Expressing the Sense of the Senate That It is the Policy of the United States to Commemorate the Armenian Genocide

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am on the floor briefly today to remind my colleagues to remind their constituents that December 15 is the open enrollment deadline for healthcare at healthcare.gov. This is incredibly important because if you are uninsured or you are currently on an Affordable Care Act plan, if you don't renew or sign up by the 15th, you will be frozen out of the marketplace unless you have what is called a qualifying event.

As we head back for the weekend, I want to ensure we do everything we can to make sure there are aren't more people who go into the New Year without insurance than absolutely necessary. This is especially important because we have seen a big decline in the number of people who have insurance in this country since President Trump took office.

Obviously, we made enormous progress after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. We were able to get the percentage of Americans without insurance down to around 5 percent. That is really extraordinary. Yet we have seen that progress reverse. We have seen more and more people go without insurance since this administration started to wage what is a pretty consistent, remarkable war on the Affordable Care Act.

As we speak today, the Trump administration is in court trying to get the court system--the Federal court system--to strike down the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. If they are successful in that endeavor, then next year's deadline will not matter because the Affordable Care Act will be gone; 20 million people will lose their health insurance; insurers will once again be able to charge you more because you have a preexisting condition or your kid has cancer or you are a woman.

As we fight that court case, we need to remember that the Affordable Care Act is still out there and is still very affordable for millions and millions of Americans. Seventy percent of enrollees who go on to healthcare.gov find they qualify for financial help, meaning the sticker price is not actually what you pay. The tax credits in ObamaCare will help you get that premium lower.

In fact, on average, folks are getting pretty sizable premiums--in the neighborhood of $500. That could make healthcare incredibly affordable, even if the sticker price looks out of your range.

A woman in Hartford, named Deborah, visited a local enrollment fair after receiving a letter saying her premiums actually might be going up. She said this:

That scared me a little bit so I wanted to come in and have someone explain it to me whether it was going to go up, decrease, you know, what were my options. What ended up happening is that actually my premium went down for the same plan but I also learned that just because they renew you that I had the opportunity to go in and say no, I don't want that plan, I want to choose this plan. I am ecstatic with my new plan. . . . I got educated on the insurance process and I like that.

You can still get that help. You can still get somebody on the phone to walk you through your choices. I really encourage people to do that by this Sunday.

For folks who do find an affordable plan, I hope you will also step up and try to help us maintain the protections and the coverages we have. We have been fighting a battle with the Trump administration. It doesn't like the Affordable Care Act simply because the President's name is on it, despite the fact that Americans don't want the Affordable Care Act repealed. But the administration has been doing everything within its power to try to make it harder for people to sign up. The administration has rolled back the advertising for the Affordable Care Act.

This is what qualifies for advertising today--charts on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The administration has rolled back the money for the navigators--the people who help you pick which plan is right for you. The administration, for a period of time, threatened to stop paying insurance companies, which chilled the interest of insurers to actually offer plans on these exchanges. As I mentioned, the administration is going to court to try to unroll and unwind the entirety of the act through a court case.

Lastly, though, what you will find, if you go and enroll in some States, are plans that look like an Affordable Care Act plan on these websites but actually aren't. They are what we call junk plans, short- term plans--plans that don't really cover anything. They might not cover maternity care or addiction care or mental health or prescription drugs. Some of these junk plans don't cover you if you get admitted into the hospital on a Friday or Saturday.

Be careful of those plans because the sticker price is going to look really low, but that is for a reason. It is because they don't cover anything.

The President has allowed for those junk plans to be shown right next to the Affordable Care Act plan. Make sure you are signing up for a regulated, Affordable Care Act plan. That is a plan that is bronze or silver or gold, not one of these junk short-term plans that is not going to be right for the vast majority of Americans.

It is not too late. Sunday is the deadline. If you are in Connecticut, make sure to go to Access Health CT or your State exchange, if your State runs an exchange. If not, you can get healthcare through www.healthcare.gov.

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