The presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote . If not, the ayes are 61, the nays are 30. Threefifths of the senate duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to. No expressions of approval are permitted in the gallery. The presiding officer the senator from louisiana. Ms. Landrieu thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , i thank the my colleagues that led this effort on this nondiscrimination bill which was historic and pleased that we had a partisan vote to make america more accepting and just place, and its a work in progress and really pleased that we could find the support on this floor to do that. Now the bill goes to the house, and i urge my colleagues and my congressional delegation and others to look at this bill with an open mind and an open heart and end discrimination in the workplace, and i hope that they will. Mr. President , id like to speak about a bill i plan to introduce in just a few moments, and hopefully well have some chance or opportunity in the near future to debate it, because its a very important fix, if you will, to the Affordable Care act. When we debated this bill for literally years and months in committee, for hours and hours and hours in daylight and during the evening sessions, there were hundreds and hundreds of amendments built. This bill was built with democratic and republican support and input not support. The republicans did not vote for the bill, but they most certainly had a tremendous amount of impact and in the amendment process. Anyway, building a new Health Care System for this nation has been very difficult, but it holds a great deal of promise. The Affordable Care act and the largest or easiest way to explain it was somewhere between where some people on the left want a governmentrun system, Something Like medicare for all. Its appealing but its very expensive. We couldnt figure out a costeffective way to provide that. Members on the right more conservative leaning in this body wanted to just provide savings accounts which works beautifully for people who have money to save in the account, but for people who live paycheck to paycheck, and there is no money to save, they never get any account to be able to provide for their Health Insurance. So between those two book ends, we debated for a long time about how to provide a marketbased approach for insurance. No mitigation in the world has attempted this, so this is a big effort, but its an important effort because we are a developed nation, we need to have a healthy work force. Its about as simple as that. You cant be number one in the world, you cant be the strongest economic power in the world if your people are sick and weak. Its just about as simple as that. And you cant be the strongest economic power in the world if your Health Care System is sapping so much money out of your economic power, 19 of the g. D. P. , when japan is 8 , you cant expect to beat japan in economics if were paying almost twice as much for health care and getting less results, so we had to change. So we did and we built a marketbased approach contrary to what all the opponents of the Affordable Care act say. We built a marketbased approach that basically said if youre over 65, youre on medicare and were continuing to reform and strengthen medicare. There are some very good parts of it, and then there are some weaker parts or difficult parts that need to be corrected, and over time, we will continue to streamline, save money, provide better service, more choice, et cetera, et cetera. If you are among the poorest members of our country, 133 of poverty, which is about an income of 15,000 or less, you know, potentially youre just not able to find a goodpaying fulltime job, perhaps you didnt receive the education that others have received, perhaps you have got some disability, youre you would go under this plan on medicare i mean on medicaid, and then everyone in between, the lowest income and the age of 65 is in a private Health Care System, which is a marketbased system, competition driving prices down. The idea would be that there would be 20, 30, 40 Health Care Plans in every state offered. People can choose what they want with a minimum, bronze, silver, gold plan with lots of choice. That is the promise, that is the hope, that is the idea, and the great promise of this is that if you have cancer, you cant be dropped. If you have diabetes, you cant be turned away. So when everyone is covered, the risk has spread, the price comes down and the free market operates. Now, you would never know that based on the criticism that you hear on television and radio all day long, but thats the truth. One of the important components of that bill that many of us talked about was the fact that if you had individual insurance on the market, you could keep that. Whats happening now, unfortunately, because of that grandfather provision in the Affordable Care act in my view this may not be shared by everyone on the floor, but in my view was not written as tightly as it should have been, as clearly as it should have been, so my bill that im introducing today, keeping the Affordable Care act promise act, keeping the promise act, which im introducing, will clarify this grandfather clause in the Affordable Care act, so that it will clearly say if you had an Insurance Plan that you liked, that you could afford, that you felt like you felt like thats what you wanted and you could afford, you could keep it. This bill if it passes will allow anywhere from five million to seven Million People who are getting notices like this