Healthcare

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I just heard the minority leader come to the floor and talk about our Republican plan for healthcare, and he called it ``insulting.''

What is insulting is that the minority leader and the Democrats want to send $83 billion of taxpayer money directly from the Treasury of the United States to health insurance corporations that continue to get rich off of ObamaCare. That is insulting to the American people.

That is a program that is riddled--riddled--with fraud. That is what they want, these COVID bonus programs put forth by Joe Biden. They want to just--3 more years, more direct checks to insurance companies, taxpayer money with no accountability.

So how bad are these programs? Well, let's just take a look at the headlines.

Monday's Wall Street Journal: ``ObamaCare Is a Mecca for Fraud.''

The Democrats must be in favor of all this fraud because that is what they want to do. They want to continue it for 83 billion more dollars.

What about the Washington Post? This is yesterday's Washington Post: ``Obamacare subsidies make it too easy to scam the system.''

That is what the Democrats appear to be wanting to do, continuing to put money--$83 billion--into a system that even the Washington Post said is easy to scam.

Is that what the American people want? That is insulting to the American people.

So tomorrow the Democrats are going to come here, and they are going to line up, one after another, and vote to send another $83 billion directly from the Federal Treasury of the United States to insurance companies--$83 billion to a program that is designed to be defrauded.

So how bad is the fraud?

Well, the Government Accountability Office tested whether the ObamaCare system would catch fraud.

Good for them.

So they made up and submitted 24 fake applications for ObamaCare. Yes. That is right--fake applications, fake information, make it up, make all the information up, and 23 of the 24 of the ObamaCare applications were approved. They were accepted and qualified to receive the subsidies.

They were fake. That is why even the Washington Post says that fraud is on the way.

They all received taxpayer-funded healthcare subsidies paid by the Federal Government. It is insulting to taxpayers that that is the best the Democrats can do, that that is what the Democrats offer.

Eighteen of the twenty-four fake enrollees--this is even worse--were still receiving taxpayer-funded subsidies as recently as September.

Now, remember, September--the month of September, end of September-- that is when the Democrats shut down the government of the United States. Why? Because of these COVID bonus payments from the Biden administration.

That is insulting.

Those subsidies were paid directly from the government to the insurance companies. The insurance companies, just for those 18 of the 24, received over $100,000 for these 18 fake applications--right from the government, not to the people, not so the people can see, did this go to a real person. No. Government. Insurance company. Insurance companies get rich. Democrats love it. Nobody gets to see what is going on, and premiums have gone up 221 percent since ObamaCare passed.

And remember Obama saying your premiums would go down by $2,500 if you just passed his law?

I just told you what happened with 18 of 24 for $100,000. Remember, there are 20 million people on ObamaCare today receiving government subsidies. When you take a look at that level of fraud happening across the board, imagine how much taxpayer money is being wasted or stolen.

The losses to the taxpayers is staggering. And that, I would say to the minority leader who came here and talked about the Republican proposal being insulting, is insulting.

And then these fake applications that were approved without any income verification--the law says you have got to verify somebody's income. Under the law, the amount of money that a person would get, in terms of bonuses, is supposed to be based on income. In one case, the fake applicant's income, according to ObamaCare officials who worked out the system, it was confirmed, they said, because of documentation. That is what they said: Based on documentation, it was approved. The people that made up the fake applications never provided any documentation at all.

That is insulting to taxpayers.

In another case, the system never requested proof of citizenship. That is how we know, for a fact, that ObamaCare subsidies go to illegal immigrants. They don't ask if you are a citizen. It is easy for noncitizens to apply.

Oh, investigators also found out that dead people were getting ObamaCare subsidies. The Democrats don't care about any of that.

That is insulting to taxpayers.

Mr. President, 58,000 Social Security numbers that were linked to death records were used to receive subsidies. More than 7,000 Social Security numbers were used in enrollments after the date of that person's death, signing them up after they were dead.

It is OK with the Democrats and the ObamaCare people, but not a single Republican voted for it.

