For Immediate Release
January 28, 2009

 

   GRASSLEY: I apologize for being ten minutes late. I had a 9 o'clock meeting that was a couple blocks off the Hill. And when I walked in the room here, I said to my staff, I'm only ten minutes late. I smiled, and they frowned. 

 

   This week, I introduced legislation to strengthen the health care delivery system in rural America, a very comprehensive bill. I'll probably just highlight a couple of points in it, but there's a lot more I could highlight. 

 

   Improved payment formulas for rural doctors, rural ambulance services, mid-sized rural hospitals. There's about nine hospitals in Iowa -- Spencer, Spirit Lake, Fort Madison, Muscatine, Carroll, Burnell (ph), Newton, Keokuk -- that we call "tweeners hospitals" -- between the little ones of critical access and the big ones like Des Moines. 

 

   And they -- the formulas don't work very well for these hospitals, so we tried to take care of the tweener hospital problem. 

 

   Second and last, it would also protect access for rural residents to home medical equipment and supplies, continue to lend support to smaller critical access hospitals, and, lastly, enhance the authority of physician assistants who provide valuable services but they can't do it in extended care in hospice services. So we extend it to there.

 

   These policies go directly to the special challenges facing rural health care systems. And I think -- I want to point out that maybe health care reform is several months down the, you know, down the legislative road. But when we talk about preserving rural health care, and you get into the massive health care reform that we're going to be talking about -- and that goes beyond just the 47 million people that don't have health insurance. If you have pay-go, you're going to have to find someplace to get money. And I'm going fight hard to make sure that we don't get it from rural -- I shouldn't say rural hospitals -- for rural health care of which hospitals are a part of it. 

 

   I'm ready now to call names. So I'm going to go to Tommy -- not Tommy -- Tom Beaumont.

 

   QUESTION: My grandma still calls me that, Senator, so no problem there. 

 

  GRASSLEY: Good. 

 

   QUESTION: How do you expect to vote on Eric Holder's confirmation today? 

 

   GRASSLEY: Well, I am inclined to vote yes. But let me say I got a two-page memo from Reno (ph) I haven't finished reading yet. So don't put me down as a yes yet. 

 

   But that's kind of my thinking without reading her memo. Do you accept that? 

 

   QUESTION: Yes. What leads you to, at least at this point, lean towards supporting him? 

 

   GRASSLEY: Highly qualified. Understand, you know, through my questioning on the terrorist pardon and on the Marc Rich pardon, it gives me -- it gives me a great deal of caution. And that could kind of tip the scales. 

   But I've also heard -- and this isn't for public -- but I also heard that Hatch and Specter might vote for him. And they have the same -- in fact, Specter probably has worked on these pardons harder than I have. 

 

   And -- and if he's willing to forgive on that and accept the explanations, then that would kind of lead me as well -- not being a lawyer and those two being good lawyers, you know. 

 

   QUESTION: Uh-huh. I've got a question on the president's meeting with the Senate caucus yesterday. Did that appearance influence your position on the stimulus at all? And if it didn't, what do you think the value of that meeting was? 

 

   GRASSLEY: Well, the value of the meeting is that in politics, whenever people are talking to each other, it's a better environment than when people aren't talking to each other. 

 

   And I think that we ought to keep this dialogue up even when we disagree. So then yesterday, you know, last night at 9 o'clock, I voted against Finance Committee portions of it. There's so many good tax provisions in there; I could vote yes just on the tax provisions. 

 

   But if you listen to what I said yesterday, we have CBO analyzing what money might be spent on Medicare -- Medicaid for the -- for the unemployed. And we want to help those people. It's $10-plus billion out of $86 billion. So why are we putting the other $76 billion in there? 

 

   Now, some people are saying, well, states are in trouble. Well, if states are in trouble and they need more money, let's look at some reason for giving them additional money except for letting them use Medicaid as a slush fund. See, as an example. So I voted no. 

 

   And -- and the other thing was -- no, I think I'll stop there. 

 

   QUESTION: Thank you. 

 

   GRASSLEY: Mike Myers?

 

   QUESTION: Well, Senator, overall, how were you treated in the Finance Committee yesterday? The AMT and these other tax provisions?

Is it an either-or situation here? How do you judge them? 

 

   GRASSLEY: Well, I was treated very well. But let me say that very well is a lot less than the environment in which Baucus and I have worked together over the last eight years. And I use SCHIP plus this as an example. 

