Obamacare

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on another matter, we have heard a lot about the Supreme Court's imminent decision on ObamaCare and its latest problems. No one can say for sure how the Court will rule, but one thing we do know is this: ObamaCare is a mess. It is a law filled with broken promises, one that has been plagued by failure and one that has caused costs to skyrocket for millions after the supporters of this law promised the costs would actually fall.

I speak to you in the wake of a bombshell revelation from the administration that many insurers are now requesting to raise premiums by double digits all across the country. For instance, numbers for Kentucky just came out yesterday, and most of the insurers on the Commonwealth's ObamaCare exchange are looking to raise premiums. Some of the proposed increases are as high as 25 percent, and some Kentuckians may now face double-digit premium increases for the second or even the third year in a row. This is more bad ObamaCare news for the people I represent.

In some States, the proposed increases are even more alarming, if you can believe it. Kentuckians can look next door for proof of that, where some Hoosiers could be hit with a 46-percent jump in their premiums, or if they look south to Tennessee, they will see that premium hikes of 36 percent have been proposed.

These are huge numbers, and they affect real people. We have seen the truth of that statement in the stories we hear from constituents about how ObamaCare's massive cost burdens affect all of them. Take the Kentucky small business owner who wrote to say that his plan is now being canceled thanks to ObamaCare. Here is what he had to say: ``My monthly premium will increase from $610 to [approximately] $1,200,'' he said, ``and this is with very high deductibles.'' Or take the constituent of mine from Floyd County who recently wrote to say she can no longer afford her silver ObamaCare plan after the monthly premium spiked by more than 75 percent. ``I was forced to take the Bronze Plan,'' she said, ``which isn't worth the paper or ink to print it on.''

These are the kinds of stories that have become all too familiar in the age of ObamaCare. They are compounded by a continual drip, drip of bad news about this law, such as the recent report that showed how ObamaCare's multibillion-dollar attack on hospitals in Kentucky is expected to result in a net loss of $1 billion over the next few years--a net loss of $1 billion to Kentucky hospitals.

This is after ObamaCare already compelled taxpayers to shell out billions for Web sites that never worked, along with some pretty sad and desperate but expensive taxpayer-financed marketing campaigns that often just directed users to some technological nightmare, not affordable health care. Take Oregon, for instance. Taxpayers spent over $300 million on that State's exchange, only to have it taken over by the Federal Government and then, along with the ObamaCare exchange in Massachusetts, placed under Federal criminal investigation. Look at Hawaii, which received more than $205 million to establish its exchange. We learned just last month that the Hawaii exchange is planning to shut down operations by September 30 since lawmakers couldn't decide on a path forward to pay for it. And then there is Vermont. This morning, the New York Times reported on the spectacular crash of Vermont's even more ambitious version of ObamaCare. Many on the left thought Vermont's experiment would light the way forward on health care. In the end, it turned out to be a remarkable failure and, as one Vermonter put it, ``an unending money pit.'' The State's top health official now says that ObamaCare's exchanges ``just [weren't] set up for success.'' That is in Vermont.

ObamaCare is hitting small and midsized businesses, too. These are the engines of job growth in our economy, but too many of them are now facing premium hikes of nearly 20 percent because of ObamaCare. One 54-person company in Connecticut is facing up to $100,000 in new costs. Its owner says that ObamaCare ``punishes companies for hiring new, younger workers,'' and, indeed, the uncertainty is causing her company to hire temporary workers rather than create permanent jobs.

So while it is possible that ObamaCare will survive its latest crisis, that is not going to change the grim reality of this law. It won't change the broken promises, it won't change the repeated failures, and it won't change the fact that ObamaCare has led to skyrocketing costs for taxpayers, the small businesses that drive the American dream, and, most importantly, for middle-class Americans who work hard every single day and play by the rules.

It is about time the President and his party worked constructively with us to start over on real health reform that can lower costs and increase choice instead of hurting the middle class the way ObamaCare does. That is what the American people deserve.

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