ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the vote order with respect to the lautenberg and dorgan amendments to h.r. 3590 be reversed to dorgan and then lautenberg. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. klobuchar: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 224 s. 1755. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 224, s. 1755, a bill to direct the department of homeland security to undertake a study on emergency communications. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: withou

ms. klobuchar: thank you very much, senator kaufman. i'd like to acknowledge the amendment by senato senator dorn drug importation, something that i support, and i know that senator kaufman supports as well and we look forward to talking about that as well. the bill that senator kaufman referred to, the fraud enforcement act, was passed in part to an unprecedented financial crisis. i was proud to work on that bill in the senate judiciary committee, along with senator kaufman. americans should expect congress to do more than simply react to crises after the most destructive impacts are felt. we're always coming in after the fact, putting out the fire. that's not what we want to do. we want our constituents to be proactive and seek out and solve problems on the horizon so that financial disasters can be averted. in the midst of a deconcerning comprehensive health care reform, we must be proactive in combating health care fraud and abuse. each year individuals drain $72 -- $72 billion and $220 billion from private and public health care pl

ms. klobuchar: thank you very much. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: i ask unanimous consent to peek for up to 12 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. klobuchar: i rise today to speak about true health care reform. the way i look at this in my state is it's a matter of affordability and cost. we have one of the highest percentage of people covered in the country, mr. president, in minnesota. but the issue is it's becoming more and more expensive for the people of our state to afford health care. i try to remember three simple numbers of all the numbers we're going to hear in the next few weeks. those are the numbers 6, 12 and 24. ten years of cola costs $6,000 for an average family to pay for their health care a family. now it's $12,000 with a lot of people paying a lot more. ten years from now if we don't do anything, it's going to be somewhere between $24,000 and $36,000 a year, something regular people just can't afford. 6, 12 and 24. it's not going in the right direction, mr. president. if we don't act, costs will contin

ms. klobuchar: thank you very much, mr. president. mr. president, i come to the floor today to voice my support for the department of defense appropriations bill that we are currently considering, and my disappointment that some of my colleagues have chosen to hold up this important legislation for reasons completely unrelated to anything to do with this bill. mr. president, we have been debating health care in the senate for months, and in the coming days, we will continue to debate health care. there are many honest disagreements about the best ways to reform our nation's health care system. they deserve discussions. i will say hearing from my colleague from maine, i'm concerned about medicare as well. i'm concerned because medicare is going to go in the red by 2017 if we don't do anything about it. i look at my mom who is 82 years old and wants to make sure that she keeps on medicare. i look at the friends that are in their 50's and want to make sure they get medicare when they are 65. and we need to make sure that we put in place thos

ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. obuchar: thank you very much, mr. president. and thank you to the senator from new hampshire for mentioning the mayo clinic along with several other great facilities across this country that have done things a little differently, mr. president. they've done things by focusing on the patient, by saying what's best for the patient is best for all of us. and when you do what's best for the patient, you get higher-quality care. and when you get higher-quality care, you actually get lower cost. i think when people think of, say, going to buy a hotel room or pay for a hotel room, they always think, well, if i pay more, i'll get of get a better room, a better view. that's actually true. but not true in health care. the states and the metropolitan areas have that have the least efficient health care, least efficient, toned cost the most. and that's what we need to change if we want true cost reform. it's good for states like minnesota and new hampshire and wisconsin. why? because we tend to ha

ms. klobuchar: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for up to seven minutes.e presiding officer: is there objection? no objection is heard. the senator can smeek for up to seven minutes. ms. klobuchar: i rise today in support of the amendment offered by senator pry that calls for an enrollee satisfaction survey for health care plans offered through the exchange. as you know, mr. president, the exchange will be a series of different policies that people can choose from. what i love about this side for my small businesses and self-employed that are paying 20% more than people that work for big businesses right now because they simply can't leverage their numbers. it is hard for hem to get good rates because they're out there on their own. this exchange where they can choose a lot of the different kinds of policies like members of congress can choose from, whether it's blue cross or whether it's a number of other choices, they can pick a policy on the exchange. i serve with senator pryor on the consumer public protection subcommittee. this improves resources for

ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i ask to yield myself 10 minutes. the presiding officer: the senator's recognized. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, late last night, as you're aware, the senate took the important step to move forward on health care reform. after all of the work, the debate that's gone on for this entire year, we owe the american people a vote on this issue. we can't afford to ignore this situation any more. and i know some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been talking about a lack of debate. i think anyone that's turned on c-span for the last few months will tell you there has been a lot of debate. and not only that, a number of the republican amendments were actually included in the original bill, the "help" committee bill that came out. i believe it was something like 130 amendments that were included that came off of their side. the finance committee as well. i remember the first bipartisan meeting we had on health care reform was something called ready to launch, that

