Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Madam President, last year when I decided to run for Montana's open Senate seat, I promised the people of Montana I would work tirelessly to repeal ObamaCare. I am upholding that promise. Tomorrow the Senate will vote to repeal President Obama's broken health care law because for many Montana families the President's health care law hasn't been what it was promised to be.

Too many Montanans have seen their work hours cut, have been forced off the plans they liked, and were told they couldn't see the doctors they trusted. Health care premiums are not as affordable for Americans as President Obama claimed they would be. We are seeing premiums rising once again. In Montana, folks who are purchasing plans from the ObamaCare exchanges are getting hit with double-digit rate increases. More than 40,000 Montanans are expected to receive notices that their insurance rates have increased by double digits--an average of 34 percent for some plans. To put that into perspective, that is another $1,000 a year for a 40-year-old on one of Montana's silver plans.

Some Montanans have been hit with even higher rate increases. Take Cindy from Missoula, MT, who received a letter from her health insurance company that her premiums were increasing by 40 percent. Unfortunately, these rate hikes are the predictable result of forcing a partisan piece of legislation through Congress without transparent consideration or bipartisan input. Sadly, those impacted the hardest by these steep rate increases are often those who can least afford it.

Americans need access to affordable care, but ObamaCare not only takes uninsured Americans in the wrong direction, it is failing to reliably provide the basic coverage Americans deserve. Look no further than the health co-op system established under ObamaCare. All but one lost money in the last year--all but one. More than half have collapsed, forcing more than 700,000 Americans to find new health insurance options.

In 2007, President Obama said himself that by the end of his first term ObamaCare would ``cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year.''

Montanans haven't seen their premiums decreased by $2,500 a year. It is not even close. Montanans are forced once again off the health care plans they liked and away from the doctors they trusted because when Washington, DC, bureaucrats take over a health care system, inevitably prices go up and the quality of care goes down. That is exactly what we have seen happen with ObamaCare. After more than 5 years of this Obama experiment, it is clear ObamaCare isn't working.

I grew up in Montana. Spending time outdoors is an important way of life for us back home. I was fly fishing before Brad Pitt made it cool in the movie ``A River Runs Through It.'' When you are in one of Montana's blue-ribbon streams and your fishing line gets tangled up, you have a couple different options. Sometimes you can take some time to untangle it and make another cast, but other times, your line gets so tangled up and knotted up that the best option is to cut the line and start over. It is time to cut the line on President Obama's failed health care law and tie on a new fly. That is what the Senate is going to do this week.

This bill dismantles President Obama's bungled health care law. It also puts our States on a glide path away from ObamaCare. It will build a bridge to replace this broken law with State-led solutions that put patients back in the center of the health care equation and return the health care decisions to Americans, to families, to their doctors and away from a bunch of DC bureaucrats. When we pass this historic legislation tomorrow, it will be the first time an ObamaCare repeal bill will be on President Obama's desk for his signature. He is going to have to decide whether to put the American people first or if he will continue imposing fines and substandard care on the hard-working people of this country.

Even if the President rejects the will of the American people and vetoes this bill, I will continue working to protect Montanans from rising health care costs, and I will keep working to ensure that all Americans receive the quality health care they deserve.

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