Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, every day it seems as though Americans are hearing more and more news about how badly ObamaCare is failing. Some of the latest headlines have had to do with just how expensive health insurance is going to be next year under the President's health care law. The price increases that are being reported are truly staggering. Insurance companies are planning to raise rates 20 percent, 30 percent, even 40 percent on some of their plans, and they say it is because of the health care law.

The New York Times had an article just a couple of weeks ago. It quoted one lead advocate in the State of Oregon saying specifically that some people may ``start wondering if insurance is affordable, or if it's worth the money.''

Well, a lot of Americans have been wondering if the entire health care law is actually worth the money. Now, some Democrats have said that these outrageous price increases will not affect everyone. Well, they sure affect a lot of people. You know, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that the increases will not be as large as they are going to be, if you are willing to switch plans every year or if you accept less access to doctors or even less access to medications.

Well, the argument makes the same mistake that President Obama made from the beginning about the health care law, and it confuses coverage with actual care. In Connecticut, some insurance companies say they have come up with ways to slow down the increase in their premiums. What they are doing is they are actually cutting access to care. One company decided that it could save some money by reducing the use of specialty drugs. So some people who have this insurance may not be getting the drugs they used to get.

Another company in Connecticut decided that it could charge a little less by limiting the number of doctors that the patients could see. Instead of raising rates by 12.5 percent next year as they had planned, they said the company will now just be raising rates 11.5 percent. That is the kind of situation that hard-working families are facing--higher premiums, less access to care.

These narrow networks of hospitals and doctors are not just hurting people in Connecticut. They are turning up in ObamaCare plans all across the country. There was a study that came out this month. It found that plans offered through ObamaCare insurance exchanges across the country covered 34 percent fewer doctors than the average plan sold outside the exchanges.

Now, it is even worse for some specialists. According to the report, exchange plans include 42 percent fewer oncology and cardiac specialists. That is cancer doctors. That is heart doctors. So if you have cancer or if you have a heart condition, there is a much lower chance that your doctor is covered by your ObamaCare insurance.

People are paying outrageously high premiums, copays, and deductibles, and they are left with insurance coverage that may not cover their care. So a lot of people have decided they just cannot afford the Affordable Care Act. They would rather pay a tax penalty to the IRS than spend hard-earned money on this limited and expensive ObamaCare insurance. According to the IRS, last year 7.5 million hard-working taxpayers paid that tax penalty. That is 1 out of 17 taxpayers. Another 12 million people could not afford ObamaCare insurance or did not want it, and they filed a form saying they should not have to pay the penalty at all because it was unaffordable. There were only 6 million people who actually signed up for ObamaCare exchange plans last year. Almost 20 million people rejected ObamaCare because it was too expensive and it was not right for them and their families.

Now, President Obama has said repeatedly that the health care law is working--he said even better than he expected. Is this what he is talking about--even better than he expected? More Americans are rejecting ObamaCare than are signing up for it on the Federal exchange. Is that better than the President expected? Does President Obama think that the Federal insurance exchange is working better than he expected?

There were headlines about this recently as well and how Washington has failed to protect taxpayer dollars. The Government Accountability Office set up a test of healthcare.gov, the President's Web site, the one that failed so miserably. What they did is they created 12 fraudulent applications in order to see if they could actually get health insurance subsidies using fraudulent applications, and 11 of those 12 phony applications were approved last year. Now, here we are a year later. It turns out that the Washington bureaucrats--you cannot believe it--reviewed these policies and renewed the taxpayer-funded subsidies for all 11 of these phony applicants. Some of them even got higher subsidies this year than they did last year.

So what does the Government Accountability Office say about it? Well, the chief investigator looked at it. He said: There still appears to be no system in place--no system in place--to catch missing or fabricated documentation. It is incredible and it is disturbing, and it is no surprise that taxpayers are offended.

Finally, we are also seeing more news about one of the taxes that the Democrats included in their health care law. There was a headline in the New York Times last Wednesday: ``Concern Grows on Health Tax.'' That was on Wednesday, July 22, first page of the business section. ``Concern Grows on Health Tax.'' Now, this is about the new 40-percent tax on so-called Cadillac health insurance plans. These are the plans that employers offer to their workers. These are the plans that Washington says are too generous.

The article tells the story of Kurt Gallow, who works at a paper mill in Longview, WA. When you follow over, it says: Concern grows over excise tax's effect on health care plans. There are a number of people working and talking at this location in Longview, WA. But the story of Kurt is also about his wife, Brenda. She has diabetes. The article says that Kurt and Brenda are ``worrying about his company's proposed new health care plan, which would require workers to pay as much as $6,000 toward their family's medical bills.''

Now, that is a huge amount of money for anyone. But it is a huge amount of money for some of these very hard-working families. Now, these are changes that their employer has to make because of the President's health care law. You know what. This is not even an ObamaCare plan. This is not something they are buying through the exchange. These are people who get their insurance through work. Now, President Obama said that if you get your insurance through your job, ``nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.''

Well, millions of Americans across the country are finding out that was just one more expensive broken promise made by the President. ObamaCare continues to be a complicated and costly mess. Republicans have offered good ideas about how to lower health care costs, how to improve access, and how to help Americans lead healthier lives. We all have ideas that will get rid of some of the ridiculous Washington-imposed mandates that are driving up costs and forcing so many Americans to go without insurance and certainly without care.

Six years ago, the American people were unhappy with health care in this country. They did not think the solution was higher prices, less access to care, and higher taxes as well. The American people are not satisfied with these constant headlines about all of the problems with the President's health care law.

Congress should not be satisfied with the current state of health care in this country either or with the disastrous side effects of the President's health care law. It is time for the President to admit the health care law is causing pain and problems all across the country. It is time to start anew, to give people the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower costs.

I yield the floor.

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