 

   In the case of SCHIP, I don't blame Baucus. In the case of stimulus, I don't blame Baucus. But it's still not a very good environment compared to the good environment we had before where almost every mark that was laid on the table was a bipartisan mark. 

 

   So let me make it very clear that -- that it was pushed -- a partisan approach was pushed on Baucus by -- I don't know whether by the president-elect at that time or whether it was by the leadership of the Democratic Party in the Senate. 

 

   But we were going to sit down and negotiate until they were kind -- the other side was kind of dictated to. In the case of the stimulus, even though I don't like how it was handled, I don't blame Baucus because he was under fire to get something done very quickly because the president wants something on his desk by February the 15th.

 

   GRASSLEY: And so, you know, I have to have some -- I supposed if we had a Republican president and I was chairman of the committee and we had that sort of a directive, maybe we wouldn't have had bipartisanship even if we had a Republican majority. 

 

   But -- and in the case of the stimulus bill, if we were going to have a bipartisan package, it probably would have taken a week of hard work behind the scenes to go it worked out. And so the relationship between me and Baucus has not changed at all, but the kind of the political environment we're in has -- has reduced the bipartisanship. 

 

   But then I -- I always hastily follow that up with, so far -- and you can only do this from time to time -- I mean, you've got to get updates on this. But so far, they seem to be very sincere about working in a bipartisan manner on -- on all the health care reform that we're doing. 

 

   QUESTION: OK. Thank you. 

 

   GRASSLEY: Joe Morton?

 

   QUESTION: Yes, Senator. I was hoping to ask you about the restrictions included in the House version of the SCHIP on physician- owned or specialty hospitals. My understanding is that's not in the Senate version. 

 

   Do you -- what do you think of what the House put in there? And do you anticipate that it will be offered as an amendment in the Senate, or this going to be an issue for the conference? 

 

   GRASSLEY: I think it's an issue for conference. And I'm satisfied with what the House did. If the House had gone a little more restrictive, it would have been OK with me. But in the House, they decided to take the compromise that Baucus and I worked out last summer that should have been in the Medicare bill that summer but we didn't have time to fight to get it in because we had to do things by consensus. 

 

   So it's -- it's what Baucus and I have written, so I'm going to be satisfied with it. 

 

   QUESTION: And what about hospitals -- there's a hospital outside of Omaha that -- it's about 20 percent physician-owned, and they're saying -- and it's not quite completed on construction yet. They're saying this would, you know, kind of derail what they're doing. 

 

   What about sort of hybrid facilities? Should there be a sort of exception for them? 

 

   GRASSLEY: The way it's written right now is the way it's going to be done and the way I think it ought to be done. I can't -- when I say I can't, I don't know to comment on a hybrid, but I can compromise on the other that they're going to be able to finish it. 

 

   And, of course, you've got to remember why are we doing this. We're doing it because of physician ownership being a very major concern and because of the interest that doctors have that can lead to cherry picking. 

 

   And then let me extend the major reason is -- it probably comes more from rural areas than it does from urban areas. But we have a hard time maintaining a hospital system in rural America without having cherry picking that goes on that multiples the problems because the federal government doesn't pay 100 percent of the cost of medical care under Medicare. 

 

  So that's why we have to do it. 

 

   OK. Jim Boyd?

 

   Tim Rohwer?

 

   QUESTION: Yes, Senator. I understand that the committee rejected an effort by you to secure jobs in wind energy production and generate more clean-burning renewable energy. I mean, did they reject it totally? Is there going to be anything in there? 

 

   GRASSLEY: Well, first of all, that part of the bill that -- and, Mike Myers, take note of this. That part of the bill that deals with energy that's in the bill that I voted against yesterday, that could have been -- that, by itself, would have been a bipartisan mark. Most of the tax provisions could have been a bipartisan mark. 

 

   And those things were worked out between Republicans and Democrats. A long time -- maybe even before Christmas before this thing got to be highly partisan in the sense that the Democrats wanted to push quickly to get it done in a partisan way. 

 

   So what I was trying to do yesterday, Tim, was build on what Baucus had put in his mark to make a longer period of time for the tax incentive because -- pretty much like we did for solar last summer -- eight years out. We only had one year out in that same bill for wind.

And the reason we didn't go eight years out for the wind is because everything was offset, and when you offset wind for more than a year, it's very, very expensive. 

