Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014 -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, this morning there was news that the President of the United States is going to engage in a series of speeches around the country to discuss the American middle class and the economy. I think that is actually a positive thing, to start to focus on that a little bit.

The America middle class is the essence of America's greatness. I have said this often before because I am a product of that working middle class--how critically different that makes us from the rest of the world. Every country has rich people, and unfortunately every country has poor people. But one of the things that distinguishes America from the rest of the world is that we have this vibrant middle class.

I have lived that in my life. My parents were working-class people and came to this country with not a lot of education or many connections, but they were able to provide for us a lifestyle where they owned a home and were able to do vacations and provided us everything we needed--not always everything we wanted, of course. But that really distinguishes this country from the rest of the world. That vibrant middle class is the essence of our economic exceptionalism.

I am glad the President is focused on the middle class, and I hope we will begin to focus on the middle class here in our conversations as well. That is why I come to the floor to speak about the middle class for a moment, because I am very concerned about the impact that the health care law--ObamaCare--is having on the middle class.

I know Republicans have been opposed to ObamaCare from the very beginning, and I understand that a lot of people out there see ObamaCare as a bill that is going to give them access to health insurance they may not have right now. But what I want people to understand from a nonpartisan basis--Republicans, Democrats, Independents, no matter whom you voted for in the last election--is that ObamaCare is not working out the way it was advertised.

What I wish to point to today is how ObamaCare is actually hurting that vibrant American middle class which the President is trying to focus on in his speeches and which I hope we will be focused on in our policies.

Last week on Friday I traveled to central Florida. I went to a place called Gatorland, which is kind of an old Florida tourist attraction where kids have gone for a long time with their parents to see the live alligators and the shows they put on. I used that as a forum to meet with several small businesses in the region, not all tourism related. I had a chance to sit down and talk with them about their concerns about ObamaCare and, importantly, not just what it means for their businesses--and these are middle-class businesses, by the way; we are not talking about billionaires here--but also, more importantly for me, the impact that was going to have on their employees, the people who work for them, working-class, middle-class Americans who happen to live in Florida and work at these places.

First I heard from the owner of Gatorland, who pointed out that he has a little over 100 full-time employees who work for him. You can imagine who I am talking about--the people who take your tickets when you walk in, the ones who run the exhibits. These are everyday working-class people. Some of them are young people who just got married and are trying to start a family. He gives them insurance. They have insurance right now. He pays a portion of their premiums and they pay the rest, and they seem to be pretty happy with that insurance coverage. It is not perfect. They have to pay for part of it out of pocket. But it is coverage they are happy with, and through that coverage they have a relationship with their doctors.

A young couple--for example, the wife is a few months pregnant. They have been going to the same OB/GYN. They get comfortable with this doctor, and they are happy going to this doctor. Maybe it is the same doctor who helped them with their previous pregnancies or their kids' pediatrician who knows their family's history, so every time they sit with him, they don't have to reeducate him. But the point is that they are happy with their insurance and also their doctor.

But there is a problem: Health care costs and premiums are going up for this business. As they are sitting there looking into next year and beyond, their insurance companies are already telling them: Your premiums are going to go up. We can't tell you by how much, but it is going to be by at least this much.

This means the amount of money they put aside every year in Gatorland's budget to pay for health insurance for their middle-class employees is going to go up big time, so this business has to find the money from somewhere. They could just raise the

price of admission. But they really can't do that. No. 1, people can't afford it. No. 2, they have some pretty significant competition nearby from Disney World and Universal Studios. So that is not really an option for them.

Their options are as follows:

They can take the insurance they are providing now for their employees and get rid of it and replace it with another insurance that is cheaper and covers less. By the way, now it is new insurance, so if those middle-class employees are happy with their doctors, their doctors may or may not be on the new plan. So you destroy that relationship as well. It will be cheaper insurance for the employer and the employee, but it will cover less. But it meets the mandate, and obviously Gatorland can continue to operate.

The second option they have is to reduce a bunch of people to under 30 hours because if they are working less than 30 hours, they don't have to offer them anything. That is a big cost savings. They don't want to do that, as proven by the fact that they are offering the coverage now, but they may have to do that.

The third option is to just pay a fine and let these people go out and find their own insurance in the exchanges. The problem with that is, No. 1, the exchanges haven't even been created yet. Even though you are supposed to be enrolled beginning October 1, they don't exist yet. So you can't even figure out what they are if you live in Florida. No. 2--the same problem--it is a new insurance company, which means you may or may not have the same doctor.

