brownback: h mr. president, before my colleague from utah leaves the floor, i'd like to ask him a question or two. he's been involved in most of the major health issues that passed this body over the last 15 years. what was the vote margin in the senate on some of those bills, on the hatch-kennedy, hatch-waxman bills? how many votes roughly. i'm asking to you pull that up from memory, and that may not be fair to do. but as i recall, a number of people on both sides of the aisle ended up supporting those bills. mr. hatch: on the chip bill, i can't recall the exact number, it was between 70 and 80 votes. it was a bipartisan vote. in fact, on the finance committee, when i brought it up at the last minute in the back room of the finance committee, before we went out to debate it, only two senators voted against it. it was like 19-2. mr. brownback: in the finance committee? mr. hatch: right. every republican except two and every democrat -- mr. brownback: and hatch-waxman? mr. hatch: hatch-waxman, that was

brownback: i think the -- the catholic bitches put it probably as concisely as anybody. they put it in this term -- they said in every major program where federal funds combine with nonfederal funds to support or purchase health coverage, congress has consistently sought to ensure that the entire package of benefits excludes elective abortions. that's what we've done. that's what we have done for 33 years until this moment. until the caps language that's the base in the reid bill, and now we would flip that on its head and we would say you can combine federal funds with nonfederal funds to pay for elective abortions. that was the policy prior to hyde in 1977. that funded then 300,000 abortions roughly a year at that point in time. there is no way in this country that that's the policy that the american people support. they don't. they would be divided about abortion. they are not divided about federal funding for elective abortions. no division about that at all. very consistent policy until we've seen the reid bill in this particular piece of legislation. and we have be

brownback: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. brownback: mr. president, i ask for five minutes of time off of senator mcconnell's time, the minority leader's time, the republican leader's time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brownback: thank you, very much, mr. president. i thank my colleagues for this opportunity to address the lautenberg amendment, in favor of the lautenberg amendment. i oppose the base bill, i oppose the health care bill overall. i've spoken a number of times on the floor in opposition to the overall bill. it's way too expensive, cuts medicare, raises taxes, inserts the funding of abortion in. it's something we haven't looked at for 30 years because we've had hyde language that they've not funded -- that we've not funded abortion and instead this does and puts it in and it's going to i think result in poorer health care for a number of americans. the issue i rise on today is on the lautenberg amendment and in support of the lautenberg amendment. this is an amendment that we have seen in this body four times pr

brownback: thank you very much. i appreciate the chance to hear my colleague from south dakota speak and talk about the bill. the statements he's made, i am in agreement with. this is a huge bill. the american public doesn't want, the gallop polling find 61% of the american public opposed to the democrat health care bill. i find in my state of kansas, widespread opposition. much higher than that. you look at these numbers and quickly see why. one of the pieces of it, the medicare cuts will hurt kansas, 63 pocket 7 -- 63.7% cut to medicare kansans. 1.5 billion in cuts to kansas hospitals. many of our rural hospitals operating on the margins, on the edge. they get cuts. $239.8 million in cuts to home health agencies. this will put over 60% of them out of business in a ten-year time frame. they don't like th-fplt great christmas -- they don't like this. great christmas payment. 11.8% cut in hospice payments. $124.2 million in cuts to the skilled nursing facilities. all of those things being cut directly to kansas, dire

brownback: thank you very much, mr. president. i appreciate that very much.en a healthy debate. it's been an unusual debate because we haven't debated hyde around here for 20 years, so this is an unusual debate that we're having because we normally debate about abortion, we don't debate about abortion funding because there has been an agreement in this body for 33 years about that, so this is an unusual debate, but i think it's an important one. i think it's extraneous in many respects to the health care bill itself. abortion is not health care. and so why we are debating the funding of abortion in a health care bill seems odd to me, but it's in the base bill and we need to deal with that. there have been a lot of people coming forward and saying well, okay, which way is this? is it in the bill or not on funding for abortion? and i want to go to an independent fact checker and cite this. this is a pulitzer prize-winning fact checker politifact.com, says this -- "this independent research checker said our opponent's characterization of this amendment was -- qu

