Obamacare

Floor Speech

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, we have been informed that the Secretary of Health and Human Services has become a private fundraiser to raise funds from the very industry she regulates in order to implement ObamaCare. This raises all sorts of troubling concerns. There is an appearance of impropriety and a conflict of interest. There is an appearance that there is basically a shakedown going on--extracting money from companies she regulates in order to implement the President's health care law. This is certainly unethical--representing a conflict of interest--and possibly illegal. However, it has provided us a useful reminder about ObamaCare: that it represents one of the worst examples of crony capitalism that exist today. Unfortunately, that is true of a number of the administration's policies, but let me just explain what I mean.

When the private enterprise and the government become so intertwined as to become mutually dependent, usually what that means is the people who can hire the most lobbyists, the best lawyers, and others, compete unfairly for government benefits.

The concern is that since Secretary Sebelius is going to be the one who doles out grants and other benefits under ObamaCare, there is the all-too-human temptation to favor those who have gotten you out of a crack and done you a favor.

Let's review how ObamaCare is supposed to work in the first place. The Federal Government is supposed to come up with its own definition of health insurance. What we own right now may not be good enough for the government and its standard for health insurance. It is demanding that private businesses offer their employees this Washington-approved insurance or they get penalized.

It is also demanding that some Americans--many Americans--pay for coverage they don't want, don't need, and may not be able to afford. The best example of that is young adults--sometimes called the young and invincible--who may not think they need comprehensive health care insurance. They may think, well, perhaps I need more of a catastrophic policy or something else that will take care of me if things really turn bad. As a result of ObamaCare, these young people will be forced to buy coverage they don't need. Many of them don't want it and can't afford it.

They will literally see their insurance premiums skyrocket because of a phenomenon known as age-banding. Age-banding is where older Americans cannot be charged more than three times what younger people can be charged. We all know that as we age, we utilize more health care services. Here again, younger Americans are being asked to subsidize their elders in ObamaCare.

One way to look at it is the Obama administration has decided that the purchase of an expensive government-approved product sold by certain private companies is a condition of American citizenship. For those who are American citizens and live here, they have to buy it. If they don't, they pay the penalty. That is one example of crony capitalism.

Private companies are turning into de facto public utilities, and Americans are forced to buy their products but only those products approved by the regulators here in Washington. It is the ultimate marriage of big business and big government, and it is bad for the American taxpayer.

Now Secretary Sebelius has gone a step further. She is using her leverage and power as a regulator over private companies to force them to fund ObamaCare. We all see what is going on. Secretary Sebelius is making the health care industry an offer they cannot refuse. After all, her agency regulates those companies and has enormous influence over their business operations.

Indeed, ObamaCare has expanded Health and Human Services' regulatory power so much, we could say it essentially amounts to a government takeover of one-sixth of the national economy. Anytime there is a dramatic increase in Federal regulation of bureaucratic authority, there will also be a dramatic increase in crony capitalism.

Health and Human Services granted a series of waivers from ObamaCare's annual limit requirements, which fostered the impression that certain companies, labor unions, and other institutions were getting preferential treatment. Why not treat all Americans the same rather than have the government pick winners and losers, with the temptation to pick their friends and political supporters and give them special favors?

We saw this also in the government-run bailout of the Chrysler Corporation when the company's secured bondholders received less for their loans than the United Auto Workers pension fund.

For that matter, we also saw it in the notorious Solyndra project. President Obama's entire green agenda energy policy is based on the idea that the Federal Government should be playing venture capitalist with taxpayer dollars. We all know that when Solyndra went bankrupt, the administration favored private lenders over taxpayers, which was a violation of the law.

But there are many other private companies that have received taxpayer funding for political or ideological reasons, and that is why we say that crony capitalism undermines public trust in government because not everybody is treated the same. The government--those in power--picks winners and losers, political favorites, friends, and family.

I have one final point. We learned about the Sebelius shakedown on the same day we learned that the IRS has been deliberately targeting and harassing some organizations based on their political views.

As we all know, the IRS has a very important and key role in administering some of the biggest parts of ObamaCare and thus will be collecting massive amounts of new information about individual Americans. That was always a bad idea, but now, after we have learned about the abuses at the IRS, it sounds even more dangerous than ever. After what we have learned so far, how can Americans feel confident that the IRS won't abuse these new powers after having abused its current powers? Why should the American people believe what they have been told when they have been lied to time and time again about the IRS's activities?

Back in March 2012, the former IRS Commissioner categorically denied that his agency was targeting certain political organizations. Now we know that he was not only wrong, we also know they intentionally lied. We also know that senior IRS officials--many who still have their jobs--learned of these abuses 2 years ago and never corrected the record.

In short, if we ever needed another reason to get rid of ObamaCare and replace it with market-driven, patient-centered reform, the IRS has provided us with one.

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

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