Barbara A. Mikulski
U.S. Senator for Maryland
Mikulski Applauds Senate Passage of Health Care Reform Bill
Senator says bill saves lives and saves money; more work to be done
December 24, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) made the following statement on this morning’s Senate passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:
“Today is a historic day. After decades of discussions and promises, we have taken a giant step forward in providing universal access to health care. I was proud to vote for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It extends coverage to 31 million Americans who don’t have health insurance now.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a step forward in achieving my four principles of health care reform:
• saving and strengthening Medicare,
• ending punitive insurance company practices that deny coverage based on pre-existing health conditions, age and gender,
• providing universal access, and
• emphasizing quality, prevention and integrative health to save lives and save money.
“I like the Senate bill because it saves and strengthens Medicare. The bill:
• extends Medicare solvency,
• promotes care based on value not volume,
• closes the prescription drug coverage gap with a 50 percent discount on brand name medications for seniors who fall into the gap,
• stops insurance companies from charging seniors four or five times more for insurance than young people, and
• removes the cost barrier to preventive care by eliminating deductibles, copayments and other cost sharing for seniors.
“This bill helps the good guy businesses that want to provide insurance, but can’t because it costs too much. I come from a small business family. My father was a grocer and my grandmother ran a small bakery. So I grew up in a family that knew what it was to face a weekly payroll.
“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act protects small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. It gives them tax credits to be able to afford insurance for their employees. The Senate bill creates new insurance exchanges for small businesses and individuals who don’t get insurance through work. It’s like an online shopping mall for insurance. It provides individuals and businesses the same bargaining power as if they were a large group. It gives them the choice and the opportunity to select the best plan they can afford with the care that best meets their needs.
“The Senate bill promotes cost savings and greater doctor-patient satisfaction through administrative simplification. The bill creates single standards for electronic transactions that will mean less paperwork and more doctor-patient time.
“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will control costs through a new emphasis on integrative health, prevention, and quality. New funding for wellness and prevention programs will support innovative approaches. That includes local initiatives using grassroots strategies to create healthier communities.
“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also improves the quality of care. As a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I was charged with establishing our bill’s section on improving quality and delivery systems in health care. This section creates a national strategy to improve lives, save lives and reduce costs. This is achieved by promoting best practices like simplifying drug labels, and promoting discharge planning and medication management. These practices save money and improve patient outcomes through reduced hospital readmissions, improved patient safety, and better care coordination.
“For example, the Senate bill creates grants to identify, disseminate, and implement innovative best practices to local providers and patients. One such practice is the Pronovost Checklist from Dr. Peter Pronovost at Johns Hopkins University. He developed simple steps to properly insert a catheter and eliminate line infections. When used in Michigan for one year, it saved 2,000 lives and $200 million. We make his checklist – and others like it – available to hospitals across the country.
“The Senate bill also expands the use of medical homes by establishing community health teams. These teams include providers from the primary care physician to specialists and nutritionists. In North Carolina, medical homes save $175 million each year. Our bill makes medical homes available across the country. These provisions – and more like them - not only save lives, they save money.
“I am particularly proud of my women’s preventive health amendment included in this bill. Right now, women pay more and get less in health care. For far too long, many insurance companies have treated simply being a woman as a pre-existing condition. They’ve used every trick in the book to deny coverage to women.
“The Mikulski Amendment guarantees access to preventive tests that save money and save women’s lives. It requires insurance companies to cover preventive care and screenings at no added cost to women.
“Without my amendment, there would be no guarantee that women under 50 would be covered for mammograms, no guarantee of an annual women’s health exam that would include screenings for heart disease, and no guarantee that women would have access to this preventive care at no cost.
“In the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act I stood up for Maryland. I preserved the Maryland Medicare waiver, which I authored more than 30 years ago. This Maryland waiver is crucial in allowing hospitals to provide uncompensated care without jeopardizing their own financial stability.
“What else does this health care reform bill mean for Maryland? It means that more than 1 million Marylanders who aren’t covered now will have access to affordable insurance. It gives a helping hand to 50,000 small businesses in Maryland. It means lower costs for the 130,000 Marylanders who fall into Medicare’s prescription drug coverage gap. It means that young adults in Maryland can stay on their parents’ policies until they are 26 and that they’ll have access to affordable coverage after that.
“It means that families who are just a layoff, a job switch or an illness away from losing coverage will have health care stability and security. It means that if you like the insurance you have now, you can keep it. Or if you don’t have it, you can get it.
“And it means that health care reform will be affordable to families and to the nation. We can’t let health care bankrupt our families or the government. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the Senate bill will reduce the deficit by $132 billion over the next 10 years.
“And while I support the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, I have some serious yellow flashing lights. I hope these issues will be resolved in a more favorable way in conference.
“I am for a more robust and transparent public framework to ensure competition and choice in the marketplace. I like public options. Two of my favorite public options are Social Security and Medicare. The Senate bill creates a lot of new customers for insurance companies by mandating insurance coverage. But like big banks, insurance companies don’t show remorse for past transgressions. We can’t simply trust them to do the right thing. The Senate bill relies heavily on regulation to achieve what could be done with a public framework. I prefer the House public option.
“I also continue to oppose the excise tax included in the Senate bill. I am not for taxing the health care benefits of retired public employees and union members to pay for health reform. Some call them ‘Cadillac plans’ - I call it a ‘Clunker Idea.’ The excise tax will just shift costs onto workers through higher deductibles, copayments, and less generous coverage. I’m against this back-door tax on middle America & retirees. Again, I prefer the House version on this.
“So we have some work to do.
“I will keep fighting for health care reform. Because it’s absolutely terrible when you hear – I’m sorry your insurance doesn’t cover that. It’s horrifying when you have no insurance at all because you lost your job or your benefits and you face losing your life savings to pay for the care you need.
“I can assure you I will be fighting on the side of Maryland and the American people to complete health care reform in early 2010.”
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