Sen. Merkley Speaks About Legislation on Medicare Part E Public Health Plans

WASHINGTON, April 20 -- Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, issued the following statement, which was published in the Congressional Record on April 18, on legislation (S. 2708) to provide for the establishment of Medicare part E public health plans:

Mr. President, the most important words of our Constitution are the first three words: "We the people." That is the mission statement of our Constitution.

Our Founders did not seek to design a government that would enable the powerful and the privileged to make rules to benefit themselves. They didn't say: We want to have a Constitution that enables the wealthy and the well-connected to take away the riches of this country at the expense of the people. No, they laid out the vision "We the people." They put that mission statement in supersized font, so even if you were reading the Constitution from across the room, you would understand its core mission--a core mission that unfortunately has been sabotaged in the Citizens United decision, which, instead of pursuing government of, by, and for the people, instead of providing what Jefferson called the equal voice, mother principle of America--that each citizen should have an equal voice--proceeds to give the powerful the reins of power through unlimited third-party campaign spending.

The corruption of our democracy is in full gear, and we see it through the bills that are coming to this floor--bills to wipe out healthcare for 22 to 30 million Americans, a bill that passed that borrows $1.5 trillion from our children and proceeds to give that money virtually entirely--more than 80 percent--to the very richest Americans. I encourage my colleagues to think about how we have a responsibility under our oath of office to fight for this vision of America, not a corrupted "we the powerful" vision of America.

As we address the issues that people care about at the kitchen table, it comes down to four basic things. It comes down to education, housing, living-wage jobs, and healthcare. Eisenhower said: "Because the strength of our nation is in its people, their good health is a proper national concern."

We have worked to design improved healthcare systems, lower costs, higher quality, and improved accessibility. We have come a long way through the ACA, the expansion of Medicaid, and the establishment of competitive marketplaces for insurance. Indeed, in Oregon, we reduced the uninsured rate from 15 percent to 5 percent. That is a huge stride forward. We increased our resources in our rural healthcare clinics, our rural hospitals, and our urban healthcare clinics and our urban hospitals. We strengthened the healthcare system, but it is not enough. We still have 41 million adults in this country who are underinsured. We have 30 million who remain completely uninsured.

That is why, today, I am delighted to join with my colleague Senator Chris Murphy to introduce the Choose Medicare Act. Every American deserves the promise of access to a popular, affordable, high-quality healthcare option. Fortunately, we have such an option. It is called Medicare. It is time-tested. It is well-vetted. It is admired and desired by our seniors.

Today, Chris Murphy and I are introducing the Choose Medicare Act, which creates a Medicare option for all, putting consumers and businesses in the driver's seat on the pathway to universal healthcare. With the Choose Medicare Act, we affirm that here in America, healthcare is not a privilege for the wealthy and well-connected. It is a right and a fundamental value to have healthcare for all.

I am pleased that we have been joined in introducing this today with nine of our colleagues as original cosponsors: Senator Baldwin, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Booker, Senator Harris, Senator Heinrich, Senator Shaheen, Senator Schatz, Senator Gillibrand, and Senator Udall. Thank you to each and every one of these original cosponsors, who believe in the vision of improving our healthcare system.

We appreciate the groups that worked to help forge this vision to put meat on the bones of this idea: PCCC, which was involved from the very beginning with insights, CREDO, Daily Kos, Democracy for America, MoveOn, and Families USA. We appreciate their endorsement of this plan.

When we were talking about Medicare for All, many folks said: How do you create the transition? And back during the ACA discussions, we did debate reducing the age of Medicare to 55. We had 60 votes for it in a week but lost our 60th vote.

We wrestled with this vision. How do you create the transition? Well, folks come to my townhalls--and I hold a lot of them. I have held well over 300 during the 10 years I have been serving in the Senate. They come and say: We have this great healthcare plan, Medicare. Why can't we buy into it? Why not give us the advantage of its efficiency and cost control, its low-administrative costs and high-quality healthcare?

That is exactly what Chris Murphy and I are putting forward along with our cosponsors--that vision of a Medicare option for all. That is a "we the people" bill. That is not a bill for the powerful and privileged. That is not government by the wealthy and well-connected. This is about the fundamental issue people wrestle with around the kitchen table--the complexity and the cost of our healthcare system. I am on Medicaid today, but I have earned a little too much, so am I off? How do I get on the exchange in the middle of the year? How do I sign up for those tax credits? What if I don't get that right? What if the correspondence gets lost in the mail or misfiled, which seems to happen? Why can't we have a simple, seamless system?

Well, we have one--Medicare. Folks say: Why can't we participate? You can, if we pass this bill. It makes sense to create this public option competitor. What we have seen for States that have a public option in their provision for workplace insurance is that the costs come down dramatically. That certainly happened in my home State of Oregon. It happened on the other coast in Rhode Island. It has happened around this country.

Lyndon Johnson, when he signed the bill for Medicare, said:

It calls upon us never to be indifferent toward despair. It commands us never to turn away from helplessness. It directs us never to ignore or to spurn those who suffer untended in a land that is bursting with abundance.

Medicare is high-quality coverage for 58 million Americans. It has bargaining power, low administrative costs, and high respect by participants.

What does the Choose Medicare Act do? Well, it covers all that Medicare covers today, and then, because it would be open to people of all ages, it throws in pediatric and reproductive healthcare and builds those networks. It strengthens the exchanges by strengthening the tax credits so that the middle class is not stranded when it comes to the affordability of healthcare. It extends those tax credits from 400 percent of poverty to 600 percent of poverty, reaching further into the middle class to make that transition--to make healthcare affordable on the exchange. It strengthens, certainly, Medicare itself, by putting a cap on the out-of-pocket costs.

For all those who are in traditional Medicare, their Medicare improves as well. It provides the ability to drive down the cost of drugs by giving Medicare the ability to negotiate those prices. That is certainly a very important feature.

Here we have something that is very popular with the public. When the public is asked "Would you like to see the opportunity for every single American to be able to buy into Medicare, have that as an option; it is a voluntary option, but an option," overwhelmingly, they say yes. Democrats say yes. Republicans say yes. Independents say yes. They would like to have that option. The more they learn about how a public option has driven down costs, the more they say that this is needed.

We not only make it possible to buy it on the exchange, we make it possible for self-insured companies to take advantage of Medicare. We make it possible for employers in regular companies, who are buying other healthcare plans for their employees, to consider buying a Medicare plan. So this reach is broad and deep.

That is the type of "we the people" legislation we should be considering on the floor of this Senate--not a healthcare bill designed to destroy healthcare for 22 to 30 million people, as we saw last year courtesy of our majority, not a plan to borrow $1.5 trillion from our children and to give it away to the very richest Americans, the biggest, boldest bank heist seen in American history--perhaps in world history. That is the type of bank heist you would expect out of corrupt, Third World governments, not here in the United States of America, which tells you just how corrupt our election process has become, with Citizens United allowing unlimited billionaire dollars into our campaign system.

We have to fight to take back the vision of our Nation, the "we the people" vision of our Nation. It has been stolen. It has been corrupted, and we have to take it back. When we take it back, we are going to put bills on the floor of this Senate that are about the fundamentals for families, living-wage jobs, public education and public college education, affordable quality classrooms, and the cost of housing, which is completely out of reach, and, certainly, profound substantial improvements to our healthcare system.

Again, I thank Chris Murphy for partnering in this project. I supported Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All, and I love that vision. Chris Murphy supported Brian Schatz's bill to be able to buy into Medicaid. We don't have an identical healthcare profile, but what we sought together is the option of buying into Medicare, which is a complete win for the American people and a complete win for our healthcare system.