .7% during 2010 and 2019. it's exactly opposite of what everybody's out saying today. despite promises that reform would reduce health care spending growth, the bill actually bends the health care curve upward. according to the analysts, the analysis, the national health

expenditure as a share of g.d.p. is projected to be 20.9 in 2010 compared to 20.8% under current law. how could you go out and make a claim that this was bending the cost curve down? how could you promise the american people that it was going to be cheaper? the total number of persons with employer coverage in 2019, by the c.m.s. actuary pre-2009 when the bill was passed, to be five million lower under the reform package than under current law. let me say that again. c.m.s. actuary told us in 2009 before we passed this bill that employer-based coverage would drop five million additional covered lives. and i might say, mr. president, some estimates are coming in at 100 million employers -- employees losing their health care under plans right now.

the new fees for drugs, devices and insurance plans in the bill will increase prices health insurance premiums, cost for insurers, for consumers. this will increase the national health expenditure by approximately $11 billion per year. the bill funds $930 billion in new federal spending by relying on medicare payment cuts which are unlikely to be sustainable or permanent. as a result providers could find it difficult to remain profitable and absent legislating intervention might end up -- might end their participation in the medicare program, possibly jeopardizing the care to beneficiaries. it wasn't republicans that talked about rationing. it was the actuary at c.m.s.. in his analysis of the affordable care act, he said

here's what's going to happen. and it's seniors that are going to get hosed on it because they're not going to have access to the doctors anymore. the bill is especially likely to result in providers being unwilling to treat medicare and medicaid patients, meaning that a significant portion of the increased demand for medicaid services would be difficult to meet. how could anybody listen or read what the c.m.s. actuary said and remotely go out and tell the american people, gee, this is going to increase coverage for everybody? c.m.s. actuary noted that the medicare cuts in the bill could jeopardize medicare beneficiaries access to care. he also found that roughly 20% -- 20% of all part-a providers, hospitals, nursing homes, et cetera, would become

unprofitable within the next ten years as a result of these cuts. meaning they're going to go out of business. you know, pretty soon it's not going to be the network that the insurance provider put together. it's going to be the fact that the hospital went out of business because they couldn't withstand what this bill has done to them. c.m.s. actuary found further reductions in medicare growth rates through the actions of the independent medicare advisory board -- that's going to sound a little odd to some, because prior to the bill passing, it was called the independent medicare advisory board. it is now called the independent payment advisory board, ipab. an entity that was set up that when it's kicked in, 16 members picked by the president, they will determine scope of coverage. it is not the congress of the united states. if we don't legislatively do something with their recommendation, it becomes law.

it goes into effect. the bill would cut payments to medicare advantage plans by approximately $110 billion over ten years resulting in a less generous benefit packages and decreasing enrollment in medicare advantage plans by about 33%. 33% of seniors would lose their advantage plan. again, mr. president, this is 2009. this is not today. higher costs present in 3,000 pages said it would reduce cost. the chief actuary says that's not the case. mr. president, let me read a letter, a letter i got in the last couple of weeks from a lori perez, willow springs, north carolina. i'm a divorced mom of three. i receive insurance through my employer. my rate has increased $100 a

month. this is a huge difference that will have to be budgeted by reducing groceries and foregoing my son's braces. i looked into dropping n.i.h. company provided insurance and joining an exchange but i don't qualify to receive a subsidy because my insurance rate is less than 9.5% of my income. it's 9%. my tph-rl income qualifies -- my yearly income qualifies. apparently obama thinks i can afford an additional $1,200 a year. i'm considering dropping my insurance paying out of pocket as needed for health care and paying the fine at the end of the year. it would be less expensive. this is ridiculous. what can i do? what do you say to lori? oops, that's the law? here's somebody who was 100% satisfied, an employer doing the right thing, and the federal

government has now put her in a situation that she's considering just giving up her health care, doing away with it. why? because she can't afford it. this is a woman with a job. she's thinking about giving up her groceries, delaying her son's braces. why? because of obamacare. where are we today? let me speed forward. well, i said that we've got the health care exchange, healthcare.gov, the web site. there are companies every day that get web sites set up. this one is complicated. they had three years to do it. it's still not right today. but i'm convinced they'll get it right. but for the first time the american people are getting ready to, they're getting on the web site and they're able to look at these health care options that they've got and what are they finding?

they're finding the premium cost for something that equals what they had two times, three times more expensive per month. they're finding this new thing they have never had before. it's called deductibles. i'm not talking about a $100 deductible that you have to pay before you get some participation in a doctor's visit or an emergency room visit. i'm talking about $1,000, $3,000, $5,000. i've heard from friends that they have now signed up for plans that have a $15,000 deductible. i say to my colleagues, especially my colleague from florida, it sounds like a health savings account, doesn't it? you have got insurance, but you are responsible for the first $15,000 of it. well, the guy that shared that with me, his premium, his premium is $1,444 a month with a a $15,000 deductible. i don't think he's going to drop

it, but sticker shock is rampant. benefit package. how many people have come up to me and said i'm not going to have any more children, but i have got to have maternity coverage? something is wrong. they are aright, something is wrong. how many kids would like to have a scaled down thing that allowed them to have this set of benefits and they are willing to roll the dice on if something bad happens, they will pay out of pocket. no, they don't get that option. choice does not exist unless it's the choice of the things that were created in the affordable care act. networks. this is one the american people haven't gotten to yet, and i can't wait until it happens. i have gone through getting on the d.c. exchange, going through the process of trying to figure out is my doctor in north carolina available under this plan or that plan? wait until the american people get into healthcare.gov and they start picking a plan and they look to see is my primary care doc on there, is my hospital on there, is the specialist i see on there?

are the drugs that i take on this plan? i mean, this is incredibly complicated. and the american people were used to calling their insurance broker and saying here is how much coverage i want and here is how much i have got to spend and here is my health condition, and they sort of designed a program to meet their health condition, their income and their age. now we penalize you for your age if you're old or young and we force everybody to take the same benefit package regardless of whether you can afford it or not. and we say if you don't get it, we're going to charge you this year a 1% penalty on your income. that goes up to about 2.5% at the end of the transition period. well, we're going to get past this period, which i saul the enrollment plan period, and next we get to the part that the president delayed. you see, we never understood

that something that was in statute the executive branch could just decide no, it's not going to go into effect, but for large and small employers, they had a one-year delay. all of a sudden in 2015, they are going to have -- their employees are going to be in the same marketplace that we are. what makes that particularly difficult is that we extended the enrollment period for individuals in healthcare.gov until march 31 of 2014. you can -- they can still enroll. well, april 1 of 2014 through april 27 of 2014, insurers have to decide what their premium cost is in 2015. so given that they have no real experience on what the mix of ages and health conditions and their plan are, what are they going to do? they are going to err on the side of higher premiums. that's higher than what we're seeing today in 2014, which a majority of the american people say are higher than they can