ms. klobuchar: thank you, mr. president. i would like to speak in support of the amendment which would provide some much-needed relief to americans who are being brushed by ever higher prescription drug costs. i would first like to note i am eagerly awaiting the details of some of the proposals that were cut out there last night. i appreciate the work of my colleagues, but i do want to hear the response from the congressional budget office, and as i have said on this floor many times, i am concerned about expanding medicare unless we do something about the geographic disparities that are already present in our system. you look at some of the numbers. the average patient got $6,600 in minnesota in 2006, and you look at the numbers in texas which is something like $9 300. what we want to try to do here with this bill and what i like about this bill is all of the cost reform measures that are going to push us toward rewarding states that are participating in systems that provide more efficient care, and if we don't do something

ms. wells, thank you very much. i will turn over the questioning to senator sessions and the gavel over to senator klobuchar. >> ms.described individuals, murderers, who had previous records that she readily believed should have been in jail and not able to commit these kind of crimes again. you are a professional and have been at this along time. i have come to believe that mathematics is a factor in all of desperate. there is not just that many people who sexually assault women. there are a certain number of those repeat offenders who are exceedingly dangerous. from a purely public safety point of view, is important we identify those persons early and that they be incarcerated in order to protect the people of this country from this kind of violence? >> senator, you said it as well as i could say it, yes, that is critical. there are many studies already battered helping us to identify those persons. as soon as we can identify them, our goal should be to incarcerate them for as long as possible >> you represent a very sophisticated department. you have been at this a long time. you have personally tried these kind

i think senator klobuchar and i, we get it, and we're going to try to do something about this as quickly as we can. i didn't mention this before, msut i had a circumstance in my house a few years ago that didn't end in tragedy like yours did, but it could have. because i was just out of law school, and i had two roommates, and we live in an older house, as mr. korn said could be a problem. and one of my roommates, his bedroom was right just a few feet down the hall from a bathroom, and it had a hot water heater in the bathroom. and the carbon monoxide was just leaking out of that hot water heater. we had no idea, you know. it had come with a house and we didn't think to check it or anything. but sure enough he is getting these flulike symptoms, headaches, the whole thing. he figured it out. i'm not quite sure how he figured it out, but he knew something was wrong and he figured it out. you know, we replace the water heater and installed it properly with the right venting and everything. so this can sneak up on you without anybody knowing. and it was a near miss in our case. we need to do more in terms of law, but also to bring awa

klobuchar, the next witness is someone you know well. could i ask you to, please, introduce him. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman, and thank you, ms. smith, for that moving story and your courage not only for telling your own story, but also for being the voice for so many victims out there. and on behalf of senator franken and myself, we welcome steve the redding who is our next witness and a minnesotan the. when i became henny pin county attorney, i came in there from the outside without a lot of criminal experience, and i wanted to put someone in charge of the violent crimes division that had the trust of the people in the office, and that was steve redding. he's served well in that role, but most importantly for our hearing today, he is one of the national experts on dna. and this means not only being a tough, smart trial lawyer and being able to convince a jury like so many good prosecutors do, it also means having the willingness and the determination and the intellect to learn the science of dna which is not that easy for so many lawyers to dig in and read all those scientific articles because we have to be as sophisticated

klobuchar and i get it. we're going to try to do something about this as quickly as we can. i didn't mention this before, msool and i had two roommates and we lived in an older house, as mr. korn said can be a problem. one of my roommates, his bedroom was just a few feet down the hall from a bathroom and it had a hot water heater in the bathroom and the carbon monoxide was just leaking out of that hot water heater. we had no idea. you know, it had come with the house. we didn't think to check it, but sure enough he's getting flu-like symptoms, headaches and the whole thing. he figured it out. i'm not sure how, but he knew something was wrong. he figured it out and we replaced the water heater and installed it properly with the right venting and everything. this can sneak up on you without anybody knowing. it was a near miss in our case. we need to do more in terms of law, but also to bring awareness to this. i really thank you all for being here. we're working with all of you trying to get something passed next year. we're out of time this year, as amy knows, to get anything -- >> oh, there's still another

klobuchar and i get it. we're going to try to do something about this as quickly as we can. i didn't mention this before, ms. burt, but i had a circumstance in my house a few years ago. it didn't end in tragedy like yours did, but it could have. i was just out of law school and i had two roommates and we lived in an older house, as mr. korn said can be a problem. one of my roommates, his bedroom was just a few feet down the hall from a bathroom and it had a hot water heater in the bathroom and the carbon monoxide was just leaking out of that hot water heater. we had no idea. you know, it had come with the house. we didn't think to check it, but sure enough he's getting flu-like symptoms, headaches and the whole thing. he figured it out. i'm not sure how, but he knew something was wrong. he figured it out and we replaced the water heater and installed it properly with the right venting and everything. this can sneak up on you without anybody knowing. it was a near miss in our case. we need to do more in terms of law, but also to bring awareness to this. i really thank you all for being here. we're working wi