brownback, know. mr. bombing? mr. burr, no. mr. burris, aye. mr. byrd? mr byrd? aye ms. cantwell, aye. mr. cardin, aye. mr carper, aye ,r casey? mr. cockburn, know. mr. cochran, ms. collins, no. mr. conrad, aye. mr. courter,no. mr. cornyn, no mr. crepo, no. mr dement, no,. \ mr dodd, aye. mr dorgan, aye, mr durbin, aye mr ensign, no mr enzee, no mr feingold, aye, mrs. feinstein, aye. mr franken, aye. mrs,geillearand, aye. mr graahm, no mr grassley, no. mrñgreg, no mrs, hagan, aye. mr harkin, aye. mr hatch, no. mrs. hutchison -- mr.inhosfe, no. mr noway, aye. mr isaacs said, nope. mr.johans, no. mr. johnson,aye. mr. kaufman,aye. mr. careyaye mr. kirk,aye. mr coles, aye mr. pyle,no. ms landreau, aye. mr lautenberg, aye. mr leahy, aye. mr levin ,aye. mr. lieberman,aye. mrs. lincoln,aye. mr. lugar,no. mr. mccabe,no. mrs. castle,aye. mr. mcconnell,no mr. menendez,aye. mr. merkley, aye. ms. mikulskiaye. mr merkowski, no. mrs. mary,aye. mr. nelson of nebraska,aye. mr. nelson of florida,aye. mr. pryor,aye. mr. reed of rhode island,aye. mr. reid of nevada, [laughter] mr. reid of

brownback: thank you very much, madam president. i'm glad to join my colleague from alaska and florida in talking about the health care bill. you can look in "the new york times" today. there was a full-page ad put up describing the bill. i'm putting it up here, the same thing that was in "the new york times" today. and it starts with the basic question, i want to receive care from my doctor. and this on one page puts the 2,600 pages all kind of what you're going to see with it. it's convoluted, it's difficult, it's expensive. and this is what you're going to get. this is in "the new york times" today if you want to take a look at that and try to figure out, okay, this is where i sit or this is what's going to happen to me in this overall system. it's no wonder that the american public doesn't want this. they are not excited about this. they're not excited about what it's going to do to the budget, $2.5 trillion, that's about $700 million a day if you're counting in millions a day, is one way to look at it. there are some interestin

brownback: i ask 10 minutes be allotted to me of the minority time.he presiding officer: without objection. mr. brownback: in the past few months, this body has been forced to stand aside as really senator reid and a few other crafted a 2,000-page bill behind closed doors, going on even right now. unfortunately, the product that was a result of the closed door meetings -- at least the one we have right now. i don't know about the future one -- still raises taxes by half a trillion dollars. probably under any new bill that comes out, you're going to have taxes going up roughly half a trillion dollars, cut medicare by half a trillion dollars, raise premiums on american families, fail to bend the health cost curve down and expands government's encroachment further and further into people's health care decisions. what i want to go through is a series of charts about how inflation is going to end up being the tax collector's best friend in this overall plan and how the tax of inflation is going to be one of the key features of how the overall bill is paid

brownback: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas the. mr. brownback: thank you, mr. president. i'm pleased to follow my colleague from utah. the idea that we could have a constitutional mandate to buy health insurance to me is highly questionable under our rights of the federal government under our constitution. senator hatch has been on the judiciary committee for many years and understands these issues very, very well. mr. president, we're now on our sixth iteration of the health care reform bill. this one's talking about expanding medicare basically as one of the key components of solving the problem. i found very interesting a quote from the mayo clinic. i think some others have cited it too but i found it quite interesting, succinct and accurate. any plan to expand medicare, which is the government's largest public plan, beyond its current scope does not solve the nation's health care crisis but compounds it. it's also clear that an expansion of the price control medicare payment system will not control overall medicare spending or curb

brownback: mr. president, how much time do i have allotted? i thought there was an agreement that i had a certain amount of time allotted. the presiding officer: the minority side has 36 minutes and 59 seconds, with a 10-minute time limit in that. mr. brownback: could i -- i would yield myself ten minutes to speak on the dorgan amendment. provides without objection. mr. brownback: thank you very much. mr. president, i want to speak on the dorgan amendment. the senator from north dakota has a good amendment up. it's been around this body for a long period of time. but i have to rise in opposition to this. i'm the ranking member on the senate appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, rural development and food and drug administration. the f.d.a. is in the purview of our subcommittee, so i work on the issues of the f.d.a. also, if i might brag for a second, the university of kansas boasts one of the best pharmaceutical schools in the world, often rated number one as a pharmacy school. anybody interes

