Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor because this week President Obama is going to present his new jobs plan to the American people and to all of us. I am certain we will hear a lot of talk and a lot of promises.

I remember when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously announced in 2010 their White House health care summit. I sat around the table at that summit. In the discussion, she said the President's new health care law would create 4 million jobs. Here is exactly what former Speaker Pelosi promised on February 25, 2010. She said:

..... this bill is not only about the health security of America, it's about jobs. In its life it will create 4 million jobs--400,000 jobs almost immediately.

I ask, where are the jobs? The fact is, the President's health care law didn't create jobs. As a physician, I have come to the floor every week since the health care law has been signed and have given a doctor's second opinion about this health care law and why I believe it is bad for patients, bad for providers--the nurses and the doctors who take care of those patients--and terrible for the taxpayers.

Here we are 17 months after the President signed his health care plan into law and the American people have yet to see job growth anywhere near the figures promised by Nancy Pelosi. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week the American economy generated a whopping zero jobs during the month of August. This is sobering news when we have 9.1 percent unemployment in America.

The New York Times, on September 3, had an editorial called ``The Jobs Crisis,'' and let me read from it. It says:

The August employment report, released on Friday, is bleak on all counts, but at least it leaves no doubt that the United States is in the grip of a severe and worsening jobs crisis. That should lend a sense of urgency to the speech on jobs that President Obama plans to deliver this week.

The speech is scheduled for tomorrow night. The New York Times goes on to say:

The economy added no jobs in August--zero--and the anemic numbers for June and July were revised downward. The unemployment rate is stuck at 9.1 percent, but it would be 16.2 percent if it included the swelling ranks of those who find only part-time work and the millions who have given up looking for jobs that simply do not exist.

Here we are looking at this sobering news, and it seems the only connection between the health care law and the jobs market in America is that the job creators--the people who create jobs in this country--made it very clear they cannot afford the President's new health care law. Month after month we hear from more people in the private sector who explain they will either have to fire people or stop providing coverage in order to comply with the significant expenses of the new health care law. Let me repeat. This law encourages job creators not to create jobs but to fire workers, not to hire workers.

To get around this problem in the short term, the administration began doing something I did not anticipate when the health care law was signed. They began to grant waivers from the President's health care law. They said: Oh, it doesn't apply to you. It doesn't apply to you. Come and apply for a waiver. During the month of August--this past month--the administration, once again, granted another round of waivers from the President's health care law. There were another 73 waivers allowing 105,000 people to get out of
the mandates of the Obama health care law.

Since October of 2010, the Obama administration has granted over 1,500 annual benefit limit waivers. Now they are granting them for 3 years. These waivers now cover over 3.4 million Americans. So the law and the mandates don't have to apply to them with regard to the benefits. Whom have over 50 percent of these waivers gone to? They have gone to union people, people who have gotten their health care through a union health plan. These are the same people who supported the President's health care law. It is startling that even unions cannot afford the President's law.

Remember Nancy Pelosi saying: First, we have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it. As more and more Americans have found out what is in the health care law, they say we do not want this to apply to us. In fact, the Service Employees International Union said the law would be financially impossible; that it is financially impossible for them to comply with. I don't think any job creator or American family should have to bear financially impossible costs because of the President's health care law. Each time this administration releases yet another round of its health care law waivers, it reminds the American people how fatally flawed the President's new law is.

As the President prepares for his speech tomorrow night, he needs to take a hard look at his health care law. He needs to face the unfortunate reality that his law actually makes it harder and more expensive for the job creators of this country to hire more people. We need to make it easier and cheaper for the job creators in this country to create private sector jobs, but yet the President's health care law makes it harder and more expensive. Tomorrow night, the President needs to change direction. Instead of giving waivers to businesses and unions, he should announce that all Americans can get a waiver from his health care law.

The good news is, I have a bill he can support immediately. My bill will allow any individual--any American citizen--to submit a waiver application seeking relief from any or all of the health care law's mandates. The waivers will be granted to individuals showing that the health care law is either increasing their health care premiums or decreasing their access to benefits. The bill is simple. It is straightforward. It is S. 1395. It is called the Waive Act, and there are 16 cosponsors in the Senate. Basically, it says, if a person's costs go up or their benefits go down, they have the freedom to get out of the President's health care law. Health insurance premiums have risen 19 percent since President Obama took office.

Tomorrow night, the President should announce that he will allow all Americans an opportunity to opt out of his health care law. If he did, this would be one of the best steps he could take to help America's economy. That is why I come to the floor, week after week, with a doctor's second opinion about a health care law that I believe is hurting our country.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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