afford. imagine what it's going to be like in 2015, and in that group is the 80% of america, not the 5% to 10%. that are provided for by employers today. mr. president, i see my colleague here and i'm infringing on his hour, but i do want to stress one last thing. i mentioned only once the independent payment advisory board, ipab. at the end of the day, mark my word, everything that i commented on i read from my 2009 notes, notes that i came to the floor then and said this bill shouldn't become law and here's why. i spent five minutes talking about today. but i'm going to make this statement and i will come back to the floor two years from now when ipab is up and running and the benefit packages have been cut down and reimbursements have been cut to doctors and

hospitals, and i will point to the statement that i made here that picking a 16-member advisory panel that has the authority and the power to set the scope of coverage and more importantly the reimbursements will have the most devastating effect on health care in this country. it will ration health care because of the doctors that choose not to participate in plans that participate in the exchange, which will force hospitals out of accepting plans that participate in the exchange, and for those of us that are forced by government to be in the exchange and to choose, our choices will be gone, our costs will go up. yeah, we'll get care when we are cued in -- queued in line or from the emergency room or from a doctor we don't know or trust or to a hospital we have to drive to see. it's not going to be a reassuring thing to that mother who now has maternity coverage

and no obstetrician. no local hospital to deliver a child. because, you see, we didn't reform health care. we didn't do anything to liability. we just changed the pocket we pay out of. we've taxed everything we could find to pay for it, and still, as i said, in 2009 and i believe it will be true today, at the end of this process, there will be 24 million people without health insurance. why? because of obamacare. because of the choice or the lack of choice that we gave them. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: mr. president, i intend to be here for the next -- a little bit under an hour. i look forward to sharing this time here on the floor with you to discuss some of the issues that are before us, particularly the pending issue before us of

nominations and the concern we have about that. i know people back home across the country are kind of watching the news tonight or perhaps over the last few weeks have watched the news about all of these things, and so they are wondering what this debate is about, so i want to use this opportunity here tonight to address the nomination of cornelia pillard for the d.c. circuit because it's a good example of the government overreach that has reached -- that has impacted all sorts of issues in our lives, and i want to begin with this whole nomination issue, right. so let's lay the land work here so people back home understand what's happening. so last week or the week before last, the senate majority by a simple majority vote, they changed the practice of the senate that had existed here since the beginning of the senate, and they did so in an effort to grab more power for themselves and for the president. basically, here's the precedent that's been set here. as exemplified by the nomination

tha before us. the precedent that has been established from now on is that any presidential nominee, except for the supreme court, at least for now, they're only going to need a simple majority vote to confirm them. and there is problems with that because in the constitution, it gives the senate wisely the power to advise and consent. the reason why that was done, especially for judges, these are lifetime appointments. when someone is made a federal judge, it is for the rest of their lives unless they are impeached, which is a rare occurrence, thankfully. and so this is now people that are going to serve for the rest of their lives or the rest of their working lives in and on the bench, making decisions about the application and interpretation of our federal laws, and that's why the senate was given this extraordinary opportunity to vet these people and to look for a supermajority of votes in this chamber before someone is put in a position like that. the other positions, of course, are cabinet nominees and so forth, and those are very important as well.

but by breaking the rules to change the rules of the senate, something that, by the way, we were told at least on two occasions this year was not going to happen but ultimately did, what we basically saw was the ramming through, just as obamacare was on a party-line vote, the president's nominees, and tonight's nominee is an example of that. this is going toffee norm us consequences. on this institution for sure. you are seeing it play out here tonight. by the way, i say to my colleagues in the majority party, the history of this body is that power trades hands and i believe as early as november of next year and january of next year when a new congress reconvenes, you won't be in the majority, you will be in the minority, and soon thereafter there might be a republican president, now appointing judges, now appointing cabinet members and other appointees. and now all of a sudden a supermajority is going to be enough -- a simple majority is going to be enough, and you set that precedent. but beyond the impact that that's going to have on this institution, it's going to have an impact on the country. it's going to have an impact of

putting these activist judges, such as the nominee before us tonight, on the bench. it's going to have an impact on a wide range of issues from obamacare to the sanctity of life to the second amendment, just to name a few. why does the majority want to pack this particular bench, this particular d.c. circuit court of appeals with a supermajority? why? well, because it's a court that's often called the second highest court in the country. it's a court that's key in reviewing all these regulations that are being posed -- imposed upon us. it's a court that's key in reviewing all these assertions of executive power that this president and other presidents have instituted. the current d.c. circuit, as currently made up, it's proven to be somewhat of an obstacle to the big government agenda that the white house and the majority here in the senate have been pursuing, and they don't like it. that's, by the way, why the

majority leader earlier this year said we need at least one more, meaning judge, that will switch that majority on that court. well, with that vote, that's -- by changing the rules, that's what they are setting up for here. and now they seek to expand it tonight, early tomorrow with a nominee that quite frankly is completely out of the mainstream. for example, professor pillard has said on the question of abortion, you know what she calls pregnancy? conscription into maternity. that's a quote. i don't know what that means, but i bet you the vast majority of americans would see that as outside the mainstream. by the way, as you look at the majority pulling out all these stops to confirm controversial nominations such as this one of someone who is completely outside the mainstream, and they do so despite the fact that they spent most of last ten years basically filibustering some of former president bush's, george w. bush's best nominations to

the judiciary, especially to this d.c. circuit. let me give you some examples. senate democrats over the last two years, they even refused -- they basically refused to -- over two years, they just refused to even give peter keisler a judiciary committee vote. despite his extraordinary credentials and a record of public service. you know, at the time they argued that, among other things, that maybe the d.c. circuit wasn't busy enough to warrant somebody filling these vacancies. he was just the most recent of several republican nominees to the d.c. circuit that the senate democrats blocked and filibustered. there were others. for example, they successfully filibustered miguel estrada who is a honduran-born legal superstar, a person who some said may one way be the first american of hispanic descent to serve on the -- as a supreme court justice. senate democrats voted seven times, seven times to filibuster

this great story, this great american success story and this great judge. other nominees to this d.c. circuit, including then-california supreme court justice janice roger brown and peter cavenaugh, they also face long delays, a failed cloture vote and filibuster attempts. as did, by the way, president bush's nominees all across the country. the numbers on this issue do not lie. numbers are facts, and the numbers don't lie about the double standard that's going to apply here today. for example, tonight's vote on judge pillard will come after just 190 days after her nomination, but for historical context, senate democrats, they obstructed now-chief justice john roberts, d.c. circuit nomination, by 729 days. another impressive nominee which i mentioned earlier, mr. cavenaugh, he took 1,036 days. miguel estrada was obstructed for 184 days. janice brown's nomination took