One Social Security number was used repeatedly to enroll people into ObamaCare policies, and the fraudsters used it 125 times.

All together, investigators, through the Government Accountability Office, discovered $21 billion lost to ObamaCare fraud. That is insulting.

If Democrats were truly concerned about affordable healthcare, you would think that they would want to root out the waste and the fraud. Even the Washington Post says ``ObamaCare subsidies make it too easy to scam the system.''

Yet, every Democrat is going to come down here to the floor tomorrow and vote to continue the fraud.

The Democrat bill sends $83 billion directly from the Federal Treasury to insurance companies, and it fails to include a single reform to stop the waste, the fraud, the abuse, or the corruption because Democrats simply don't care.

Their fat-cat friends at the big insurance companies don't care either because they get paid directly from the government either way, and the Democrats want to send another $83 billion their way without a single reform.

The more people they enroll--either real people or fake people--the more money the insurance companies pocket. Oh, and their fake enrollees, they are not filing medical claims so that is just more profit for the insurance companies.

This, of course, is money from hard-working taxpayers. Stock prices of health insurance companies are up 500 to 1,000 percent since ObamaCare became law.

Under Joe Biden, Democrats suspended ObamaCare income verification for 4 straight years. As a result, millionaires get subsidies. Today, millions pay nothing for their premiums.

This is what is wrong with the healthcare that we have in this country right now under the Democrats, and they want to continue this without any change, without any credibility.

In the minds of taxpayers, you say: You are going to continue to do this? How is that credible? It is irresponsible.

It is insulting.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports 39 percent of the people who signed up for healthcare coverage on ObamaCare this year got health insurance, and they paid absolutely nothing for it--zero. Some of them may not even know they got it, but the money went to the insurance companies directly from the government. The American people are paying the price.

The fraud has gotten so bad that last year, 200,000 people-- Americans--filed complaints with the Federal Government about their health insurance. And they filed complaints because they were unknowingly switched from one ObamaCare plan to another or from one plan to something different. They didn't even know it was happening, and that is the 200,000 that recognized it and complained to the government.

Health insurance companies signed up these individuals for insurance plans they never even knew they got. But if an insurance company or somebody selling insurance gets a name, an identification number, Social Security, they can--these brokers get paid a bonus for signing up somebody new to the plan. The person is listed. Money goes to the insurance company because the person is cut out of it and doesn't know about.

That is why we had 200,000 complaints to the Federal Government last year.

It is fraud, plain and simple. The Democrats want to continue it for the next 3 years.

Here is the truth about healthcare and insurance companies: If you don't stop fraud, the chronic high costs will never be cured. In fact, they are going to get worse. That is why Republicans passed this past summer strong, anti-fraud protections as part of our Working Families Tax Cut bill.

Our reforms make it harder to cheat the system. Democrats don't like that. Every one of them voted against our bill this past summer to put in protections for taxpayers. Every Democrat voted no.

What Republicans did was restored income verification. Democrats: Nope. We don't want to verify income. Send these subsidies to millionaires. You hear the Senator from New Hampshire--I am sorry--the Senator from Vermont down here talking about tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. They want to send subsidies for healthcare for millionaires and billionaires. He could make that much money this year. Keep sending them the subsidies.

Now, people are going to need to verify their income when they reenroll, and we are going to require a full repayment when individuals have underreported their income in an effort to get higher subsidies because it is fraud.

Every single Democrat voted against the fraud provisions. They voted against these protections that we had against the fraud. And now Democrats, with what they want to do for the next 3 years, want to make the fraud dramatically worse.

This needs to end. The American people deserve the care they need from a doctor that they choose at a price they can afford. ObamaCare absolutely failed to deliver that.

Republicans are committed to protecting taxpayers, committed to rooting out the waste, the fraud, the abuse, and the corruption that has become epidemic in ObamaCare.

So when the minority leader comes to the floor and makes his statements and talks about the Republican proposal being insulting, I would tell you what the Democrats have foisted on the American people has been insulting; and the waste, fraud, and abuse that continues is a continued insult to American taxpayers.

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