Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today as I do week after week to talk about the health care law and offer a doctor's second opinion about this health care law. I do that as someone who has practiced medicine in Wyoming, taking care of families across the Cowboy State for about a quarter of a century, and I do it today because we are now approaching the second anniversary of the President's health care law, and, as predicted by many on my side of the aisle, the negative results continue to roll in and billions of taxpayer dollars continue to roll out.

Each week we learn more about how this law is going to break another one of the President's promises. He made a lot of promises, one of which is he said it would not add a dime to the deficit. It is now clear that the White House and Democrats in Congress completely underestimated--possibly intentionally but certainly vocally underestimated--how much the President's new entitlement program is going to cost the American people.

I come week after week because Nancy Pelosi said, ``First you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it.'' This past week a story came out that talks about the high-risk pools, designed and established to cover people who were not able to buy health insurance in the individual market prior to the health care law. The goal was admirable. The plan, though, they came out with was horrible.

First, the new Obama high-risk plans created more bureaucracy, more government, and undermined what States like mine, Wyoming, were already successfully doing.

Next, the White House and the Democrats who crammed this bill through Congress and down the throats of the American people set aside $5 billion for this program. The money was supposed to last, they said, until 2014--no problems. The bad news is that the Medicare's Chief Actuary, the official who actually tracks the spending that goes on as a result of this law, estimates now that the funding could run out much earlier than expected.

Last week the Washington Post explained how this could happen. It reported that ``medical costs for enrollees in the health-care law's high-risk insurance pools are expected to more than double initial predictions''--more than double the initial predictions by the Democrats who voted for this health care law. So the cost for enrollees are expected to be more than double what the White House and the Democrats predicted when they drafted the law, as the American people remember, behind closed doors.

The President promised this would be open--C SPAN--people would be able to see the discussions and the debates. Everything was done behind closed doors. Yet our debt as a nation continues to skyrocket. It is completely unsustainable, and it is irresponsible. You know, it could have been prevented if the White House and Congress had just let the American people participate in the process.

So here we are, 2 years later, a second anniversary coming up of a health care law, a law that the American people are now learning what is in it because, as Nancy Pelosi said, ``First you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it.''

The American people also know that this administration and this President and this Congress used about every budget trick and accounting gimmick in the book to turn it into law. They ignored the real costs, they ignored the red flags, and they ignored reality. Two years later, the American people understand that we cannot afford the high cost of the President's health care law and health care mandates. The longer it stays in place, the more expensive it will get.

That is one of the reasons Americans from both sides of the aisle are speaking out against this health care law. When I say both sides of the aisle, I want to talk about a recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. This was Monday's--Monday, February 27--USA TODAY, front-page story, right at the top: ``Health Care Law Hurts Obama.''

My concern is that the health care law is hurting the American people. That is what the impact of this law is. It is hurting the American people.

What the poll shows is that a clear majority of registered voters call the bill's passage ``a bad thing.'' They support its repeal if a Republican wins the White House in November.

Eleven percent of voters in battleground States have said the law has actually helped their families, but 15 percent say it has hurt them. Looking ahead, they predict by a number of 42 percent to 20 percent, so two to one, that the law will make things worse rather than better for their families and for their lives.

Americans overwhelmingly believe the individual mandate, which is a key part of the Obama health care law, is unconstitutional, the mandate that every American must buy insurance. Americans believe it is unconstitutional by a margin of 72 percent to only 20 percent. An overwhelming number of Americans believe that what this Senate and the House, under Democratic control, and the President in the White House, Barack Obama, have forced on the American people--they believe, and I agree with them--is unconstitutional. Even a majority of Democrats and a majority of those who think the health care law is a good thing believe that provision--that people across the country be forced to buy health insurance or to buy any product--is unconstitutional.

Instead of heaping more debt on the backs of the American people, we need to repeal the law. We need to replace it with health care reform that allows Americans to have a bigger say, a patient-centered health care approach.

It is interesting. When you look at this USA TODAY article, there is a picture of a family, a father and mother and three children. Robert Hargrove of Sanford, NC, said: You have to have insurance or pay a penalty? ``That is not the way the country was set up.''

That tells the story I heard around the State of Wyoming last week as I traveled, as other Members traveled around their home communities, their home States. They remember the President's promises. He promised, No. 1, that the cost of insurance for families would go down. The President promised it would go down by $2,500 per family per year. That is not what the American people have seen in the last 2 years since it has been passed. They remember the President promising that if you like the care you have and the insurance you have, you can keep it. That is not what American families are finding. Broken promise after broken promise.

Now, with the Chief Actuary coming out this past week in the Washington Post, reporting that the high-risk pool is doubling the costs that were predicted--once again, the President promised that it would not add a dime to the deficit--another broken Obama promise.

Here we are. I go to townhall meetings, visit with people, and ask for a show of hands: How many of you believe that under the President's new health care law, your costs are going to go up? Every hand goes up. Obviously, they do not believe what the President has told them.

How many of you believe that as a result of the new health care law, actually the quality of your care and the availability of your care will go down? Again, every hand goes up.

It is not what the President promised the people of this country.

That is why, when the USA TODAY headline on Monday says ``Health Care Law Hurts Obama,'' my concern is that it is hurting the American people. People asked for health care reform in this country. What they asked for was the care they need, from the doctor they want, at a cost they can afford. This health care law has provided none of those things. This health care law is bad for patients, it is bad for providers--the nurses and the doctors who take care of those patients--and it is terrible for the American taxpayers. That is why I come to the floor week after week with a doctor's second opinion, saying it is time to replace this health care law with reforms that will put health care under the control of patients--not insurance companies, not government, but under the control of patients.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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