Congressional Disapproval Of Rule Relating To Grandfathered Health Plan--Motion To Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, Congress meets in the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia is an island surrounded by reality. Only in the District of Columbia could you get away with telling the people if you like what you have you can keep it, and then pass regulations 6 months later that do just the opposite and figure that people are going to ignore it. But common sense is eventually going to prevail in this town and common sense is going to have to prevail on this piece of legislation as well. I support the resolution of Senator Enzi, disapproving the regulation on grandfathered health plans.

The partisan health care overhaul enacted last March and subsequent implementation represents so many broken promises that I hardly know where to begin. But the resolution of Senator Enzi certainly sheds some light on one of the most glaring broken promises we have seen so far, and is as good a place as any for us to start.

Time and again throughout the health care debate, supporters of the health care overhaul assured voters that even after their proposal became law, ``If you like what your current health plan is, you will be able to keep it.''

The administration's own regulations prove this is not the case. Under the grandfathering regulation, according to the White House's own economic impact analysis, as many as 69 percent of businesses will lose their grandfathered status by 2013 and be forced to buy government-approved plans.

The estimates are even more troubling if you are a small business. Again, according to the administration's own estimates in the regulation, as many as 80 percent of small employers will be forced out of their current plan and into a more expensive government-approved plan. It is no wonder that the grandfathering regulation is opposed by pretty much every employer organization in the country. The National Federation of Independent Businesses, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the National Retail Federation have all weighed in against this burdensome and disruptive policy. In every one of those cases, businesses that are members of those organizations want to provide health insurance and have been providing health insurance for their employees, and they want to keep it. They were believing Congress when they said if you have what you like you can keep it, and now they are finding out otherwise.

It is true our economy is in a fragile place right now. Yet the implementation of the new health care law is creating more uncertainty and higher costs for American businesses. How can we ask them to go out and create jobs and hire new people when each new health care regulation adds another layer of bureaucracy and uncertainty? The White House should be making it easier to do business in this country, not harder.

This is not just about confusion, it is also about costs. When employers and individuals make even modest changes to their benefits and lose grandfathered status, they are forced to buy a new government-approved health care plan that in most cases will cost more than their current plan. That means the government will tell employers what benefits they have to cover, to whom they have to offer coverage, and how much they are going to have to contribute.

We have already seen data from health plans saying that the requirement in the new law could drive up premiums by about 9 percent. This is in line with the Congressional Budget Office's estimate that the overall increase in premiums could be as much as 10 percent to 13 percent. When you factor in medical inflation, some people are still seeing premium increases of 20 percent or more after the passage of the health care law.

What happened, then, to President Obama's promise about lowering premiums by $2,500? Are we supposed to add that to the list as another broken promise? Each day it seems as if another news story comes out that shows why the partisan health care overhaul was the wrong approach. Health plans are being forced out of the child-only market. Some have stopped selling in individual markets entirely. Premiums continue to go up at twice the rate of inflation.

The White House's own actuary is telling us that health care inflation will be worse now than it was before the health care reform bill became law. Over 1 million seniors are being forced out of their current national Medicare Advantage or Medicare prescription drug plans, and this is only going to get worse. Businesses are considering dropping retiree health care benefits and possibly dropping health care coverage altogether.

With these kinds of stories coming out on a daily basis, it is no wonder that polls are showing close to 60 percent of the American people opposed to this new law. I support the efforts of Senator Enzi and appreciate that he is willing to shed some light on this issue. There is a lot of misinformation out there and people need to understand what this health care overhaul means for them.

The grandfathering regulation is a clear violation of the promises made by supporters of the health care law that, if you like what you have, you are able to keep it. We owe it to our constituents to fix that misrepresentation.

I urge my colleagues to support the resolution.

I yield the floor.

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