in the mail every day, and im going to read this into the record. This is a letter sent to someone in my state. It says thank you for your support of advantage Health Care Plans over recent years. It has been our pleasure to serve you. We hope you have been satisfied. In light of the recent changes in the Health Care Insurance industry, vantage will be discontinuing our offering of grandfathered individual plans, effective january 4. This discontinuance will affect your policy. Vantage is pleased to announce the availability of several new individual products in 2014. They go on to say, beginning in 2014, you will have the option to enroll in a new plan in the Health Insurance exchange. Members enrolling through the marketplace will be eligible for premium or costshare subsidies because everyone in louisiana with a Family Income of up to 90,000 a year is going to have some sort of premium support, which is going to be a great help to many of our middleclass families. Many of the marketplace plans will provide you with more generous coverage than your current grandfathered individual plan. We invite you to visit us online to review our exchange. You may also go to www. Health care. Gov. In addition to the Exchange Plan offerings, you will have several new plan offerings available outside of the exchange. These plans are similar to your freedom or high deductible plan with information. So this is a letter that thousands of people are getting and this letter never should have gone out because we said to people if you had insurance that you like, you could keep it. We didnt say if you had insurance that you like that didnt meet the minimum standards or met the minimum standards, you could keep it. We just said and the president said over and over if you have insurance and you like the insurance you have, you can keep it. That is what my bill thats the single focus of my bill. This is not to undermine the Affordable Care act. It is to strengthen it and to keep our promise to the millions of americans that we said if you have insurance, you can keep what you have. If you dont, there is going to be this new marketplace where you and your family can go and choose among a variety of different plans, and depending on your income have support from the community or from the government, and then if you are extremely poor, we can provide options for you through medicaid, not as desirable as private insurance but many governors, including some republican governors, are being very creative with their medicaid plans and actually changing them into more of a sort of a private privatelike insurance model. So there is great flexibility in how governors that have good hearts and good intentions are using their medicaid dollars wisely. But having said that, having reread the grandfather clause, looking at it very closely, i have determined that this is the best course to introduce this bill, which i will do later this evening, to actually file it. And again, it has two simple directives. One, all Insurance Companies shall continue to offer grandfather plans that were in effect prior to a certain date. And number two, every Insurance Company that provided those grandfather plans has to explain to those policyholders how their current plan falls short of the new standard on the market and what might be available to them thats better, but they are not forced to buy it. So i hope that we can debate this with the idea. Unlike many on the other side want to tear the act down, repeal it, defund it. They have even taken the whole federal government hostage and the whole economy of the United States hostage. That is what they tried to do. They failed. Thank goodness, and the hostages have been released, the government is back up and operating, but there are some of us who are sincere about supporting the concepts of this bill. The promise of this bill which is extraordinary, really, and historic but we recognize that there are some pieces of it that need to be fixed or tightened or tweaked to make sure that its going to work in the future as we have said. So, again, that is simply what my bill does. Im happy to introduce it. Ive got one cosponsor, senator manchin from West Virginia, but many others have expressed their interest in working with me on this, and i look forward to bringing this before the committee for full debate and hopefully to the senate floor in some way in the near future for debate and hopefully for passage. And i yield tour. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call a senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from colorado. Mr. Bennet thank you, mr. President. I ask that the quorum call be suspended. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Bennet thank you, mr. President. I ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Bennet i understand the chair is ready to announce the conferees for h. R. 3080, the Water Resources bill. The presiding officer the chair appoints the conferees on behalf of the senate. The clerk senators boxer, baucus, carper, cardin, white house, vitter, inhofe, and barrasso. Mr. Bennet thank you, mr. President. I ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to calendar 233, s. 42. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk calendar number 233, s. 42, a bill to provide antiretaliation protections for antitrust whistleblowers. The presiding officer is there objection to proceeding to the measure . Without objection, the senate will proceed. Mr. Bennet i ask unanimous consent the committeereported amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motions to reconsider passed and the motions to reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Bennet mr. President , i ask unanimous consent the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of s. Res. 277 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk s. Res. 277, recognizing the religious and historical significance of the festival of duali. The presiding officer is there objection to proceeding to the measure . Without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. Mr. Bennet thank you, mr. President. I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with intervening action or debate. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Bennet i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. Res. 285, which was submitted earlier today. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk s. Res. 285, authorizing the committee on rules and administration to prepare a revised edition of the standing rules of the senate as a senate document. The presiding officer is there objection to proceeding to the measure . Without objection, the senate will proceed. Mr. Bennet i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Bennet mr. President , i understand that h. R h. R. 3204 hs been received from the house and is at the desk. The presiding officer the clerk will read the title of the bill for the first time. The clerk h. R. 3204, an act to amend the federal food, drug and cosmetic act with respect to human drug compounding and drug supply Chain Security and for other purposes. Mr. Bennet i would ask for its second reading and object to my own request. The presiding officer objection having been heard, the bill will receive its second reading on the next legislative day. Mr. Bennet thank you, mr. President. I ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 00 a. M. On tuesday, november 5, 2013. And that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. And that following any leader remarks, the senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to s. 815, the employee nondiscrimination act, postcloture, and that the Senate Recess from 12 30 p. M. Until 2 15 p. M. To allow for the weekly caucus meetings. And finally, that all time during adjournment, recess, and morning Business Count postcloture on the motion to proceed to s. 815. The presiding officer without objection, so ordered. Mr. Bennet if theres no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. The presiding officer the Senate Stands adjourned until incredibly important to the carriers that represent, the concept of universal service which is the idea that all americans to minor matter where you live, should have access to comparable and affordable telecommunication services. So as we have gone through this evolution of the last several from Plain Old Telephone Service to a broadband world to an ip world somehow we ensure that Rural Americans access to those same services. And so that has been a big focus , legislatively and certainly with the sec talking to them about how important it is to maintain the tenants of the universal service, what that means, and how that mechanism has allowed folks in the world, highcost areas, to actually have a Comparable Services. Making the jump from copper wire to fiberoptic fiberoptic in Rural America tonight on the communiques at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. I am surrounded by just a few of the items. She often worked with one of her favorite designers for receipts and they wear. This is the average she wore to the formal opening of the st. Lawrence seaway where she and i she indyk met the prince. This was a printed cotton fabric with many of the house is that the eisenhowers lived in during their marriage. Also includes the five star symbols for general eisenhower. A few examples of the day dresses. Very fond of the color pink. She wore it in many different shapes and styles. Katie kennedy is wellknown for the little black dress, and here are two examples. She always says she would never dress like an old lady. These towns that she wore will enter 70s and 80s show light colors and while fabrics. First lady tonight live at 9 00 eastern on cspan and cspan three, also on cspan radio and cspan. Org. Up next treasury secretary jack lew at last Weeks White House summit on business investment. He called on congress to pass the immigration bill, reform the tax code, and replace acrosstheboard spending cuts none of sequestration. Introduced by commerce secretary this is a halfhour. The firstever select u. S. A. Senate meeting. As you may have heard, we are sold out with 1200 attendees. Business leaders from 58 countries and across the United States are here today. A warm welcome to all of you from all of us in the obama administration. Let me be clear [applause] let me be clear, this summit is about you. It is all about business. It is all about connecting investors with communities. Let me start with the story. When the select usa program was just starting out, an Austrian Company that makes auto parts was considering investing more in the United States. We went into action. The Commerce Departments vienna staff counsel the company on how to successfully established a new plan in the United States. The u. S. Ambassador in austria met with the companys leaders. We connected a company with the statelevel leaders that they wanted to me to. As a result, over the past year, the company has invested 62 million in its new facility in carters will, georgia. And just two weeks ago they started moving in. Theyre green new equipment and gear