1 -- 684 days. tonight 190 days, and on that in similar cases, they completely changed the rules of the senate and how the senate nominates people to a lifetime appointment to the second highest court in the land. but despite this record and despite the fact that the d.c. circuit is still known to be underworked today, the majority presses ahead with what will be about a midnight or 1:00 a.m. vote to install a controversial law professor on the nation's second-most important court. so what's changed? what caused the same people that used to routinely filibuster highly qualified judges? what's caused them to now come here and make these changes? what's changed is that now there is a democrat in the white house. what's changed is they now want an ideologically compliant court. what they want is a liberal

activist court, one that protects all the things they rammed through congress over the years and imposed through regulations and pushed through executive order. now we know why senate democrats were less interested in the workload of the d.c. circuit or the objective qualifications of the nominees over the past decade, why they were less concerned about that than they are today, because their dreams came true of having a democrat in the white house and a majority in the senate, so their efforts to keep vacancies open that has brought us here today, that's what's brought us here today as they seek to fill them, in order to radically change the federal judiciary into their own image. but i think what's important to understand is that this whole effort here to start this debate about judges and all that, it's really an effort to distract from another big government intrusion that everyone knows too well. that's obamacare. interestingly enough, this sunday i was at a wedding. i had a story similar to what my colleague at north carolina

outlined. this is outside of obamacare. this is someone who has employee-provided care but that is going to be impacted by these changes happening in the law. she had gotten notice her premiums had gone up but here is what was worse. her deductible had gone 0 up to $5,000 or $6,000. she doesn't have $5,000 or $6,000. the way she figured it out is she is going to have to spend $6,000 she doesn't even have before she can even begin to use the health insurance plan that she can barely afford. she's basically uninsured. but i wish i could tell you that's a rare story and we're not getting a lot of input about that. but we are. this obamacare disaster is starting to take its toll. i think it's unconscionable, by the way, that the majority here seeks to distract the focus of this body on these important things like obamacare by pulling

this stunt on the judges but what it doesn't stop is the wave of letters we're getting from people across the country. these letters, these aren't talking points, these aren't op-eds in newspapers. these are the letters from real people that are being impacted in real ways by this law. i want to share with you some of their stories. i'm going to leech their last -- leave their last names out to protect their privacy but i want to share with you some of these examples because these are very typical of the kinds of things we're hearing about all across the country. phillip in winter springs. phillip is retired. he's living on a fixed income with insurance from united health care that he has for himself and for his wife. his monthly premium increased from $530 to $867. that's over a 60% increase in his monthly premium and his $15 co-pay has doubled now to $30. how about charles in winter garden? charles had employer-provided health care which obamacare

caused to spike in price nearly 80% more for his plan and his deductible is $12,000. $12,000, okay? he can't afford $165 a week -- $156 a week for health insurance if he wants to be able to provide for his two children and pay his bills. here's one from janet in titusville. janet is a single mom who is losing insurance for herself and her children in january. this isn't janet's first challenge with the economy, by the way. she's been unemployed for three years, and she took an underemployed job to provide for insurance for her kids but only to lose it a year later. she just wants insurance that doesn't cost nearly 10% of her income. so she can provide for her kids. david in lakewood ranch, he has an insurance plan that will be canceled as of april 1, 2014.

his current policy costs him about $291 a month with a $6,000 deductible. the new policy his insurance company suggested raises his monthly premium over 60% to $466, with a $12,000 deductible as well. now, david also looked at the silver plan through the exchanges, but the monthly cost would be $525, with a $7,500 deductible. david's other problem is if he waits until his current plan is canceled on april 1, 2014, any of the costs he had leading up to his deductible did not count as a new policy so he'll be spending more trying to reach a deductible that will increase along with his much higher monthly premiums. as he wrote in our office, i just want my old plan back.

colleen in winter garden. colleen is self-employed. she chose to have a plan that costs her $60 a month because that's all she can afford. she says that while she knows that she had to use her policy, there would be hospital costs, she's more than willing to accept the risk. well, guess what? her policy has been canceled. the new option is a $600 a month plan, and there is no way she can afford that plan. there is no way she can afford it. how about sarah in live oak. sarah had an individual policy for herself with a $2,000 deductible that ran $68 per month. her plan's been canceled and now she's looking at a $288 a month plan with a $5,000 deductible. she feels she's been lied to by the president and by congress, and who can blame her for feeling that way?

how about warren in sanford? warren had a health insurance for his family, four members of his family, with a monthly premium of $533 and a $10,000 deductible. while he would have preferred a lower deductible because his family is healthy and he was willing to take that risk, now that plan is gone. so warren went on the exchanges to look for a new policy. his new monthly price was $1,300, more than double his old plan, with a $13,000 deductible. as warren noted, the bottom line is -- this is a quote from warren -- the bottom line is i will be paying more and i will be getting less. and he'll be forced to do things like skip vacations or miss out on his children's activities. then there is joe of melbourne beach. joe had a health care plan that was canceled because of obamacare. he liked his plan. he told our office that he took

great care in selecting my plan that i felt was right for me and for my needs. now he has to shop for a new plan, and he sees are more expensive options. he tried the obamacare web site but it didn't work for him. and on top of the web site not working, he's nervous about security risks. when it comes to submitting his information to these web sites. there's kenneth in land owe lakes. he and his wife had a private insurance plan for over 11 years, but they don't anymore. they received a letter in the mail canceling their plan, telling them that due to the recent a.c.a. legislation this policy is no longer available. the new option that is available to him, by the way, is from an insurance company that had a premium that was double the price of his current plan. tkhr-rbgs 2,400 more a year. he doesn't know how he's going to cover this additional expense. look, i don't think anyone

disputes that we have a health insurance plan -- a health insurance problem in america. but this is a disaster. of course they want to do this judge thing here. of course they want to trigger some sort of fight about judges and republicans objecting to judges and nominees. if you supported this, if you have voted for the law that does this to people, you don't want to talk about this. if you are responsible for the passage of this law, if you've gone around the last two years bragging about this law, if you're the one that went around telling people if you have a policy you like you can keep it, why would you ever want the world focused on this? the problem is people are going to be focused on this because this is no longer a theory. obamacare is no longer some theoretical thing that's going to happen at some point in the future to someone else. obamacare is happening to real people right now. right now. all over this country people are

feeling these impacts. these are real people. this is not some outside third party groupen a commercial. this is not someone here giving a speech about what they think is going to happen. this is what is happening now and there will be more of these and it's going to impact conservatives, republicans, liberals. everybody is going to be impacted by this. they already are being impacted by this. this is going to have a dramatically negative impact on our economy, on our people and on the country as a whole. that doesn't mean we don't have a health insurance issue that shouldn't be addressed. and we could have addressed it and we still can. by, for example, giving people more options in a truly private personal marketplace. allow people to buy insurance from any company in america that will sell it to you. allow people to buy it with money that isn't taxed just like when your employer buys it four.