 

   And so I was trying -- this -- we didn't need offsets in this bill, so I was trying to get it extended out longer. And then we have a financing problem because credit's dried up in this country. And through the tax code, we were trying to loosen up some money through what we call a net operating loss carry-back. And I extended that back for ten years where Baucus only had it in his bill for five years. 

   So it was not -- I just wanted to do better. And Democrats, I think, had a pack among themselves that they're going to vote down all Republican amendments. And so we were trying to do what we could to improve the bill; some places where we disagreed with the Democrats to change it dramatically. But most of our efforts, at least most of my efforts, were just to do a little better job because we wanted to most of investment. And there's a lot of jobs at stake here. And this was a jobs bill. 

 

   And so you've got 90 people laid off at the wind energy component manufacturing plant in Cedar Rapids. Very obviously, you know, the sooner we get it cranked up, the sooner we get those jobs and we have less risk of eliminating existing jobs. 

 

   Jane Norman?

 

   QUESTION: Senator, on the Medicaid provision in the stimulus bill, is it specifically the extension to the unemployed that bothers you without any kind of income cap? Or what is it? What all is it in the Medicaid that -- you mentioned it becoming a slush fund forstates. But beyond that? 

 

   GRASSLEY: Well, I offered an amendment -- well, now, I think there's -- the insurance for the uninsured, I've got no problem with extending unemployment insurance. I've got -- the -- paying COBRA is something new, but I don't think we're raising so much objection to that except maybe the percentage is a little bit high. But I did try to get an amendment in so that very high-income people couldn't take advantage of a 65 percent subsidy on COBRA. 

 

   And my amendment lost. Well, no, it didn't lose. That was one of those amendments that we -- I didn't push it to a vote because the president -- the chairman promised me he just wanted to look at it and make sure it was workable and get put in the (inaudible) amendment on the floor. 

 

   Then the Medicaid stuff -- if you just want it look at the Medicaid -- $86 billion. Is that your question? 

 

   QUESTION: Yes. 

 

   GRASSLEY: OK. Then I probably shoved a bunch of stuff at you, you weren't interested in. 

 

   QUESTION: Oh, that's OK. 

 

   GRASSLEY: OK. We got scored by CBO -- a Hudson Institute approach to Medicare -- Medicaid's needs for unemployed.

 

 

   GRASSLEY: And based upon the formulas they used, which seems to be 1 million people...

 

   GRASSLEY: ... certain increase in the downturn in the economy, it came out to about $10.8 billion in this bill. Well, we got $86 billion in. So why are we giving more money for Medicaid than what CBO says is going to be necessary? 

 

   Well, the answer is give it out in the Medicaid formulas. So then the states spend less state money on Medicaid, and then they -- it will free up money for a bunch of other stuff. 

 

   So it becomes a slush fund for states. Now, let's stay you want to accept the argument that states need more money at this time. And there would be some argument for that because we don't want states raising taxes at a time in recession because the federal government's not going to do that. It hurts the recession. 

 

   Well, then let's find some way to get the money distributed to the states instead of doing the subterfuge of Medicaid. That's my argument. 

 

   QUESTION: And if I could ask you more generally what -- how are you gauging Iowans' reaction to your position on the stimulus bill? And what kind of calls, letters are you getting in your office? Are you getting a lot of interest? Not much? 

 

   GRASSLEY: Within the last hour, I had -- it wasn't quantified for me, but I had a short discussion with my chief of staff. And he says they're coming in opposed to it. But I can't -- why don't we have, maybe later on in the day, Joe can get back to you. 

 

   QUESTION: OK. 

 

   GRASSLEY: Jill just wrote me a note that she doesn't know for sure, but she can talk to the chief of staff. But that's what he was telling me this morning. 

 

   QUESTION: I'm just interested in the volume of reaction, too. 

 

   GRASSLEY: Well, here's -- here's the -- here's something you've got to consider when you're considering who's opposed to the stimulus. I don't know whether it's -- for the person that doesn't watch news very much is going to separate the word "stimulus" from the word "bailout" -- going back to -- back in October. And there's a great deal of cynicism that I pick up in Iowa about the bailout doing any good because nobody sees it doing any good. 

 

   You don't, Jane. And I'll bet everybody on this telephone call doesn't see it doing any good. And I don't see it doing any good. Now, I hope it's doing some good that we don't know about yet and that there's a lag time for it to show up. 

