Tina Smith: “every Congress and a number I have served in since 1997, nearly 10 years ago, Senator Wyden and I, my colleague from…”

“every Congress and a number I have served in since 1997, nearly 10 years ago, Senator Wyden and I, my colleague from Oregon, have put forward a bipartisan agenda of things we could do as a Republican and Democrat to advance the interests of our Nation and specifically the interests of our State. It has been a genuine pleasure to work with him in achieving much good for Oregon and trying to set a better example of how Republicans and Democrats can function first as Americans and not as partisans. Today as part of our agenda for the 109th Congress, we introduce what was item No. 1 on our bipartisan agenda. We have entitled it the Catastrophic Health Coverage Promotion Act. It addresses one of the most difficult challenges facing Congress, that of rising health care costs. Getting to a solution on this is daunting. It is not easy to solve. Health care is the ultimate turf battle. But for decades health care costs have increased consistently and little has been done to slow them. While there are a number of factors driving this growth, the uninsured play a major role in driving those costs up. Last year 46 million Americans reported lacking health insurance coverage. In our State of Oregon, 600,000 individuals, 17 percent of the population, are uninsured. What some fail to realize is that the individuals without health insurance coverage nevertheless get health coverage. They do so through emergency rooms, even when they haven't the money to pay.…”