Rebuild America Jobs Act--Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, the October 2011 issue of the AARP bulletin contains an interesting opinion piece. It was written by the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid. It is right there on the front page, Senate Leader Reid. His opinion piece is entitled ``The Health Care Law is Already Working.''
I come to the floor, as I do from time to time, to give a doctor's second opinion. I have a second opinion today about the piece in the AARP paper. I find the choice of the words in the title, ``The Health Care Law is Already Working,'' ironic, especially as the American people continue to express negative views about President Obama's health care law.
I come to the floor--as a physician who has practiced medicine in Wyoming and taken care of Wyoming families for a quarter of a century--to talk about the health care law and to talk about health care in America. What we see is a growing majority of Americans who want to see the entire law repealed and replaced with patient-centered reforms.
Don't take my word for it. Let's look at the facts. On October 18, 2011, just last week, the Kaiser Family Foundation released its monthly health tracking poll. This is a nonpartisan Kaiser survey and it tracks the public views about the health care law, and they have been doing it ongoing. The results this month are truly astonishing. About half of all Americans have an unfavorable view of the health care law. Overall favorability of the health care law stands at just 34 percent, an alltime low. The number of individuals who view the health care law very favorably stands at 12 percent, an alltime low. The number of people who think they will personally be better off due to the health care law stands at 18 percent, an alltime low. The number of individuals who think the country, as a whole, will be better off due to the health care law stands at just 28 percent, an alltime low. Approval of the law among Democrats dropped 13 percentage points to an alltime low. These results make it clear that the new health care law does not work.
About 19 months ago, Mr. Schumer, the senior Senator from New York, claimed on NBC's ``Meet The Press'' that:
..... as people learn about the bill, and now that the bill is enacted, it's going to become more and more popular.
The President and Washington Democrats miscalculated. They made numerous promises to the American people and they said we need to act fast. We can answer questions later. They asked the American people to trust them. Then the Nation watched as weeks went by, new stories uncovered another health care law glitch, another health care law unintended consequence and another of the President's broken promises.
Seniors all around the country know that the President's health care law took over $500 billion from a broken Medicare Program not to save Medicare but to start a whole new government spending program for someone else, not for seniors. Medicare patients know the health care law failed them and failed to address the broken physician payment system. America's seniors understand that Washington Democrats can't cut $ 1/2 trillion from Medicare and then claim those cuts will not impact their own health care.
When we look at Medicaid, Governors all across the country know the health care law's Medicaid expansion will restrict patient access to care and very likely bankrupt our States. Medicare only pays health care providers cents on the dollar. That is why about 40 percent of physicians don't accept Medicaid patients. Having a government health care card doesn't mean patients will actually have access to medical care.
We also have concerns since the law was passed about employers dropping coverage. President Obama promised that if Americans liked their current health care plan, under the law, they would be able to keep it. Over the last 19 months, employers have made it clear that the law's mandates are too expensive, threatening their own ability to offer health insurance to their employees.
A reputable national consulting firm surveyed employers across industries, geographies, and employer sizes. The company produced a report titled ``How U.S. Health Care Reform Will Affect Employees' Benefits.'' The company, McKinsey & Company, found that overall 30 percent of employers will either definitely or probably stop offering employer-sponsored coverage after 2014. That is when the President's health care law goes into full effect. Among employers with a high awareness of the health care law, understanding the specific implications of the law, that number of those who will either definitely or probably stop offering employer-sponsored coverage jumps to 50 percent. At least 30 percent of employers would actually gain economically by simply dropping coverage even if they compensate employees through other benefit offerings or higher salaries. So how did we get from ``if you like the plan you have, you can keep it'' to ``30 percent of employers will either definitely or probably stop offering health insurance''?
The problems continue to mount. Recently, on October 20, 2011, Walmart announced its decision to scale back health insurance for some part-time employees. A New York Times article explained that future part-time Walmart employees working less than 24 hours per week won't be allowed to join the company's plan. New part-time employees working between 24 and 33 hours a week won't be able to buy insurance for their spouses. The New York Times article quotes Walmart as saying that the increasing cost of health care is the reason for the change.
Now let's take a look at people's premiums. In 2009, President Obama promised that his health care plan would reduce health insurance premiums $2,500 a year for families in America. Well, the opposite has occurred. President Obama's law has forced Americans to pay more for their health care premiums. On September 27, 2011, the Kaiser Family Foundation issued a report showing that the employer average annual family premium increased 9 percent, from $13,770 to $15,073. The employer average annual single premium--the other was a family, now for singles--the single premium increased 8 percent, from $5,049 to $5,429. Of course, part of this premium increase is tied directly to the health care law.
Then let's look at the CLASS program. That program has recently failed. Remember, President Obama's health care law established a brandnew Federal long-term care entitlement program. It was referred to as CLASS, but the letters stood for ``Community Living Assistance Services and Supports.'' Well, to qualify, people would have to pay the government a monthly premium for 5 years, and then after those 5 years, they could begin collecting benefits. It is now known that the CLASS program was an intentionally designed budget gimmick. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the CLASS program would reduce the deficit by $86 billion. These ``savings'' came from the premium dollars the CLASS program would collect for the first 5 years, all while the program wasn't required or allowed to pay out any benefits to individuals. So all the money would be coming in. Instead of holding on to that excess money being collected to pay out for future expenses, Washington Democrats here in the Senate used those funds to pay for President Obama's health care law.