incentivize, encourage people, make it easier for people. quite frankly, make it more rewarding and more flexible to put in a health savings account so you can have money you can use to pay your deductible, to pay your co-payments, to pay out of pocket, pay for your kids' braces. these are real options that are available to us, none of which were pursued. instead of what was pursued is this big government solution, this one size fits all plan rammed down the throat of the american just like these judges are being rammed down our throat, like the nominee tonight is being rammed down our throat. because when what you stand for cannot withstand scrutiny, when you have a judge like the one before us tonight that is so outside the mainstream you don't want a process that examines their records. you've got to ram it through. and when you have a law that so

fundamentally alters the makeup of the american health care. you don't want this thing being analyzed. you've got to ram it through. they did it on obamacare and they're doing it on judges. there is a reason why our republic was set up this way. there's a reason why this system of checks and balances was set up this wait a minute there's a reason why the senate was built this way, with people that serve six-year terms, two per state. because they wanted a chamber that would slow things down, look at them carefully and weigh them. you can't do that when you ram things through but you get radical lifetime appointments to the bench like we're on the verge of doing here tonight in this senate and what you get are damaging changes to the law on health care which leaves people with less choices, with more spins and here's the -- with more expenses and here pore the kicker, with less quality

access. we have the best health care providers in the world. when rich and powerful people around this planet get sick, you know where they come? they come to the united states. they come to our centers of excellence. other places around the world have quality places like that too but they are only available for people that can afford to pay out of pobg. their government-religion insurance programs don't allow you to do that. they socialize you, force you to wait in line behind other people until their turn is up. the only place you can get quality health care on many places on earth are the richest people that can afford it with payments out of their pocket. this law brings us a little bit closer to that because many of these quality providers, the sloan ketterlings, the mayo clinics, many aren't on the insurance any nor. in order to fit with the obamacare you've got to cut those people out of the plan.

the only people who will be able to go to these centers are people who can afford to pay for it out of their pocket. and everybody else, people on obamacare, they're going to get whatever the plan covers. that's what you're stuck with. that's what we're headed towards. we're going to deny the american people access to the highest quality health care system in the history of the world. not the best health insurance marketplace. there's reforms that need to happen there. but quality-wise, second to none, we're going to deny people access to that. the other reason, by the way, why this whole debate on judges is really bad for the country is it distracts us from the fundamental issue of our time, the central issue that faces our people and our country. it's one that i wish we spent more time focused on around here. i think both parties are a little bit guilty of not focusing on it enough. when i was a child, when i was younger i had all kinds of idea about what i wanted to be when i

grew up. i was blessed with parents who taught me that every single one of these dreams were within my reach. from my earliest memories, my parents instilled in me the belief that even though my family wasn't rich or powerful or connected, i could grow up to be anything i set my mind to. because i was an american. my parents knew america was special because they knew what life was like outside of it. my parents were born into a society like most people are born into, where the success you're going to have in life is often predetermined by the family you were born into. by the grace of god, my parents were able to come here, to the one place on earth where that isn't true. and the promise of america changed their lives. now look, my parents never made it big. my mother worked as a cashier and a hotel maid and even a stock clerk at k-mart. my dad was a bartender primarily

working banquets. but you know, through hard work and determination, my parents made it to the middle class. and they gave us, their children, the opportunity to do all the things they never were able to do. to be anything we wanted to be. they were never rich, like i said, but my parents achieved the american dream. that phrase the american dream, that's a phrase we use all the time. but you know it's a phrase that's often misunderstood. the american dream has never been about becoming wealthy or famous. instead, it's about things that, quite frankly, i think many of us, like me who were born and raised here our whole life, it's about things that i think we sometimes take for granted. the american dream, what is it about? about a happy and stable home life, where you can live without fear for your safety or the safety of your family.

it's about the freedom to worship any way you want. it's about having the chance to get a good education and find a job that rewards hard work with financial security. the american dream is about being taoeubl send your kids to college and to be able to retire comfortably. about the opportunity to pursue happiness without being limited by your social status or your background. and perhaps most of all, the american dream is about being able to give your kids the chance, the opportunities that you yourself never had. this is the true american dream. it isn't just a phrase. it's our identity as a nation. it's what it means to be an american. we're still a country where the american dream is possible. we're still a place where if you work hard and are determined, you can earn a better life. but we have to be honest. over the last ten years, it's

gotten harder to achieve this. it's gotten harder to find a good job and get ahead financially. it's gotten harder to save for retirement and send your kids to college. it's gotten harder to pay for health care, for child care, for the monthly payments on your student loan. for five years, for the last five years, we have been told that a bigger government that does more and spends more is the answer to this problem. you know what that's left us with instead? with about $17 trillion in debt and millions and millions of americans chronically out of work. and so the result is that despite all this news that we get from time to time about how the economy is getting better or the stock market is climbing, for many, many people across this country there's a sense

that that recovery isn't reaching them. and this is creating true uncertainty and even fear about the future. there's 0 the constant worry that you could lose everything you worked so hard for, the doubts about whether you'll ever be able to make enough to have a few extra dollars after payday or be able to save for the future. and even, by the way, for those who are enjoying the life they always wanted, you know what you find? a growing sense that their children may not get that same chance. and so it's not surprising that some are starting to wonder whether the time has come for us to lower our expectations. maybe the time has come to downgrade the american dream. this doesn't have to be the new normal. we have a choice in this. if we go in a new direction, a new direction that gives us a

government that creates less debt, an economy that creates more stable middle-class jobs, an education system that trains our people for the jobs available now and in the future, strong families that teach the values of success, and a financially healthy social security and medicare system for retirees. if we are responsible enough to courageously and boldly fight to do these things, we can save the american dream, we can restore it. actually, we can expand it to reach more people than it's ever reached before. now, our first priority here should not be ramming through rules changes to get liberal judges appointed. our first priority here should be more stable middle-class jo jobs. that should be our first priority. because stable middle-class jobs are the cornerstone of the american dream. and let me break it to everybody here in washington. politicians don't create jobs.

politicians don't create these stable middle-class jobs. these stable middle-class jobs are create created by everyday e when they start a business or when they grow an existing one. that, my friends, is the reason why the american free enterprise system is the single greatest engine of prosperity that the world has ever known. the key to our success as a country has always been a thriving free enterprise system, not a thriving bigger governme government. what we need from our government are policies that foster a free enterprise system, that provide opportunities for everyone that is willing to work hard. a government that stops spending money it doesn't have. our $17 trillion debt, we have got to bring this thing under control. we need to address a broken tax code.

we need one that creates more taxpayers not more taxes. the current one we have is a major obstacle to the american dream. why? because our current tax code is expensive, it's complicated. our current tax code, it is rigged, it is rigged to help those who are politically connected. and it is rigged to help them at the expense of everybody else. we need to reform the runaway regulations that we have. it's destroying job creation. and, by the way, it, too, favors the well-connected. it, too, favors the people who can afford to hire lobbyists to help write these rules and lawyers to help figure out the loopholes. we need government policies that remove unreasonable restrictions on energy exploration here in this country so that we can be freed from a dependence on foreign oil, so that we can

create more jobs in the energy sector but also in manufacturing. and as i mentioned earlier, we do need to get the costs of health care under control but not through the big-government solutions like obamacare that were rammed down the throat of the american people but by encouraging the development of an individual health insurance market that gives people more choices, not more mandates. you know, the middle-class jobs of today and of the future, they're going to require more education and skills than ever before. that's why one of the most important investments of our time and our resources that we could possibly make here, instead of wasting time on all these distractions about changing the senate rules to -- to force through radical judges like the one being proposed here tonight, one of the most important investments we can make is in a quality and affordable education system.

