Floor Statement of Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) Regarding the Defense Appropriations Bill

Mr. President, the Defense appropriations bill before us today provides essential support for American troops fighting for our freedom abroad. And the bill before us today also continues crucial safety-net programs for American families struggling with tough economic times here at home.

What our Colleague and former Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd said in 1988 remains true today: “Without economic security, we cannot have national security.”

Millions of jobless Americans struggle for economic security every day. And even people with jobs are seeing their paychecks stretched.

For every six unemployed workers, there’s only one job opening.

We need to continue to work to help create jobs. And we also need to address the challenges that unemployed Americans are facing right now. This bill takes action to help Americans who are seeking jobs.

Without this bill, the three unemployment insurance provisions established or continued by the Recovery Act that we passed at the beginning of the year will expire in two weeks. If we don’t pass this legislation, unemployed Americans will not be able to apply for new Unemployment Insurance Benefits after December 31. And those who are currently receiving benefits would lose this vital help.

The loss of these benefits would be devastating to many Americans, including a young father in my home state of Montana from whom I heard recently.

He was working hard to support his family at a car wash in Northwestern Montana. Then he was laid off.

Since then, he has simply been unable to find work.

His work situation only adds to his concerns. He recently lost a child to sudden infant death syndrome. And his wife is now pregnant with another child.

They are living in a house 20 miles out of town. They heat the house entirely by burning wood, because that’s all that they can afford on his unemployment benefits.

Without this bill, his benefits would run out in 2 weeks. And his family would be left in the cold, while he struggled to find work.

But this bill would extend Emergency Unemployment Compensation for two months. That program provides additional weeks of unemployment benefits for out-of-work Americans like my Northwestern Montana constituent during this period of high unemployment.

The bill would also provide two additional months of Extended Unemployment Benefits. Those benefits provide targeted assistance to areas of our country that have been affected by particularly high unemployment rates.

And the bill includes a two-month extension of the Federal Additional Compensation program. That program increases all unemployment benefits by $25 a week.

Together, these provisions will protect unemployment benefits for roughly two million Americans. Those are people who would lose unemployment benefits, if we don’t pass this bill.

These extensions would provide much-needed economic security for Americans who are struggling to find work in these uncertain times.

In addition to the critical unemployment insurance extensions in this bill, this package also includes an extension of what people call “COBRA.” That’s assistance that helps unemployed Americans and their families to maintain their health care coverage.

When workers lose their jobs, they lose more than just their paychecks. Unfortunately, they often lose their ability to afford health insurance coverage, as well.

To address this problem, the Recovery Act that we passed earlier this year provided assistance to help unemployed workers and their families to pay for health insurance while looking for a new job.

Fortunately, in most cases, workers who lose their jobs have the right to keep their employer health coverage for up to 18 months under the COBRA program. It’s called that after the name of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act that set up the program. But to be eligible for COBRA health benefits, workers typically had to pay all of the premium costs, plus an additional two percent for administrative costs.

Paying the full premium and administrative costs is simply more than most families can afford when they are out of work.

Fortunately, the COBRA provision in the Recovery Act provided relief to struggling workers. That provision covered up to 65 percent of health premium costs, for up to nine months, for unemployed Americans.

This premium subsidy has made a real difference in helping unemployed workers and their families to maintain health coverage. Roughly seven million Americans have benefitted from this assistance.

The bill before us today would extend this assistance for another six months for those who remain unemployed. In addition, the legislation would offer similar assistance to people who lose their jobs between now and the end of February.

This assistance is the right prescription for families in these tough economic times. For many American who have lost their health insurance coverage along with their jobs, this benefit provides critical help to ensure that they can get the health care that they need.

This bill also protects access to health care for seniors and military families. The legislation would ensure that doctors will not suffer a reduction in payments for their services. The bill would reverse planned cuts to physician payments under what is called the Sustainable Growth Rate, or SGR.

Blocking cuts to doctors’ payments would keep health care available to seniors in Medicare. And it would keep care available to military families insured by the TRICARE program, as well.

Without this provision, Medicare and TRICARE providers would see a 21 percent cut in their payments. That could make it difficult to continue to participate in the program.

I am committed to finding a permanent solution to the flawed payment formula that caused this cut. And in the meantime, this bill makes sure that our physicians in Medicare and TRICARE will not face steep, unfair cuts in payments. This bill would help ensure that they can continue to care for our seniors and military families.

This bill also includes a provision to protect access to critical safety-net programs for low-income American families who would otherwise lose those benefits in already tough economic times.

This legislation would hold the poverty level constant at the 2009 level. That would prevent a decrease in 2010 because prices went down this year. This legislation would thus keep struggling families who are right at the poverty line from dropping off of critical safety-net programs.

To keep up with the rising cost of living, the Federal poverty level is adjusted for inflation each year. Because of the Great Recession, this year, prices actually went down. There was what economists call deflation, instead of inflation.

As a result of this deflation, the Federal poverty level could actually be lower in 2010 than it was in 2009. That means that American families right at the poverty line who rely on programs like Medicaid, home heating assistance, and Food Stamps could actually lose their access to these vital services, even though they did not have any additional income.

This legislation would allow families who qualify for safety-net provisions today to stay on those critical programs if their circumstances don’t change.

These families cannot afford to bear any additional hardship in this recession. And this provision would ensure that they do not lose the vital services that help keep them afloat.

And this bill also extends vital funding for the maintenance and repair of our roads and bridges. This would save hundreds of thousands of American highway jobs. These are jobs that pay well. And these are jobs that cannot be shipped overseas.

This provision provides a two-month extension of Federal highway funding. And that will allow important repairs to American roads and bridges to continue.

Without this provision, the Federal Highway Administration and construction projects across the nation would be forced to shut down, taking thousands of jobs along with them.

The safety of our nation’s roads and bridges is vital. And at a time when unemployment is already more than Americans can bear, we cannot afford to lose hundreds of thousands of good highway jobs. This provision will make sure that we don’t.

Economists have seen some signs that the economy is starting to recover. But many American families continue to struggle. This legislation will provide vital support and services that American families and our economy need to get through these tough times.

Working together, we are going to get this economy back on track. Passing this bill is part of the answer. Passing this bill is important for both our national security and our economic security. I urge my Colleagues to support this vital legislation.

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