the chair recognizes senator brownback. >> thank you very much, chairman. commissioner hall, who hired temporary people? you noted that temporary numbers went up. who hired the temporary people? do we have those by category, in any major categories? >> we actually don't. and that's in large part because a lot of the temporary help companies that specialize in this, they actually can't tell us what industries the job growth occurred. so we don't know that information. we know a bit about occupations but not much about what industries they are being hired in. >> that would seem to be an indicator of where likely hiring would take place after they fill the temporary job that they would more likely step up with a full-time job, is that correct? >> yes. >> i agree with senator klobuchar that i think in the future we've got to make more things here and rely less on our consumer to spend our way into prosperity in this economy. do you see any trends or signs of that in these numbers, in either what's falling or what is starting to create some jobs? >> yeah, it's h

as senator brownback mentioned, representative stupak wants to support the underlying bill, supported it in the house, but he was very clear in his efforts on the house floor that that underlanguage, which is now in the reid bill, had huge loopholes, wasn't good enough. needed to be fixed. that's why he came up with the stupak language, and that's essentially exactly what we have in this amendment. in this amendment. and that's essentially exactly put we have in this amendment. similarly the u.s. conference of bishops, they are very supportive of the concept of the underlying bill but have said clearly that the rebuilding is completely unacceptable, quote, completely on acceptable, end of quote on this abortion issue. and, quote, is actually the worst bill we have seen so far on the life issues, end of quote. so this colloquy involving the distinguished senator from pennsylvania, the debate i think proves the point clearly, and again i compliment the senator from utah along with senator nelson, senator casey, others on the co-sponsor of the amendment on this effort we need to pass thi

brownback: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas is recognized. mr. brownback: mr. president, i rise to speak in favor of the mccain amendment and just do it from a perspective of a representative of the state of kansas. we have a number of senior citizens and hospitals that are medicare-dependent hospitals. we have a number of providers that a majority of their practice is medicare reimbursement. and they're scared to death of these cuts, and the cuts are well-documented and known. $500 billion in medicare cuts towards -- and for the 43 million senior citizens on a program that's already projected to go insolvent by 2017. specific cuts of $135 billion from hospitals, $120 billion from 11 million seniors? medicare advantage, nearly $15 billion from nursing homes, nearly $40 billion from home health agencies, and then a cruel gesture, it seems to me, nearly $8 billion from hospices, where people are getting their final care from cancer and diseases that are killing them. $8 bi

that's what senator coburn and senator brownback just alluded to. this is federal money.al security money going in the general fund. the money is going to be mixed with federal money. it's not segregated. i don't care whether there's additional separate premium for it or not, it's still mixed with federal money and that's what pays for the abortion. so they're disingenuous when they say that there's going to be segregation among the funding for abortions versus nonabortion policies. >> in your statement, at least what i grabbed from it, you seemed to imply that senator nelson used the abortion issue as a bargaining chip, wound up with worse language than reed had in the first place but used abortion to get a better deal for nebraska. did i perceive that correct? >> you received it correctly. and i think that it shows a tremendous willingness to allow some in this country to win and many to lose. by one member of the united states senate. and i think that's wrong. >> if i could just add, i think we're changing one-sixth of the economy and you can't get one republican vote.

this commands the work of kerry and others and senator brownback and others.roadcaster have heard that message and we have adopted these guidelines. if i may, mr. chairman, all on senator -- follow up on senator begich's question. we are trying to fill that gap with quality and educational/informational programming 3 is available 24/7. >> i would also point out when you look at the united kingdom that has faced this issue to their regulatory framework, the address the same thing. you have the bbc over there, and non-commercial service, that has multiple more funding than pbs does. that makes a big difference. but they did put florida said of nutritional guidelines for the food marketing, which is not the cause of of this city but it is a contributing factor -- of obesity, but it is a contributing factor. they did come up with the set up uniform nutrition standards. there are a lot of kids over there engaged in a children's television every day. it is worth looking at. >> in your answer to this, looking not only at the content but the content of the movies or t