that gives our people the unique skills they're going to need to succeed in a new global economy. to do that, we need to take power out of the hands of washington, d.c., and give it to the state and local school boards so they can undertake innovative reforms. we need to pursue policies that expand access and interest in science, technology, engineering, and math, because that's where the jobs of the future are going to be based on. as i mentioned a moment ago, we need to get the cost of college under control. i know. i graduated with over $100,000 in student loans. we need to give working americans trapped in low-paying jobs access to college or career education that's affordable and that's flexible so that it meets within their already busy lives. if you are a working parent, particularly a working single parent, you can't just quit your job and move to the nearest college town to go to school for four years. we've got to create programs,

we've got to reform our existing programs so that they're accessible and affordable for people who are in this position. so that the receptionist at a law firm can become a paralegal. so that the mail clerk at a medical office can become an ultrasound technician. we've got to meet this issue. it's an extraordinary need. by the way, we have to give all of our students more access to career and vocational education. you can still make a good middle-class living as an airplane mechanic, as a electrician. why have we stigmatized these things? why have we told children in this country that if they go into these fields, they're not successful? these are good, stable, necessary middle-class jobs. and you know what happened when -- what happens when a kid wants to work with their hands but they're not learning it in high school? they drop out. we have got to address that. not just at the federal level but across the country. by the way, in addition to a good education, the american

dream was built on a set of fundamental values, fundamental values like hard work, discipline, honesty, self-control. now, teaching these values, it's the responsibility of our families. government can't impose these values and it, quite frankly, can't teach them. government policies should encourage and reward them. that's why i think we should empower parents by giving them the ability to send their kids to any school they choose. there is no reason why a parent should not be able to put their kids in the best possible education setting just because they're poor. there's no reason why we should force people to send their kids into failing schools just because that happens to be the school that's right down the street. that isn't fair. if you are rich, you can send your kids to any school you wa want. and you know what? they do. you know who can't do that? the people who can't afford to pay for that.

that's wrong. and we should change it. we should strengthen our charities and our churches which make an extraordinary contribution in helping the less fortunate and in reinforcing these values so important to success. we should reinforce them. by making important changes to our tax code that will encourage and reward americans for donating more. and we need to have safety net programs. the free free enterprise system doesn't work without a solid safety net, but a safety net who helps people who cannot help themselves and a safety net who have fallen to get back up and try again. not a safety net that's a way of life. we need to reform our existing safety net programs: welfare, unemployment insurance, disability. mr. rubio: medicaid. they should all be reformed. so that in addition to providing for the needs of those in need, these programs should also be promoting work and education and

self-reliance. last but not least, the american dream i think means the ability to retire with stability and security. and that's why having a financially healthy social security and medicare system is so important. now, we can bicker around here all we want about how many votes it takes to get a judge in, who's objec obstructing what. here's a fundamental fact -- a fact -- social security is going to run out of money in 20 years, which happens to be right around the time that i'm getting close to being eligible for it. medicare is going to run out of money in about as few as eight. the good news is that if we contact now, if we start to take steps to address that now, we can fix these programs and we can fix them without disrupting the lives of people that are on those programs now, like my mother. i would never support any

changes to these programs that would hurt people like my mother, who's on social security and medicare. and we can fix it. but to fix it, people like me, decades from retirement, we're going to have to accept that while our medicare and social security will be the best thing in the world, it's going to be different than our parents' but it's going to exist. beyond this, by the way, i think we should do some other things. we should make it easier through changes in our taxes, we should make it easier for people to continue to work beyond their retirement years. and we should expand access to tax advantaged savings accounts for those who -- who don't have an access to a 401(k). we should incentivize people to save for their retirement. i think what bothers me the most in the three years that i've been here is the lack of urgency about any of this. people talk about it, they propose laws called good things that maybe they've polled and it

sounds good, but in terms of moving on any of these things i've just talked about, there isn't a lot of urgency about it. we need to have more urgency about it. we need to stop wasting time around here changing the rules of the senate to get a couple more of the president's radical appointments to the bench confirmed and spend a little bit more time figuring this out. you know, for most of the history of the world, almost everyone that was born was poor, without power, without wealth. that only belonged to a select few. for most of the history of the world, the people that have been born, your future was determined by your past. if your parents were poor, so would you be. if you were born without opportunities, so were your children. what makes our country special is that that hasn't been true here. what makes america special is we're a people not united by a

common race or a common ethnicity. we're a people united by a common value -- the idea that everyone has the god-given right to achieve a better life without being held back by your government or by your social standing. now, look, right now i work here. washington is broken. it was broken when i got here and it still is. it's a process that's unable to function. with all due respect, it is a process that is plagued with people in both parties, by wai e way, who are more interested in being someone than in doing something. and i'm telling you that if we continue on this road that we are on right now, if we continue on the road that we have placed this country on, we are going to lose the things that makes america special and that's what we should be focused on.

because there is another direction we can take. if we can find the political courage to boldly and responsibly confront and solve the challenges before us, we can restore the american dream. actually, we can expand it to reach more people than it ever has before. every generation of american before us has had to do this. every generation before us has been asked to do something to keep america special. each has been asked to make sacrifices and take bold steps to preserve what makes us exceptional. and now and now it's our turn. i remember a few years ago, there was a moment that reminded me of what's truly at stake here, and i shared this story many times. i was about to give a speech in a hotel ballroom, i think it was

in new york city. and there was a bartender working there who had heard me speak before about my father who was also a bartender, and he approached me with a gift. the gift he gave me was the nametag that said rubio, banquet bartender, a nametag like they give in the hotels. at that moment, i was reminded how this country had literally changed my family's very life. how not so long ago, it was my father who had stood behind a bar just like the one that gentleman stood behind in order to give me the chance to earn a better life. and how america made that possible. it was never easy. both my parents worked well until their retirement years. -- well into their retirement years. i remember when i was in high school, well past midnight on many nights, i would hear my father's keys jingling at the

door as he came home from another long day of work. when you're young, the meaning of moments like that, they just escape you, but now as i get older and my children get older, i -- i think i understand that moment a little bit better. because like the man who gave me that nametag that night in new york, my -- my father was coming back from more than just another day at work. he was coming back from a day of fighting so that the doors that had closed for him would be open for me. this is still one of the few places on earth where -- where you can do that. that's what makes us special. and now before us is the question of whether this generation of leadership is up to the task of keeping this country that way. i don't personally have any doubt that we are up to the

task. you know, despite our many differences, i don't believe our -- i believe our people are much more united in the policies -- than our politics would lead you to believe. every single one of us, every single american is the descendant of a go-getter, of an immigrant or of a slave, of someone that overcame extraordinary odds to stake their claim in this american dream. every single one of us comes from someone who refused to accept the life they lived and always desired to have something better for themselves and for their families. every single one of us is a descendant of someone who insisted that their future must always be better than their past. this is who we are as a people. this is who we come from. and i believe that's still who we are. all we need now are leaders that reflect that in their policies and in their priorities.