Fast forward, and we now know for sure that the program is not financially viable and does not work. How do we know that? Well, many of us knew it when it was going on here on the Senate floor a few years ago, but on October 14 of this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the administration will not implement the CLASS program.
An op-ed she has written appeared in the Huffington Post, and it said:
..... as a report our department is releasing today shows, we have not identified a way to make CLASS work at this time.
The Obama administration had 19 months to figure out how to implement the program, and they couldn't do it. Administration officials at the Department of Health and Human Services knew the CLASS program was unsustainable, and I believe they knew it before President Obama signed the health care law. They knew it, the administration knew it, and the administration failed in their duty to be honest with the American people and tell them.
Today, the White House still refuses to admit that the CLASS program is a colossal failure. In the middle of last month, October 17, 2011, White House spokesman Nick Papas said:
Repealing the CLASS Act isn't necessary or productive. What we should be doing is working together to address the long-term care challenges we face as a country.
How can the White House admit that this part of the health care spending law will burden taxpayers with yet another unsustainable entitlement program and at the same time demand that it stay on the books? How do they do that?
After having received the AARP bulletin with the headline ``The Health Care Law Is Already Working'' from the Senate majority leader, I came to the conclusion that I needed to come to the floor with a second opinion. The health care law needs to be repealed. It must be replaced with reasonable, commonsense, and financially sound alternatives. This health care law is not working. It is not good for patients; it is not good for providers, the doctors and the nurses who take care of those patients; and it is not good for the American taxpayers.
I will continue to come to the floor of the Senate as we learn more and more about this health care law. It seems that just about every week or so there is a new, unintended consequence that comes forward, a new concern for patients, a new concern for providers, a new concern for the taxpayers. I will continue to work with my patients and with my colleagues to find a health care law that gets patients the care they need from the doctor they want at a price they can afford.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
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Mr. BARRASSO. I respond to my colleague from Arizona
that we all have concerns for the people of America. That is why we were here trying to offer constructive ideas to make sure people would get the care they need, from the doctor that they want, at a price they can afford.
We heard the President make promises that the cost of premiums would go down $2,500 a family. We have seen instead the premiums have gone up.
We heard the President say: If you like what you have, you can keep it. We saw that we lost out on that. So many people are going to lose the health coverage they like under this new health care law. So I say to my colleague, absolutely there are things we can do and should be doing.
It is astonishing. I received through my medical office the AARP Bulletin. On the cover of this AARP Bulletin for this past month, October 2011, the headline is, ``Senate Leader Reid: The Health Care Law Is Already Working.'' This is what the Senate majority leader has said on the cover of the AARP Bulletin. Yet the Kaiser survey that tracks public views about health care every month has come out with their recent numbers, and the results are astonishing. The American people have seen through this health care law to the point that a majority of Americans now have an unfavorable view of the health care law.
Mr. McCAIN. So we now have about two-thirds of what was advertised as a savings now going by the boards; in other words, $70 billion of the advertised $122 billion in total savings that we voted on not that long ago; is that correct?
Mr. BARRASSO. That is exactly the way I read it, that is the way the American people read it, which is why the overall favorability of the health care law now stands at only 34 percent, an all-time low.
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Mr. BARRASSO. I think this is devastating for the country. I told the President directly that overall I thought his proposal was going to bankrupt the country. We stood here and debated over a year ago the fact that the Democrats in this body were voting to take $500 billion away from our seniors on Medicare--not to save Medicare, but to start a whole new government program for somebody else. And when we talk about long-term care and what people need over the course of their lifetime, they took money away from hospice. They took money away from home health. They continue to take money away from hospitals and the physicians who take care of our seniors.
Mr. McCAIN. The popular Medicare Advantage Program.
Mr. BARRASSO. Which has an advantage because it coordinates care. It does a number of things that are important. I believe this is the reason why last week in the Kaiser poll, the number of individuals who have a very favorable view of the overall health care law has dropped to 12 percent, an all-time low. The number of people who think they will personally be better off under the health care law is only 18 percent, an all-time low. The number of people in the country who think that the country as a whole will be better off due to the health care law stands at 28 percent, an all-time low. The American people realize we need truth, honesty in budgeting.
I know my colleague from the Budget Committee is working on that. He has an op-ed I read and has a proposal and is working on that. That is what the American people want. They want some honesty in budgeting, not the kind of politics and budget gimmicks and tricks we see happening here. The American people are tired of being misled and sold a bill of goods. They see through it. They don't like it, they don't want it, and that is why all of the polling on the health care law shows it at an all-time low.
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Mr. BARRASSO. You would hear about it. This speaks to the problems we have in this body. When they write legislation in the cloak of darkness, behind closed doors, and come in and vote at 1 in the morning and try to jam things through at a time when an administration calls for openness and transparency and then they do this sort of thing with the books in a manipulative way and try to come up with ways to say that it saves money--in any other true, real business, people would go to jail for this sort of behavior, I would assume. Is it wrong? All the way wrong? We have seen other so-called bets that this administration has made which have the American people scratching their head.
Yesterday it was noted that at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, bonuses have been paid to 10 of their executives to the tune of over $12 million. I called for the President to cancel those bonuses. The White House is fairly silent on that. Yet when Senator Obama was running for President, he wrote a letter to the Treasury Secretary and said: Make sure no bonuses go to Freddie and Fannie. Now under his administration, $12 million, it was reported yesterday, went to 10 executives. It doesn't seem to be a problem now. The White House said there is nothing they can do about it. Well, why not get the Secretary of the Treasury involved? That is what Candidate Obama did in 2008. It is time for this White House to stand up and do what is right.
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