the takeover and they do things and they brownback over therrun. the president is right. he listened to his advisers. he took his time, and now he is doing something. people over there blockbustwants there. when we leave, they come back and threatened to kill. the same thing happened in vietnam. the public was not behind the soldiers. obama is letting the soldiers do their job and he is listening to his visors. i appreciate you listening to me. thank you. host: table looked at another part of the -- take a look at another part of the speech. >> we will not always agree on every issue. i also know that we as a country cannot sustain our leadership, nor navigates the momentous challenges of our time if we allow ourselves to be split asunder by the same rank and cynicism and partisanship that has poisoned our national discourse at times. it's easy to forget that when this war began, we were united, down together by the fresh memory of a terrifhorrific atta. i refuse to accept the notion that we cannot have that unity again. host: some of the split the that the president was

my time is expired and i recognize senator brownback. >> i am sorry that i am late.r failure, and how to handle that as an overall -- as a government. that is one of the key things that has come out of this crisis, and our inability to handle something too big to fail. and then we have the taxpayer take the risk on it. and that adds a lot of moral hazard into the marketplace. if we do not fix it, it seems to me it makes that moral hazard bigger in the next round that takes place. so that people will say, last time they did not fix it. and it strikes me that these bubbles build faster quicker. it is almost like financial storms bill quicker, faster, bigger now than they used to. whether it is the dotcom bubble and housing bubble and birds, and i think we have a government bubble and burst. if we do not get in a position now to be a good deal with these large institutions and tell them -- the marketplace will send that we're going to protect them, and then there will be more money going to place it really should not. i like to know, dr. litan and mr. steel, and mr. tes

in kansas, sam brownback and pat roberts. in kentucky, jim bunning and mitch mcconnell. in louisiana, david visiter. in maine, susan collins and olympia snowe. in mississippi,ed that cochran and roger wicker. in missouri, christopher bonn. in nebraska, mike johanns, in nevada john enson. in new hampshire, judd gregg. in north carolina, richard burke. in ohio, george voinovich. in oklahoma, tom coburn and james inhofe. in south carolina, jim dementhe and lindsey graham. in tennessee, alexander and bob corker. in texas, john cornyn and kay bailey hutchinson. in utah, robert bennett and orrin hatch. in wyoming, john bo rah sew and michael enby. please remember these names. these are people who have stole health care for this country -- who have staaled health care in this country. they watched as day after day, month after month, people get sick and even die because they have no health coverage. i assure each and every one of you that have done anything to obstruct health care, people will remember. maybe not the people who die, but the people who loved them. the people who

brownback: thank you very much, madam president. i rise in support of the senator prosecute alaska's amendment, and i have talked with my good friend, the senator from maryland, senator mikulski, about the issue -- a side issue in this overall debate but what is included in the definition of "preventive care." and the senator from maryland has stated in a colloquy that there are no abortion services included in the mikulski amendment. she has stated that in a colloquy. i have trouble that a future bureaucracy could interpret it differently. i have asked my friend from maryland if she would include clear legislative language in this saying simply that nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize the secretary or any other government or quasi-governmental entity to define or classify abortion or abortion services as preventive care or as a preventive service. i think that clarifies the issue. it would be my hope that my colleague from maryland would include that in her language. it is not in there, even though there have been s

amendment that i propose along with a bipartisan group of colleagues who include senators hatch, casey, brownbackune, coburn, johanns, visitor and barrasso. the amendment that we offer today mirrors the stupak language added to the house health care bill. madam president, for more than three decades taxpayers' money has not been used for elective abortions, and it shouldn't under any new health reform legislation either. some suggest that the stupak language imposes new restrictions on abortion. i disagree. we're seeking to just apply the same standards on abortion to the senate health care bill that already exist for many federal health programs. they include those covering veterans, all federal employees, native americans and active-duty service members and others. madam president, i note that the senate health care bill, if enacted, would, indeed, chart new ground. it covers abortions. the language in the bill goes around the federal standard disallowing public funding of abortion. a clear majority of americans including my constituents in nebraska support this prohibition against using public

brownback: thank you very much, madam president. i rise in support of the senator prosecute alaska's amendment, and i have talked with my good friend, the senator from maryland, senator mikulski, about the issue -- a side issue in this overall debate but what is included in the definition of "preventive care." and the senator from maryland has stated in a colloquy that there are no abortion services included in the mikulski amendment. she has stated that in a colloquy. i have trouble that a future bureaucracy could interpret it differently. i have asked my friend from maryland if she would include clear legislative language in this saying simply that nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize the secretary or any other government or quasi-governmental entity to define or classify abortion or abortion services as preventive care or as a preventive service. i think that clarifies the issue. it would be my hope that my colleague from maryland would include that in her language. it is not in there, even though there have been s