so i still have more faith in this country that perhaps the political coverage might lead you to have because, look, we're free people, and that means we're always going to vigorously debate the best way forward, and sometimes because of the nature of our republic, it takes us a little longer, it takes us a little longer to get it right, but we always have, and i believe we will again, because in the end there is no such thing as the republican dream or the democrat dream. there is only an american dream. and despite all of the challenges this country faces and despite some of the skirmishes on the floor of the senate, unnecessary sometimes like this thing with the judges and the rule change, despite all of that, i know for a fundamental fact that the american people are not willing or prepared to give up on this

american dream. that that requires us to act. that requires us to stop wasting time around here and focus on these things, because we have this golden opportunity to restore this american dream and to bring it to -- within reach of more people than ever before. we have an opportunity before us to claim our heritage as a people who always leave behind a nation better than the one that was left for them. we have a chance to usher in a new american century and to write the latest chapter in the story of the single greatest nation that man has ever known. and so i hope as we conclude these debates on -- on issues such as this, we will somehow find a way to begin to work together on the things that really matter, on the things of importance, on the things that impact americans now and those

yet to come. which leads me to one final point. because i see my colleague is here from wisconsin as well as others who may wish to speak in a moment. i just want to close with one more point, one more issue that i think we're being distracted from because of the silliness of breaking the rules to change the rules. so we can impose on the american people out of the mainstream judges and cabinet appointments that are less than qualified. and that's the issue of american leadership in the world. look around the world today. look at the impact of uncertainty about our foreign policy and what it's having across the planet, and on this front, i'm going to be honest right there, straightforward about this one especially.

this is an issue for both parties to reflect on for a moment. now, we all understand that -- and we should be. we're wary of international engagement. we have gone through a decade of two conflicts in the middle east. you turn on the television and you see people that we have spent money and sacrificed lives on behalf of burning our flag and celebrating our tragedies, and you wonder why are we involved in the world? why are we engaged in these places? but i hope everybody understands that in the absence of american leadership, a vacuum is created, and that vacuum leads to chaos, and chaos ultimately impacts our national security and our economic well-being. take a brief tour around the world with me for a moment and you'll see what i'm talking about. turn on the news and see what's happening in the ukraine, with a country being increasingly intimidated into going back into

basically what looks like an effort to reconstitute the former soviet union, being torn between that and choosing modernization in the west with the european union, people in the streets protesting against that and riot police going in there to force them out. look at the middle east. where eye ran proceeds full speed ahead towards weaponizing, towards creating a nuclear weapon, and the impact that would have, not just on arming the one country in the world that most uses terrorism as a tool of statecraft. we had testimony today from the administration. no country uses terrorism more than iran does, and they're going to get a nuclear weapon? and it won't just be iran getting a nuclear weapon. if iran gets a weapon, so will saudi arabia and potentially turkey. look at what's happening in asia. the chinese have announced that a certain area now belongs to them and their airspace, that you have to get permission from them and notify them before you

fly through there. and our allies in the region, south korea and japan and others, they're starting to wonder whether america will live up to its commitments to provide for their defense and to assist them, or maybe they need to strike out on their own and provide their own defense cape abilities. look at the opportunities in the western hemisphere that we've abandoned because we have taken our focus off of it. i could go on and on. are we a strong enough voice on behalf of religious liberties? meanwhile, religious minorities around the world are being oppressed in unprecedented ways, in particular, christians in the middle east are facing persecution that's reminiscent of the early days of the church. how about human rights? how about human trafficking and modern day slavery? all these things require american leadership. we can't solve every problem.

foreign aid isn't charity. it needs to further our national interest and it needs to be accountably spent. but this is something we should be focused on more, and we're not. why? because we continue to get involved in these sort of skirmishes here and in particular undermining the ability of this body to function by changing the rules by breaking them. and so i hope that this will serve as an opportunity to re-evaluate all of this, because the challenges before our country are real and the consequences of not acting appropriately are dramatic. and i hope that we'll take this seriously, because we still have time to get this right, but we do not have forever. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. may i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for up to 20 minutes? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. this is the 52nd consecutive week we're in session that i have come to the floor to ask us please, for lord's sake, to wake up to the damage carbon pollution is already doing to our atmosphere, oceans and climate, and to look ahead to use our god-given sense, and to plan for what is so obviously coming. in those weeks, i have talked about all different aspects of carbon pollution, its effect on sports and our economy, its effect on oceans and coasts, its

effect on agriculture and wildfires, its effect on storms and insurance costs. i've talked about the measurements, measurements we can already make of the harm already happening, sea level rise which you measure with a yardstick, basically, ocean temperature which you measure with a thermometer and ocean acidification, the fastest in 50 million years, according to research published in "nature geoscience" which you can measure with litmus tests. i have, i hope, to anyone listening with their logic turned on, thoroughly rebutted the deniers' phony arguments against solving carbon pollution, whether those arguments are purported to be based in science or religion or

economics or our competitiveness. i have listed the thoughtful and responsible groups from the joint chiefs of staff to the u.s. conference of catholic bishops, from wal-mart to nasa, from ford and g.m. to coke and pepsi, from america's garden clubs to just last month our major sports leagues who understand the truth about climate change and are saying so. i've done my best to expose the calculated campaign of lies that we're up against and the vast scandalous apparatus of phony organizations and engineered messages that are designed to propagate those lies. i have traced the connections back to, of course, the big carbon polluters and their billionaire owners, and i have been obliged to point out that

the money of those big polluters and billionaires floods this chamber. that their lobbyists prowl the outer halls, and that to a sad and disappointing degree this congress is bought and paid for by that polluter influence. one factor we have yet to consider is whether as an institution congress has just become completely irresponsible. maybe this congress just can't operate as an institution at an intelligent level. some congresses are going to be smarter and more responsible than others. that's just the natural order of variation. some congress is going to be the sorriest congress ever.

