Tom Harkin

It is time for our Nation to face the retirement crisis head-on.

I have in front of me the Federal Register of Thursday, June 17, 2010. What we are dealing with today are grandfathered plans, right? The resolution offered by the Senator from Wyoming has to do with what is a grandfathered plan and the…

Absolutely. I made that very clear. The bill of rights that came into effect stays for everything. But what I am saying is that the Senator is right, and I responded that way concerning the bill of rights. But what doesn't apply to…

I will be glad to yield time if he will yield me time if I have a question.

That is the way I see it. It just seems that we have rules and regulations. What the Department has said is that, OK, to be a grandfathered plan, you have to fall under these items: You can only raise your copayment a certain amount. By…

I have to say to my friend from Wyoming: Where did that come from-- 100 pages of regulations for every page that is in the bill? That is going to be 200,000 pages of regulations. Where did that come from? It sounds like it came from the…

There is one where there is any change at all would disqualify a grandfather plan, and that is any increase in the percentage cost sharing. You can understand that. If you have a percentage cost sharing, let's say it is 20 percent, if the…

My friend from Wyoming was reading from the Federal Register and said ``any increase.'' After reading through this, it reminds me of an example I have often used about not taking things out of context. It comes from Psalm 14 in the Bible…

One of the things we put in the health care bill when we designed it was the protection for consumers to keep the plan they have if they like it; thus, the term ``grandfathered plans.'' If you have a plan you like--existing policies--you…

I listened to the statement made by my good friend--and he is my good friend--Senator Enzi from Wyoming. We are in the seventh month since the Affordable Care Act became law. Ever since the day President Obama signed the bill into law, my…

I intend to continue this investigation to shine more sunlight on this sector of higher education.

This committee is taking the vital first steps to eliminating the bad actors within the for-profit sector.

We will be exploring legislative changes to get this system right again.

But I think our responsibility is twofold: one, to look at what's happening to the lowest income students in this country, what's happening to their lives; and then our obligation to protect taxpayers, what's happening to the taxpayers'…

Tom Harkin will never again work in the United States Congress.

I'm going to do it in the nature of our obligations as lawmakers here and representing both taxpayers and low-income students to make sure that they get value.

Thank you so very much, Senator Harkin, for being the champion of so many people who cannot speak for themselves or are afraid to do what I am doing here today.

I'm sure Mr. Davis is a good lawyer, and he represents the for-profit industry. Fine.

I look forward to working together to improve the outcomes of students attending Kaplan University including its five Iowa campuses.

Frankly, it is hard to imagine that an educational relationship that begins with a school deliberately misleading and sometimes outright lying to the student could result in a meaningful degree or a positive outcome.

Let me repeat that: the taxpayers' investment is $24 billion a year.

I rise to express my strong support for the Robert C. Byrd Mine and Workplace Safety Act. This bill establishes vital new workplace safety measures and it deserves consideration here on the Senate floor. In 2009, there were 4,340 workplace…

I think now's time to take stock and think, on the reauthorization, do we need to do some realignment here?

I think we need to think about priorities.

BARDA would be the purchaser, but this fund would be the investor.