Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, most mornings when the Senate is in session, the minority leader comes to the floor--Senator Reid--and talks for a while, and he sometimes talks about things in the news. So I come today to the floor to talk about a headline in the news today-- in the New York Times, of all places--with this headline: ``Obamacare Premiums Are Rising, and Not by a Little.'' ``Obamacare Premiums Are Rising, and Not By a Little'' is today's New York Times headline.
It is interesting that when I hear Senator Reid come to the floor, so often he is coming to the floor to defend the Obama health care law. A couple of weeks ago he came to the floor and he said that ObamaCare is ``continuing to work.'' Those are his words. So today I find interesting the New York Times story with this headline: ``Obamacare Premiums Are Rising, and Not By a Little.'' It says:
Even in urban areas where competition was expected to be brisk and the risk pool young and healthy--
``Expected'' is the key word there--
insurers appear to be struggling. In 14 major cities, insurers are asking for 2017 increases twice as big as 2016.
Twice as big as last year--yet Senator Reid says ObamaCare is continuing to work.
The next day after he said that, he said that the Affordable Care Act is working. Well, I don't know anyone who could be a Member of the Senate and could actually be going home to their home States on the weekends and listening to people who live in their home States who could believe that ObamaCare is working.
Across the country, people are seeing how much more money they are expected to pay for their health insurance premiums next year. I just read that story from today's New York Times.
Yesterday's Washington Post said:
Premiums for health plans sold through the federal insurance exchange-- the one that Democrats came to the floor and said they loved and was going to work-- could jump substantially next year--
That was from the Washington Post yesterday-- perhaps more than at any point since the Affordable Care Act marketplaces began in 2013.
Does Senator Reid read the newspapers? Does he talk to his constituents? Otherwise, how can he be so terribly confused about the impact of this health care law and the damage it has done to the American people?
So far, 31 States and the District of Columbia have released information on what insurance companies plan to charge next year. The average American is facing premiums that are 22 percent higher than this year. That is what is bringing about these headlines in the Washington Post and the New York Times.
In Iowa, an insurance company says that it wants its customers in the ObamaCare exchange to pay as much as 43 percent more next year. One customer wrote in to the State insurance division and said: ``You're killing me.''
Does Senator Reid understand the impact of this law?
Another wrote in and said: ``Who can afford this? It's disastrous.''
Does Senator Reid note any of that?
In North Carolina, the largest insurance company in the State said it plans to charge people an average of 19 percent more next year.
In Pennsylvania, one company says it is going to charge people up to 48 percent more starting in January.
In Arizona, people are facing premium increases of 53 percent. That is the average increase in Arizona.
So it is not surprising to see a headline in the New York Times today--and I hope Senator Reid read the paper: ``Obamacare Premiums Are Rising, and Not By a Little.''
Well, whose fault is this? Who should people across the country blame when they see these outrageous price increases that affect them at home? Well, I believe they should blame Senator Reid and every Democrat in Congress who voted for ObamaCare and all of the expensive requirements, regulations, and restrictions.
So the question is, Is ObamaCare working? Let's use President Obama's standard, the one that he set for himself. Well, he promised that if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor. Well, insurance plans have been trying to cut costs by doing what? By narrowing the network of doctors that patients can see. People are finding that they can't keep their doctors. They have been losing their doctor because the doctor is no longer covered by their insurance.
Well, you say, this is from a guy who has practiced medicine for a long time. No, it is a whole weekend section in the Sunday Review of the New York Times: ``Sorry, We Don't Take Obamacare.'' People who have ObamaCare, people who actually supported the idea of ObamaCare cannot see a doctor, cannot go to a hospital because of this health care law.
President Obama said if you liked your insurance, you could keep your insurance. Well, can you? Ninety-two thousand people in Colorado are losing their insurance plan because companies are pulling out of the State. Twenty-two thousand people in Ohio are now scrambling to find new health insurance because the co-op they were in went broke last month.
The health care law actually created 23 different co-ops; 13 of them have gone out of business.
Over the past couple of years, 745,000 Americans who were promised by Barack Obama that if they like their insurance they can keep it lost their insurance because their co-ops have closed down, just under the health care law. President Obama promised--it is his standard--that under his health care law, the average family would see their health care rates go down by $2,500 per year. Anyone who wants to know if ObamaCare is working should ask one simple question: Did your health insurance rates go down by $2,500? That is the standard the Democrats should be held to.
Now we know that ObamaCare did take millions of people and put them into Medicaid, which is a failed system, a broken system. Many refer to it as a second-class citizen. It is hard to see a doctor, hard to get care. It took other people and gave them big taxpayer subsidies, paid for by the American taxpayers, to help them afford the high premiums-- the subsidies helped them afford the high premiums for this overpriced ObamaCare insurance, but those people will tell you that it left them with deductibles and copays so high that they can't actually use the insurance. For millions of other Americans, there are no subsidies-- just enormous bills.
