wyden: thank you. many senators on both sides of the aisle are working constructively to fix american health care and for several years i have spent time listening to colleagues going to the offices of about 85 snorks at least that -- of about 85 senators, at least that many in the house, and also listening to thousands in the public and private sector about their ideas for fixing american health care. my aim has been to try to help find common ground and to chart a path so that this congress and this president can go somewhere that the country has never gone before, and that is to real health care reform. today i come to the floor to lay out the specifics of what real health care reform is all about. the president said yesterday there has never been a better opportunity to get the job done. specifically, to exriewf the lives of all americans -- to improve the lives of all americans, and to guarantee affordable, quality coverage to all people. the question now is will democrats and republicans here in

wyden: mr. president, as a young man, i got involved working with senior citizens as co-director of the oregon gray panthers. every day i got up back then and we said: we're going to make a difference. we're going to help people and particularly for senior citizens we're going to make it possible for them to have a better quality of life. mr. president, the distinguished president of the senate is, i think, close to my age, and i think we can recall back then that if a town had a lunch program for senior citizens, i was considered a really big deal there weren't a whole lot of discount programs, people didn't know, for example, about home and community-based health care services. and most of this country back then if a town had a lunch program for senior citizens, that was considered a full-fledged program for older people. and what struck me from those early days with the oregon gray panthers was the importance of good-quality, affordable health care. and i spent hours and hours back then watch

there's a bipartisan proposal that senator wyden and senator bennett have offered, and senator hatch, a former chairman of the committee, is working with a number of senators on a proposal that seems to me to be a much better base for beginning. as we go to work on health care reform, these are the things that we should keep in mind. we would want to be able to say to the american people that we're interested in all 300 million of you, not just the 47 million uninsured. that our goal is to provide for each one of you a health care plan that you can afford, a plan in which you and your doctor, not washington, d.c., makes the decisions. a plan that emphasizes prevention and wellness. we want to give low-income americans the same cientd kind f health plan that most americans already have. we don't want -- we do not want to make it harder for american businesses to compete in the world marketplace by adding to their costs. and we do want a plan that your children and your grandchildren can afford so that they're not saddled with a massive debt that devalues the dollars they earn and the q

it's been offered in a bipartisan way by senator wyden and senator bennett, who have offered a proposal that would basically give these dollars to the people who need help, let them buy their insurance, and according to the same congressional budget office that said the kennedy proposal cost at least $1 trillion more, they said wyden would cost zero more. i'd like to be informed when i have a minute left. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator has five minutes remaining. mr. alexander: during the last six months the four words we've heard most in washington is more debt and washington takeover. we've seen a washington takeover of banks, insurance companies, student loans, car companies and now perhaps of health care. the president insists on a government-run insurance option as part of a health care reform plan which would inevitably lead to a washington-run health plan. why would it do that? putting a government-run and subsidized plan in competition with your private health insurance plans would be like putting an elephant in the room with some mice and saying okay, guy

the democrat is ron wyden of oregon. and they crafted language that would put strings on. that would have said, maybe if things aren't going so good and we are giving billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to wall street firms maybe we should have a limit on what they can get, but then a funny thing happened. the house passed its version, the senate passed its version. madam speaker, you know when we have bills that pass each chamber and there's some differences in them we have to appoint a conference committee and they meet and work out the differences and then send back to us a conference report. . somehow, somewhere in that conference committee the language that was put in by senator snowe and senator wyden was taken out of the bill and the words about 40 words that are located on the easel to my left were inserted into the bill and, madam speaker, as you read that language, not only were there no longer any strings on those bonuses, but this paragraph specifically protected any bonus that was given to any official, including the ones that became controversial a little

they're in the wyden-bennett bill which is bipartisan. they're in the burr-coburn bill. they're in the legislation introduced by senator gregg of tphafplt they're in the legislation that senators hatch and cornyn are working on. we would like to give dollars to low-income americans so they can choose to buy an insurance policy and have the same kind of coverage that most of the rest of us can buy. we would rather give them choices in the private market which by far is what most americans have and choose today. we can do that at -- without adding debt to the -- to the national debt, the wyden-bennett bill is scored at no extra debt. and we can do that in a way that reduces the uninsured more than the kennedy bill does. so, madam president, with respect, i suggest we start over. we do it in a bipartisan way. that we take some suggestions, actually from the republican side, which hasn't been done at all. that's another thing the president said, he said he wanted a bipartisan bill, we've had a completely partisan bill. we don't like that. we came here to be a part of solving

governor -- senator wyden and i have a proposal called build america bonds which i think is sort of geared at what you're talking about. it's a way of bonding for capital improvements. i agree entirely that the way that we budget around here defies any sort of common sense or, you know, rational basis for making these types of decisions. it's clearly not the way that these decisions will be made in the private sector if we ran a private business. i appreciate your observations about that. and i would say to mr. skancke that if brett favre is playing for the vikings next year there are going to be a lot more people that will want to get from sioux falls to minneapolis and prmblely quickly and without having to drive through a blizzard. if i might direct a question to, this will be to mr. szabo and ms. fleming. what i take from the g.a.o.'s testimony is ridership and cost. the concern is that overly optimistic project proponents is going to overstatement ridership and understatement cost. if the federal government makes investment decisions based upon faulty forecasts we're going to fund the

and senator coburn and senator hatch is coming with one as senator wyden and senator bennett which has republican as well as democratic support which would be a better place from which to begin this discussion. as we have been sitting today what we hope our goals and i think the chairman is right, our goal sometimes sound pretty similar. if i ever listing them i would say as we go to work on health care these were the things i like to be able to say to the american people, we're interested in all 300 million of new, not just the 47 million who don't have health insurance. we want to make sure each has a health-care plan you can afford. we want to make sure is a plan in which you and your doctor made the decisions, not washington d.c.. we want to make sure is a plan that emphasizes prevention and wellness. we hear a lot of that here. we want to make sure it's a plan that gives low-income americans the same kind of health plan that most americans already have usually to their employer. we would like to make sure that it doesn't make it harder for american businesses to compete in the wor