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I am sure the Chair has experienced this, when you are back home and you talk to people in the disabilities community over and over again, you hear people telling you that they are ready to go to work if only they could be sure they wouldn't lose their health insurance--insurance they literally need to live. I don't know, but I think the unemployment rate among people with disabilities is well above 50 percent; the poverty rate is also above 50 percent. The problem is, when people in the disabilities community work, they

[Page: S6939]  GPO's PDF

   What this piece of legislation says is that we want people to be able to live at home in as near a normal circumstance as possible, with dignity. That is what the Work Incentives Improvement Act is all about.

   I come to the floor to say to my colleague, Senator KENNEDY, that if he wants to force the issue on this bill that we have before us, the Energy and Water Appropriations bill, I am all for that. If we can get some kind of a commitment from Senators as to whether we can bring this piece of legislation up freestanding, have an up-or-down vote--78 Senators are cosponsors--then I am for that.

   Those of us who feel strongly about this issue and have met with people back home and heard their pleas really want to respond to the concerns and circumstances of their lives. It is very moving to meet with people in the disabilities community, to have people say to you: If you could do this, it would help us so much.

   We are running out of patience; we really are. For colleagues who are blocking this and getting in the way of our being able to bring this to the floor and having a vote on this, be it unanimous consent, or be it 78 to 22, or 99 to 1 or whatever the case might be, so be it. I do not mind the 1; I have been on the losing end of a couple 99 to 1 votes in the last two months. If a Senator feels strongly about that, and it is his or her honest opinion that this legislation shouldn't pass, fine. He or she has the right to speak out, to try to persuade others and to vote his or her conscience. What I don't like is the way in which this piece of legislation has been held up so that it is not possible to debate it and vote on it at all. That, I think, is unconscionable.

   Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?

   Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield.

   Mr. REID. As the Senator was traveling here from Minnesota by air, Senator KENNEDY gave a very moving presentation about the necessity for this legislation, which, when he finished, caused the two managers of this legislation to talk about some of the work you and Senator KENNEDY and Senator DOMENICI and this Senator joined in, dealing with mental health parity . It was a very good discussion, stimulated by Senator KENNEDY's presentation on this legislation, which is so badly needed.

   Senator KENNEDY has indicated that he filed this amendment on this legislation in the hope of focusing attention on this issue. If we have so much support--we have almost 80 Senators supporting this legislation--it would seem that we should figure out a way to pay for it. That is the problem. I think that will come to be, as Senator KENNEDY has talked to the majority leader and other people who recognize that they control the ebb and flow of legislation on this floor. In short, I say to the Senator, I think Senator KENNEDY did the right thing in filing this amendment on this legislation, or any other legislation. If it doesn't work out on this bill, he might have to do it on the next bill, but I support the efforts of the Senator from Minnesota.

   Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, again, I appreciate the comments of Senator REID of Nevada. I think all of us feel strongly about this and are prepared to fight it out. We have waited long enough for the men and women, the young people and the elderly people with disabilities who want to work and who will lose health care coverage. We ought to pass this legislation, and the sooner the better.

   I will yield the floor in a moment. I wasn't here for the colloquy or the suggestion about our mental health parity legislation. I am looking forward to this journey with Senators DOMENICI, REID, and KENNEDY--and maybe I am really being presumptuous, but I hope Senator COLLINS and others as well, because I think the time has come for this idea. I think you can make a pretty strong case there that there is entirely too much discrimination when it comes to coverage for those struggling with mental illness. This cuts across a broad section of the population.

   I am extremely hopeful that we will be able to pass this legislation, which would make a huge positive difference in the lives of so many people. I want to say on the floor that I am also committed to trying to do more when it comes to substance abuse treatment. We have the same problem there, where people have pretty good coverage for physical illnesses, but for somebody struggling with alcoholism, it is a detox center 2 or 3 days each time a year, and that is it. You know, a lot of these diseases are brain diseases with biochemical connections and neurological connections and people's health insurance should cover the disease of addiction just like it covers heart disease or diabetes.

   Our policy is way behind; it is outdated and discriminatory. The tragedy of it is that so many people in the recovery community can talk about the ways in which, when they received treatment, they have been able to rebuild their lives and contribute at their place of work, to their families, and to their communities. This is nonsensical. So these will be separate pieces of legislation on the Senate side. But I am very excited about this effort with Senator DOMENICI, Senator REID, Senator KENNEDY, and others as well. I believe we can pass this mental health parity legislation. I think what we did in 1996 was a small step forward. Now I think we have to do something that will really provide people with much more coverage.

   Having said that, let me just make one other point. When we talk about this whole issue of parity and trying to end discrimination in health insurance coverage, one issue we still don't deal with is what happens if people have no coverage at all. When we are saying you ought to treat these illnesses the same way we treat physical illnesses, what we are not doing is dealing with those that have no coverage whatsoever. I still think that a front-burner issue in American politics is universal health care coverage and comprehensive health care reform.

   I have introduced legislation called the Healthy Americans Act. Sometime I would like to bring it out on the floor and have an up-or-down vote on it. I think we ought to be talking about universal coverage. The insurance industry took it off the table a few years ago; I think we should put it back on the table and I am going to work as hard as I can to do that.

   But right now, I wanted to come to the floor and support Senator KENNEDY's effort. Hopefully, we will soon have an up-or-down vote on the Work Incentives Improvement Act. I hope we don't have to keep bringing it out as an amendment on other bills so it gets the attention it needs. This is a piece of legislation that deserves an up-or-down vote now.

   Finally, also in the spirit of amendments, I will keep bringing back the welfare tracking amendment, because the more I look at the studies that are coming out and the more I talk to people in the field, the more strongly I feel that as policymakers we ought to at least have some evaluation of what we have done. I think it is a terrible mistake not to do so. My amendment lost by one vote last time. I will bring it back, and I hope to get a couple more votes. It does nothing more than just say to Health and Human Services let's get from the States data every year so we know what is happening to the women and children, so we can have a sense of what kind of jobs they have, at what wages, and whether there is child care for children. We need to do that. It is a terrible mistake not to have that knowledge.

   I want to mention to colleagues that I will be bringing this amendment out within the next week--if not this week, next week--and I am hoping this time to somehow get a majority vote for it. I think it is reasonable and we should do it. I don't think we should turn away from this. It is important to know, especially because in the next couple of years, by 2002, in every State in the country, benefit reductions will have been fully felt. I think we ought to know how we are doing before that happens.

   I yield the floor.

   Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.

   Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to Senator DOMENICI, I look forward to this work on the Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act.

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