The President says: Don't worry, you are going to get a subsidy. But let's take a look at how many people will get subsidies and how many will get none who happen to be buying insurance through the exchanges. According to the Congressional Budget Office--the people who look into this--there are 12 million Americans who get some sort of subsidy to buy ObamaCare insurance. The premiums go up, the subsidies go up, but that is a bill that hits the taxpayers, the hard-working men and women in the country who pay their taxes year in and year out.
So that is 12 million, but there are another 12 million--an equal number of people--who have to buy this insurance without any of the subsidies at all. So when the President takes a look and talks about these 12 million, that is a significant hit to the American taxpayers and it turns a blind eye to the 12 million Americans who buy insurance without any of the subsidies. They are left to pay the full freight for these enormous premium increases we are looking at next year.
There was an Associated Press story on Monday. I read the story in today's paper, the story in yesterday's paper, the Associated Press headline on Monday--``Rising premiums rattle consumers paying their own way.'' Are Senator Reid and the Democrats rattled by it? They should be because the American public is rattled by it. This tells the story of a woman from Queens, NY. We have two Democratic Senators in this body who voted for this health care law. This is one of their constituents from Queens, NY. She got a notice from her insurance company that they plan to raise her rates by as much as 25 percent next year. On top of this, her plan dropped the hospital network she wants. Well, President Obama promised that she could keep her insurance, she could keep her doctor, and she could keep her hospital. It doesn't apply to this woman in Queens. She says: ``For people like me who are in the middle, there is very limited choice, and now that limited choice is going to get more expensive.'' How do the Senators from New York respond to that? Why aren't they on the floor talking about it?
For most Americans, the Democrats' health care law has meant higher prices, worse health care, and less freedom to choose what is right for them and their families. That is why the polls show that, on average, only 4 out of 10 Americans have a favorable view of the health care law at all, and it is because the premiums keep going up and up without end and are hitting them in the pocket. It is because people are also paying higher deductibles and higher copayments just to see a doctor.
The Kaiser Family Foundation did a survey, and they asked about these deductibles and copays. What they said was that for people who have deductibles over $1,500--even those people who are getting the subsidies for ObamaCare, which the President says is so great--70 percent of them with deductibles over $1,500 ranked ObamaCare as a poor value.
This is a $1,500 deductible. The average silver plan in the ObamaCare exchanges has a deductible of more than $3,000. Insurance plans for next year are starting to come with deductibles of $7,000. How can the President say this is valuable? The people who are getting it--even with his expensive subsidies paid for by taxpayers--are saying this is giving them very little value and is a poor value. That is why this law is so unpopular. That is why ObamaCare continues to be underwater in terms of those who support it and those who oppose it. The average deductible for a silver plan this year is $600 higher than it was just 2 years ago.
That is why, when we see these headlines in the New York Times today and the Washington Post yesterday, we realize that people all across the country are being hurt by this Obama health care law. One out of four Americans say they have been personally hurt by the health care law--not that they know somebody who has been hurt but that they have personally been hurt by the health care law.
Even for people who are getting the subsidies for their premiums, the deductibles and the copays have been rising very fast. People never get to the point of being able to use their insurance. I mean, that is the real problem with the way this was set up. They have coverage; they still can't afford care.
It is interesting to listen to the President's speech. If you listen to him carefully, he doesn't actually use the word ``care,'' he uses the word ``coverage.'' If you can't get care, coverage is useless, but that is what the President's numbers are. He talks about coverage, refusing to talk about care. This is about health care. People want care, not empty coverage.
But in the face of all this evidence, the Democratic leader, Harry Reid, has stood here on the floor of the Senate and pretended in front of the American people that ObamaCare is working. He has repeatedly ignored every broken promise that every Democratic Member in Congress made about the health care law. He has come to the floor and repeatedly ignored every American who has lost their insurance. He repeatedly comes to the floor and ignores every American who has had to pay outrageous amounts of money for insurance that for many of them is unusable but is mandated by President Obama and the Democrats that they have to buy under penalty of law. None of that seems to matter to the Democratic leader, who personally supervised the writing of the health care law in his office behind closed doors. It is a terribly flawed law, but behind the closed doors of his office, it was written and passed on a party-line vote.
Well, the American people have spoken, and they have given Senator Reid's efforts and the ObamaCare health care law a failing grade. Even those with the subsidies say it is a poor value today. Americans all across the country are hurting because of ObamaCare, and Senator Reid and President Obama bear the responsibility. How much more do the American people have to suffer before the Washington Democrats will accept the facts? People want the care they need from a doctor they choose at a lower cost.
Republicans have offered ways to give people what they have been asking for all along. It is time for Democrats to work with us. It is time for Democrats to stop trying to deliberately deceive the American people by pretending this broken health care law is working-- pretending. That is what this is all about because it is not working. ObamaCare remains very unpopular because people realize that for them personally, it is a very bad deal. Republicans have better ideas, better solutions. Republicans are offering the American people the freedom, the flexibility, and the choice they want when it comes to their health care.
Thank you, Mr. President.
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