 

   But the people back home don't think in those terms. And so we're talking about spending another trillion dollars. Well, what about the $700 billion you spent? You've got your head stuck in the sand? What sort of a planet did you come from, you know, why try to explain it to people. 

 

   So they're calling in because they're just -- a trillion dollars is a lot of money. And we read about $1.2 trillion deficit. So they're reading about percentages of the GDP that are higher than any time since World War II. And so that may be the reason we're getting a lot of negative calls, if we're getting a lot of negative calls. 

 

   But -- but presumably, negative calls coming in. I just can't quantify it for you. 

 

   QUESTION: OK. Thanks. 

 

   GRASSLEY: Before I go on to Christina (ph), I was just thinking in terms of the question I answered for Tom Beaumont about Eric Holder. And I said leaning yes, but don't put me down there until I study it a little bit more. I hope all of you will honor that thing that I asked Tom Beaumont not to hold me on it yet. 

 

   Well, he can quote me on it, but there's a possibility I could vote no.

 

   Burlington Hawkeye?

 

   QUESTION: Hi. I was just wondering if you got a chance to look at the infrastructure and job creation side of the bill yet and what your thoughts are on that. 

 

   GRASSLEY: OK. Well, you've got to break it down into several different parts of it. Let's say $12 billion for information technology. I brought this up in the committee meeting yesterday. 

 

   Information technology, medical records on computer. Computerizing medical records, that's what I should always say because that's really what we're talking about. 

 

   It's a two-year bill. We're appropriating $12 billion. Ninety-seven percent of it's going to be spent beyond the year 2012. So the 3 percent that's going to be spent in the next two years is not stimulus. The whole $12 billion is not stimulus because the stimulus is supposed to be done temporary and targeted, et cetera, et cetera; the three "Ts" that I talked about. And so you've got to -- you've got to take that $12 billion as just being something that's being stuck in the bill, something that maybe needs to be done, but it's surely not stimulus. 

 

   You go to building highways. Iowa's building less highways now because we're driving less, gas tax is down. We stick money Iowa for highways, it's going to create jobs that wouldn't otherwise be there for the next couple of years. 

 

   In the case of Iowa getting -- well, nationally, it's tens of millions of dollars for Head Start -- 55,000 more kids on -- going into the Head Start program. Well, that's going to be stimulus for the two years that they hire more teachers to teach more Head Start kids, but does anybody think that, at the end of two years, you're going to fire those teachers? 

 

   Well, that's a subterfuge for spending -- using the stimulus to spend more money on Head Start because Congress isn't going it eliminate those jobs and take that money out. So you're building something in that ought to be considered in the appropriation process, which is an annual process, and with hearings and all that stuff rather than not thinking about it and sticking it in a -- in a stimulus package. 

 

   Now, that's got nothing to do with my support for Head Start because I've been a supporter of Head Start and know that if you spend more money in that area, it's good. But it's not stimulative. 

 

   QUESTION: Thank you. 

 

   GRASSLEY: OK. I've gone through the entire list. Anybody got follow-up? 

 

   QUESTION: Senator? 

 

   GRASSLEY: Yes, go ahead. Did I skip somebody? 

 

   QUESTION: No, it's Mike Myers.

 

   GRASSLEY: Yes? 

 

   QUESTION: Just looking forward to Sunday, what are you doing? Do you watch football? Or are you just going to be out on your farm or something? 

 

   GRASSLEY: Depends on, probably, about -- let's see. I'll be coming back Monday morning, I think. 

 

   QUESTION: What morning, sir? 

 

   GRASSLEY: I think I come back Monday morning that week.  Let me see what my schedule is. 

 

   Well, if your question is do I pay much attention to the Super Bowl? No. I might pay a little bit of attention to it this time because of Mark Warner being a graduate of my alma mater, UNI -- not Mark Warner -- Kurt Warner, I'm sorry. 

 

   QUESTION: Yes, sir. 

 

   GRASSLEY: Mark Warner is the senator. 

 

   So I might be, you know -- I like him. I might be watching it. He's kind of an angel for Arizona because they didn't have much of a team the last several years. He comes back and brings them back. So, you know, I might watch it for that. 

 

   But, you know, I like college football. But professional football and basketball, when it's all muscle and height, I don't give much attention to it. 

 

  QUESTION: OK. Thank you. 

 

   GRASSLEY: Everybody, goodbye.