Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, we have heard a lot of talk this week about the big push by President Obama and his allies to promote the health care law. We are less than 100 days out from the implementation of that law. People in Wyoming are already feeling the effects of the Democrats' health care law.
The law says employers with more than 50 full-time employees have to provide expensive, one-size-fits-all health insurance. Employers all across the country are cutting full-time workers back to part-time status and cutting their shifts to less than 30 hours a week. Thirty hours a week is the cutoff point to be considered a full-time worker under the Democrats' health care law.
As a result of the Democrats' health care law, we are starting to get stories like the one from the Rocket-Miner newspaper in Rock Springs, WY, that came out yesterday.
The subheadline is ``School district looks at coverage, worker options,'' and that is under the headline of ``Health Care Reform.''
Here is what the article says:
More than 500 employees working for Sweetwater County School District No. 1 could see a reduction in their paychecks for the upcoming school year.
The district may reduce hours for part-time employees to exempt it from covering them on its insurance plan under President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
This is the Rocket-Miner newspaper in Rock Springs, WY, Tuesday, June 25.
The article goes on to explain that the school district has more than 500 employees who are working between 30 and 34 hours a week. Those are the people that the health care law is threatening the most. The article goes on to say these workers ``are likely to see their hours decreased by up to five hours.'' So they will be cutting the hours of workers from 34 hours and getting them down to 29 hours.
It quotes the school board chairman saying that the huge chunk of money it would need to provide Washington-approved insurance for everyone would have to come out of classrooms and other essentials. Taking money out of classrooms and other essentials, he says: ``We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.''
Well, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't a very impressive amount to Washington Democrats, but for a small school district in Wyoming, that is a big hit to their budget. It is a lot of pain that the law is inflicting on those teachers and on those students. So for the employees who are going to see their hours cut from 35 hours to fewer than 30 hours, the Democrats' health care law is hitting their paychecks, and hitting it hard.
Well, that was yesterday. Today in the Gillette News Record, Kathy Brown wrote: ``School trustees consider changes with ObamaCare.'' Here is what they say in Campbell County:
About 200 part-time positions could be affected. It does mean the district must track the hours of employees much more closely, and consider what to do with 320 substitute teachers, 27 substitute bus drivers, 23 coaches, eight temporary and four summer-only employees.
Before the July 17 meeting, school officials will try to provide information to trustees on hours and possible costs.
``This is a paperwork nightmare,'' says one of the trustees.
She wondered if the district would have to hire more employees just to do the paperwork and tracking.
There are nearly 8 million people in this country who are working part time because they cannot find full-time work. These are not just numbers in a monthly unemployment report, these are people all across the country in towns such as Rock Springs and Gillette, WY. They want to work and provide for their families, but they are suffering from the bad economic recovery which has been caused by the failed policies of Washington Democrats. Then they get hit a second time with this terrible health care law. This health care law cuts back their hours and cuts their paychecks even more.
I want to make one more point about the health care law. This headline is from the front page of this morning's Investor's Business Daily, June 26, 2013. It says: ``Privacy Falls Victim To ObamaCare Hub.''
The hub they are talking about is the database of information about people that was created by this health care law. It was created so Washington could figure out who has health insurance and who might qualify for subsidies under the law. With this data hub Washington bureaucrats are going to have access to a huge amount of personal information about people all across the country.
Here is what the article says:
The ObamaCare hub will ``interact'' with seven other federal agencies: Social Security Administration, IRS, Department of Homeland Security, Veterans Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Defense Department and--believe it or not--the Peace Corps. It also will plug into state Medicaid databases.
So what does the hub want to include in all of this? Well, the article goes on to say that the hub will store ``names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, taxpayer status, gender, ethnicity, e-mail addresses, phone numbers on millions of people expected to apply for coverage via ObamaCare exchanges.''
That is just part of it. They are also going to have ``tax return information from the IRS, income information from Social Security Administration, and financial information from other third-party sources.''
The article says Washington ``will also store data from businesses buying coverage via an exchange, including a `list of qualified employees and their tax ID numbers,' and keep it all on file for 10 years.''
In addition, the article goes on to say:
The Federal Government also can disclose this information--
We are talking about citizens' private information turned over to the government, and the government ``can disclose this information `without the consent of the individual.' '' They ``can disclose this information `without the consent of the individual' to a wide range of people, including `agency contractors, consultants, or grantees' who `need to have access to the records' to help run ObamaCare.''
So all of this personal, private information is collected in one place, held for 10 years, and made available to bureaucrats, contractors, and consultants.
This is just another terrible effect of the Democrats' health care law. This is a law that American people are just starting to learn more about, and a law that many of those who voted for it didn't even know what was in it. The more people learn, the more worried they become about how this law will affect their care, their jobs, their paychecks, and their privacy.
When Democrats in Washington pushed their health care law through Congress, they were not honest with the American people about any of these negative effects. The American people deserve better.
I yield the floor.
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