Senate Proceeding 11-03-09 on Nov 3rd, 2009 :: 4:15:45 to 4:23:19
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4:15:41 to 4:16:01( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: care f every american family and do it in a fiscally responsible way. the senator from ms. klobuchar: well, thank you very much, senator. as i was liste was thinking about got involved in this whole debate, and my story is like so many moms and middle-class parents. it involved rules, rules that made no sense when it's your

4:15:45 to 4:23:19( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Amy Klobuchar

4:16:02 to 4:16:23( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: family's health at stake. when my daughter was born, she was very sick. she couldn't swallow. they thoht she had a tumor. she was in intensive care all night. back then the insurance companies had a rule, senator, that you could only stay in the hospital for 24 hours, new moms and their babies. for some people, that's great, but when you have been in labor for 24 hours and you think your

4:16:24 to 4:16:44( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: daughter might die for 24 hours, it doesn't quite make sense. so 24 hours after giving birth, i was kicked out of the hospital, wheeled out of the hospital while she was sitting there in intensive care. i thought to myself this is never going to happen to anyone again, and i went to the legislature with a number of other moms and got one o first bills passed in the country guaranteeing new moms and their babies a 48-hour

4:16:45 to 4:17:06( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: hospital stay. and i still rember the conference committee where we had a number of lobbyists there who couldn't say they were against the bill but they were trying to delay the implementation. they were trying to make it so it couldn't take effect for years and years and years. so i finally decided, mr. president, to bring my pregnant friends to that conference committee so they outnumbered

4:17:07 to 4:17:29( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: company lobbyists 2-1. when the legislators said when should this bill take effect, all the pregnant moms raise their hands that's what was happening. i tell what the people of america are saying, now. they need reform now. they need reform now because of what you just talked about, the fact that the costs have bn escalating and escalating and

4:17:30 to 4:17:50( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: it's becoming more and more unaffordable for so many middle-class americans. in 2008, employer health insurance premiums increased by 5%, two times the rate of inflation. everyone feels it, everyone knows what i'm talking about. when people throw out all these numbers and w numbers from the other side, i really believe you have to know three numbers, and you brought

4:17:51 to 4:18:11( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: them up before, three simple numbers. they're easy to rember, 6, 12, and 24. what are these numbers about? $6,000, that's the average cost for the average american family of insurance ten years ago. that's what they were paying in eir premiums. what are they paying now, now, $12,000. something like $1,000 a year.

4:18:12 to 4:18:34( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: some are paying a lot more, like that small business owner that i talked about in minnesota, but the average is $12,000. what do the studies show? they show that ten years from now, ten years from now, people in billings, montana, people in delaware, people in baltimore, people in the tiniest towns of this country, the average they are going to be paying is is $24,000 a year. do you think they are going to be able to afford it, your

4:18:35 to 4:18:56( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: average middle-class family, family, $24,000 a year? i think every family can look at their own chebook and figure out what that answer is, and that's why we need health care reform now. i think of the people i have heard from in our state. jan in plymouth. she wrote to me the other day about her jennifer. jennifer was diagnosed almost a year ago with hodgkin's lymphoma.

4:18:57 to 4:19:17( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: she made it through chemotherapy but it's still being monitored. while jennifer was in chemo, she had to continue going to college to keep her health care coverage. despite having good health care coverage, jan and her husband had to use their retirement funds to cover the out-of-pocket expenses of jennifer's chemotherapy. jennifer has taken some time off school to recer and is going

4:19:18 to 4:19:38( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: to be transferring to a new school soon. her parents don't know how they will keep her insured. that's why, senator, the point you made about that this plan would allow parents to keep their kids on their insurance until they are 26 years old, i can't tell you what good news that is to the parents of america who are struggling, wondering once my kid goes to college, what's going to happen? they are not going to have a job. how are they going to get

4:19:39 to 4:19:59( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: insurance? 26 years old, they are going to get insurance. that would help this family in minnesota tremendously. the pre-existing conditions. i talked about the three women with breast cancer who were there with the first lady. unbelievable stories of people who just through no fault of their own. they are not even sick anymore,

4:20:00 to 4:20:20( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: but then they get thrown off their insurance policies. kids who are a little overweight or a little underweight. the only way they can get rid of this and get this thing off their back about health insurance is by going on tv. i think we would have to have permanent tv stations going around the clock to cover all these families who want to get

4:20:21 to 4:20:43( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: the pre-existing conditions off their back. that's just not going to work in this country. the better way is to pass health care reform. now, the senator from maryland brought up costs of this. i can tell you a lot of people in minnesota, that's the number one thing i hear. how can we afford this, what can i do? i can tell you the senator from delaware, the senator from illinois, and senator durbin is

4:20:44 to 4:21:04( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: on the medicare fraud issue on the judiciary committee as well as the senator from maryland. 3% to 10% of our health care dollars go down the tes to crooks, to con men, and we're not doing anything about this? there is money in the system. it's just going to the wrong places. another way to solve this is measures into our system, trying to have high-quality care at the

4:21:05 to 4:21:25( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: lowest costs. i don't think people would believe this. if you go to a hotel, mr. president, and you spend more money on a room, you tend to get a better room. a bigger room, maybe with a nicer view. well, with health care, it's just not the case. with health care, some of the highest cost places have the lowest quality care. so one of the things that health

4:21:26 to 4:21:47( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: reform allows us to do is to put those high-quality -- high-quality measures in there, so we start having incentives so we say to hospitals, you know what? if you have less infections in your hospital, which means more people live, then you're going to be treat better in the system. we're going to put incentives in place so you treat your patients better. and believe it or not, that's the way that we're going to save money. why is that?

4:21:48 to 4:22:08( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: well, so many times the way the system is up, it's about reimbursing for every little test, every little thing you do, instead of looking at the results, looking at the quality of care that you can get at the end of the road, and that's what we want to do with this legislation. there's a value index in this legislation, the finance bill that came out of the finance

4:22:09 to 4:22:29( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: committee, mr. president, that senator cantwell and i have worked very hard on, to say let's look at the value to the patient. let's put the patient in the driver seat so they can get the value, so middle-class families can get the same kind of health care that members of congress get, so they can get the kind of value that they want out o?? their health care. so when we look at how we can

4:22:30 to 4:22:51( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: pay for this, there are so many ways we can not only save some money, like plug that doughnut hole by saving some money so that deals on their prescription drugs, but we can do it so we can give people higher quality care. we're going to link rewards to outcomes, to create the incentives for doctors and hospitals to work together to improve quality and efficiency.

4:22:52 to 4:23:14( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: that's iowa we're trying to do here. so the senator, i thank you for bringing up this issue of cost because for so many middle-class families in my state, they understand that we want to have not only more affordable care but also high-quality care, because they don't like these kinds of mistakes that there are actually some things we can do by creating incentives

4:23:15 to 4:23:19( Edit History Discussion )

Amy Klobuchar: for safer procedures and for better standards for hospitals and for doctors that i think could go a long way toward