maybe we're it. some organizations like nasa, for instance, are very smart. that's why nasa is driving a rover around on the surface of mars right now. that is a seriously smart organization. some organizations take ordinary people and call them to be their very best, to play at a level above their natural talents, to heed a higher calling than their selfish inflynn nations. at -- inclinations. at their best our military and our churches tend to achieve that. some organizations, however, take even the most talented people and drag them down to the lowest common denominator and stifle the best and bring out

the worst in even those very talented people. well, i ask people watching which type of organization do you think congress is right now? which type do you think we are? as an organization, it is hard to say anything kinder of congress than it is now a really irresponsible organization. we couldn't even keep the united states government running. standard & poor's estimated that our tea party shutdown foolishness cost americans tens of billions of dollars for no gain. none. we can't sort out the basics of building and maintaining our own

american infrastructure, our own american society of civil engineers gives our country a d plus for infrastructure. and that's not complicated stuff, yet we flub it like a football team that fumbles the ball at the snap. get a little more complicated, and congress seems to get even worse. let me show you just one health care chart. this chart shows the average life expectancy in years of a country compared to the cost per capita of health care in that country. together they make a pretty good proxy for how a country's health care system is doing. this here represents most of the oecd member and pr-rt countries,

our steulzed international competitors. this is us way out here all alone spending the most by far for results that are mediocre at best. we would save nearly $1 trillion a year if we could just get our per capita cost down to what norway and switzerland spend. they are the next two most sweuf counts on the tphraepbtant we are $1 trillion a year more laid out per capita. think of what we could do as a nation, what we could build and invent with $1 trillion a year if we weren't wasting it on bad health care. and bad it is. we get worse results in longevity than virtually modern economy. look who beats us. japan, great britain,

switzerland, netherlands, norway, germany does. italy does, greece does. luckluxembourg tko*. chile and the czech republic are two countries we beat. lives lost, tr-lgs of -- trillions of dollars wasted and then look at the quality of the health care discussion we are having in congress and tell me that this is not a completely irresponsible organization. and that brings us to climate change. it's complicated when you're trying to predict and model something as complexion as what our climate -- something as complex as what our climate is going to do in the years ahead. but it is also simple.

when you look at the stuff that everyone agrees on, on the st-f that you can measure, the stuff that you'd have to be a nut or a crank or an eccentric. nobody responsible disputes the principle that adding co2 to the atmosphere raises the temperature of the earth and it does so through the so-called greenhouse effect. a scientist named john tindal figured that out at the time of the american civil war. i brought his musty old paper in here several speeches ago. its old leather binding was flaking and peeling. when that report was first published abraham lincoln had just been elected president. in all the years since then this

principle of science has always been confirmed and validated. the greenhouse effect is real. it would not just be wrong. it would be irresponsible to deny that. nobody responsible disputes that for over a century our modern economy has run on fossil fuels and that burning those fossil fuels has released giga tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. the global project estimates mankind has dumped about 2,000 gig tons of co2 into the atmosphere since 1870. that is a pretty solid estimate and i've never even heard anyone dispute it. we know those two things, adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere releases more heat and we have 2,000 billion tons of co2 into

the atmosphere. let's go on from there. it is a known principle of science that a significant portion of that multigiga ton carbon load is absorbed by the oceans. and that the chemical reaction when that absorption happens into the oceans makes the oceans more acidic. no responsible person disputes either proposition. it's not some theory. it's something that you can actually do and measure in a lab. again, it wouldn't just be wrong. it would be really irresponsible to deny that. we also know that the oceans do more than absorb carbon. they absorb heat. indeed they have absorbed most of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases. over 90% of the heat between 1971 and 2010, according to the

recent ipicc report. and what happens when the oceans absorb heat? they expand. thermal ex-suspension is a basic -- expansion is a basic physical property of liquids it can also be shown in a very simple lab. it is not a theory. again, it would be not just wrong, but irresponsible to deny that too. it would not just be wrong, it would be irresponsible to deny what those simple measurements and clear principles tell us. but we do. we do. we deny it. congress won't wake up and address this problem. like those monkeys. see no carbon. hear no carbon. speak no carbon. because we are so irresponsible,

because we deny this reality, we are failing to take precautions. and as a result many people will suffer. for those of us who love this country and are proud of it, and are prout of our government and want this country and its government to be a beacon of hope and promise and rectitude? it hurts a little extra for the united states congress to be such a failure. it hurts a little extra that we in our generation have driven congress, the hub of our noble american experiment in democracy, the beating heart of this great republic, down to that low level. it is a harsh judgment that this body is an irresponsible failure.

but on climate, this congress got it the old-fashioned way. it earned it. i will close with a final observation. compare the irresponsibility of this sao no carbon, see no carbon, hear no carbon process with this quote from pope francis. here is what the pope said. i'll quote him at some length. there are other weak and defenseless beings who are frequently at the mercy of economic interests or indiscriminate exploitation. i am speaking of creation as a whole. we human beings are not only the beneficiaries but also the stewards of other creatures. thanks to our bodies, god has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel

the decertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement. let us not leave in our wake a swath of destruction and death w-l afbgs our own lives -- which will affect our own lives and those of future generations. here i would make my own, the pope continued, the touching and prophetic lament voiced some years ago by the bishops of the philippines. and he quotes them. an insrebl variety of indetectives lived in the forest and were busy with all kinds of tasks. birds flew through the air, their bright plumes and varying calls adding color and song to the green of the forest.

god intended this land for us, peus special creatures but not so that we might destroy it and turn it into a waste land, after a single night's rain, look at the chocolate brown rivers in your locality and remember that they are carrying the lifeblood of the land into the sea. how can fish swim in sewers like the rivers which we have polluted? who has turned the wonder walls of disease into underwater cemeteries, bereft of color and life. small yet strong in the love of god, like st. francis of as issi all of us are called to protect

the fragile world in which we live and all its peoples. end quote. what is our answer to the pope? to this great christian leader. in congress, it's the monkey answer. hear no carbon, see no carbon, speak no carbon. we still have time to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. we can actually do it in painless ways. we can even do it in advantageous ways, in ways that will boost our economy. but we have got to do it. we have got to wake up. we simply have got to wake up. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wisconsin. a senator: i rise to address the nomination of cornelia

pillard from the d.c. circuit. this nomination is a good example of the government overreach that led to the obamacare debacle. the good senator from rhode island was talking about how much we spend on health care in this country. the very unfortunate fact is that patient protection in the affordable care act act did not address that cost. mr. let's face it, the patient protection and affordable care act is about an orwellian a name as you could possibly come up with for a piece of legislation. we are watching millions of americans lose their health care coverage. those patients are not being protected by the patient protection and affordable care act. we certainly are not watching the costs of health care decline. the patient protection and affordable care act did not bend the cost curve down. it has dramatically increased or bent the cost curve up.

and, of course, anybody who even has the slightest knowledge of basic economics would realize that if you mandate expensive coverages on any insurance policy, the price is not going to go down, the price is going to go up. and we are witnessing that. we're certainly witnessing that in my home state of wisconsin, where a young man age 27 on average is seeing his premium increase by 124%, going from a little over $1,100 per year to closer to $2,500 per year. mr. johnson: a young woman of that same age, 27, is seeing her premium increase by 78%, going from about $1,400 per year to about $2,500 per year. that's not bending the cost curve down. and that's not even talking about the added or the increased cost of their deductibles, the

increases in their maximum out-of-pocket amounts they're going to be spending every year. so again, the patient protection and affordable care act does nothing that it promises. it is a disaster for our health care system, it is a disaster for our federal budget, it is a disaster for people and their health and their lives. now, i'm down here on the floor of the senate tonight -- i'm normally not down here at this time. normally i'd be sitting at home and doing a little bit of homework. and so i guess what i'd like to do is spend a few minutes doing what i'd be doing at home, reading letters from constituents from wisconsin. now, when i introduced my piece of legislation trying to protect as many americans as possible from the damage of the health care law, trying to honor the promise that president obama and members of this chambermaid

repeatedly to the american public -- that if you like your health care plan, you can keep it -- i told a story about a couple in wisconsin that had contacted our office. initially this couple wanted to be identified, they wanted their story told. by the time i had gotten ahold of them on the phone to make sure that they were actually trying to -- you know, getting some help in securing some health care, the husband had had second thoughts. he watched his government, he watched the internal revenue service being used as a political weapon. and so he feared for his priva privacy. he feared for his economic security. and so he asked me, please, don't use my name. tell my story but just don't use my name. that's a pretty sad fact. it's something we need to pond ponder. it's something we need to address.

for that couple, their story was pretty simple and pretty sad. his wife was suffering from stage four lung cancer. he was recovering from prostate cancer. they were participating in the high-risk pool in the state of wisconsin, a risk-sharing pool that worked. it was expensive for them but it was something that they could afford. i know it worked because in my 31 years of business, as i provided health care for the people that worked with me, every now and again, unfortunately, one of the people who worked for me would -- would have a serious health condition. when we would go to renew our policy, frequently those individuals, if the condition was bad enough, would be laserred out, they would lose coverage under our plan. but that was okay, because the state of wisconsin very responsibly made a provision for those individuals, the high-risk

sharing pool. and so what would end up happening is because they were denied coverage, they automatically qualified for the high-risk pool. i, of course, would pay for that coverage in the same way that we would pay for coverage through our own health plan. what i found over the years, because this happened a number of times, is the coverage was very comparable. we had a pretty good -- you know, it wasn't a cadillac plan but solid insurance coverage. so it was similar coverage at a very comparable price. it was a plan that worked. it was a plan that covered those individuals with -- with high risks. it was a plan that covered 22,000 wisconsinites until this body, this congress passed the patient protection and affordable care act, which i described earlier, it is neither of those two things. and so as a result of the passage of that bill, those high-risk pools are now obsole

obsolete. and so this couple got the letter saying they would lose coverage as of january 1st. so put yourself in the position of people suffering from cancer or recovering from it. you have a lot of worries in life. you did not need the additional worry of losing your health care plan, but that's what this couple faced. as millions of americans are facing the exact same worry, the exact same harm, the exact same damage. it's unconscionable. they, of course, went on to healthcare.gov almost 40 times when i talked to them. they were never able to successfully log on to it at that point in time. so we helped this couple get in touch with the insurance carriers that would be operating within the exchange and they

started getting quotes. they quickly learned that their premiums were going to double. their out-of-pocket maximums were also going to be close to doubling as well. so the patient protection and affordable care act did not protect these two individuals and it certainly did not offer them affordable care. now, as i went through letters from our constituents, we did make a few phone calls knowing i was going to come down here and just asked if anybody would want to be identified. a few brave souls agreed to be identified. now, i'll read their names as i read their letters. the first wisconsinite, michael wagner, writes, "i'm self-employed and have a family of four. the president said we could keep our plan if we liked it and our

doctors. not true. we are being pushed off our plan for the exchange." he said, "thhe said the averagef four would save an average of $2,500. not true. i think he just makes numbers up. my equivalent policy on the exchange will cost $7,500 more per year. that is almost a 100% increase. he said we could keep our doctors. not true. our current company and p.p.o. network is not offered on the exchange. the list goes on and on. the bottom line is that this needs to be stopped. if it isn't, the american people will stand up and the landscape of senators will be unrecognizable after the next midterm election.

thank you for your time and i hope you have the gall to stand up for your constituents." well, mr. wagner, i definitely have the gall to stand up for my constituents. the reason i ran for the united states senate wasn't because i wanted to be a united states senator. the primary reason i ran for the united states senate was to be the vote to repeal this monstrosity. to be the vote to protect americans from the damage that i full well knew this law would inflict on millions of our fellow citizens. the next stitch twheant wrot --t wrote to me was darren shouff. he wrote, "we are a small manufacturer in sparta,

wisconsin, that has been in operation since the mid-1960's. we currently employ 24 people and are a family-owned business fabricating large fiberglass statues and water slides that are shipped all over the u.s. and canada. we've been providing our employees health insurance for 15 years, paying for 100% of the premium." pretty responsible employer. those are the types of business people i know. those are the types of business people that are very concerned about the people that work with them. those are the type of people, business people this president demonizes in his class warfare. let me go on. "we have experienced the increases in health insurance costs over the years and weathered them fine. i received our renewal this week for next year and because of the

affordable care act our premium went from $3,887.77 per month to $7,103 per month. how does this happen? what definition of "affordable" is being used to describe this effect? we will not be able to pay 100% of our employees' premium at this rate. how can we get a plan that is at least close to the costs that we were paying last year?" well, mr. shouff, i know how you can get a plan close to what you were buying last year. if this body would take up my bill "if you like your health care plan you can keep your plan act," that's a true grandfather clause that actually would honor that promise for millions of

americans. we -- we can't save the policies that have already been lost. we can't repair all the damage already done by this health care law. but we can still help millions of americans if we act, if we are responsible, if we care. the next two constituents to write me are brad and dawn nielson. they write, "my wife and i just received a notice that our monthly health care insurance costs will increase by 184%, increased by $1,330 per month, starting in january 2015. and you need to understand how cheated we feel with this and what you have done." now, i'm assuming he's referring

to president obama and democrat senators and democrat members of the house that voted for this monstrosity. again, i ran to be the vote to repeal this law. "we are both retired and have been paying our health care insurance for the past three years. we have what would be considered a good policy that falls in line with what would be considered a gold package as it relates to the a.c.a. guidelines. we will be able to keep this policy with our insurance carrier through 2014 with a 7.5% increase in the monthly premium that is to cover the new affordable" -- and he puts in quotes -- "the affordable care act costs." although we will not be able to afford the premiums, we are told the premiums will increase to

$2,054.21 per month starting in january 2015. this is not right and you as our representative need to understand what you have allowed to happen to us as well as others." again, mr. and mrs. nielson, i wish, i wish we would have prevented this. i wish the members of this body would hear your plea and do something to protect you as the bill claims to do to repair the damage. we have worked hard, made sacrifices to be able to retire, saved through our company's retirement plan, invested when we could, and even put both of our kids through college. now to be forced, forced to pay

an outrageous amount for something we have had for the last three years isn't right. this increase is a game changer for us and will dramatically affect our standard of living moving forward. it is important that you understand what is happening and the need to change this unfair law i hope the president, i hope members of congress are listening. the next constituent, jeff kubinski, writes "i'm sending you this email about the 2014 affordable care act. i just received my letter from humana stating my insurance is going to increase nearly 300% from $55 peron