A fundamental promise of this law when it was passed was that if you are happy with your doctor, you won't have to lose that doctor. If you are happy with your insurance, you can keep it. Obviously, for about 100-some-odd people who work in central Florida, that is not true.

I also met with a young woman named Gigi Barrios. She is the owner of FCS Building Services. Basically, it is a company that provides janitors at night to come and clean your office. This is the epitome of the working class. You know who I am talking about--the people who come in after 6:00 and vacuum the carpets and clean your offices. These are her employees. She also offers them health insurance, but her health insurance premiums are going up next year big time. She is going to have to go through the exact same choices as Gatorland. So right now in central Florida there are janitors and janitorial crews who are working more than 40 hours a week, have health insurance they are happy with, have doctors they have relationships with, and they are on the verge of losing all of that because of this law and its impact.

I met with an owner of a place called Fun Spot. Fun Spot is an old Florida attraction place. After 5 years of working at Fun Spot, you get 100 percent coverage. If you work there for 5 years, they pay all of your insurance; you don't pay a penny out of pocket. But their costs are going up astronomically--higher than anybody else's who was meeting there. The same calculation is going to happen: They are going to have to find new and cheaper insurance, which means people who have 100 percent full coverage and are happy are going to lose it--these are ticket takers and ride operators and people who clean up. These are middle class, working-class Americans. They will lose their coverage.

I can tell you, they are not going to pay 100 percent of anyone's coverage moving forward because even if they wanted to at this point--and they do want to--they can't afford it. The premiums are going up because of ObamaCare. Or they could come up with one of these newer plans that costs less money, but there is the same fundamental problem.

Now, you may say maybe this is a Florida problem. It is not. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently did a survey. They found that 75 percent of small businesses in America are going to have to do something like this. In their survey they found that 27 percent of small businesses are going to cut hours just to get under the 30 hours a week to avoid the health insurance mandate because they can't afford it; 24 percent of small businesses are going to hire fewer people--which is one of the problems at Fun Spot. They actually own land, and they want to expand and grow Fun Spot. They want to add more rides, more attractions, more middle-class, working-class jobs. That is not going to happen now. So 24 percent of companies are going to hire fewer people because of ObamaCare, and 23 percent of companies plan to replace full-time employees with part-time employees.

The Congressional Budget Office has found that at least 7 million people in America are going to lose the employer coverage they have right now. At least 7 million Americans will have the promise that was made to them broken. So if you have insurance, if you are happy with your insurance, you are going to lose your insurance because of ObamaCare.

Five million people will have to pay for more expensive plans because of ObamaCare. Because they make too much according to the law, they won't qualify for a subsidy to help pay for it.

It is not just businesses, by the way. This is from Florida Today:

Some part-time Brevard County workers are getting their hours cut so the county would not be forced by federal law to pay for their health insurance. ..... Brevard County Library Service Director Jeff Thompson said 37 of his department's employees have had their hours cut as a result of the health care issue.

So the library services department--this is the middle class, and they are going to lose hours.

I don't care if you are a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, whom you voted for in the last election, this is a disaster for all of us. And rather than digging in and saying, I am going to fight to the death on this law because it has my name on it, because it was my signature achievement in my first term, I wish the President and White House were more open-minded about saying this is not working out the way we thought. This is going to hurt way too many people at a time when people are already hurting. Let's put the brakes on this or let's redo this. Let's get rid of this and start over.

But they don't seem to be focused on that. They claim to be focused on the middle class. Yet we know millions of middle-class Americans--and a few hundred whom I know now personally in Florida--are going to be dramatically hurt by this law. Yet it is full speed ahead. That is outrageous.

I think we have one last chance to stop this if the White House won't cooperate, and that is through our budgeting process. In September we are probably going to have to pass a short-term budget to move forward into the next year. A lot of my colleagues love to say they are against ObamaCare, but if you vote for a budget that pays for ObamaCare, that pays for these things I have just described, you have voted for ObamaCare.

Some will say: That is crazy. You are going to shut down the government over ObamaCare.

No. What is crazy is moving forward with this after all the problems. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could be here 6 hours describing all the problems with ObamaCare. Moving forward on that is what is crazy. What is crazy is arguing that the only way we can move forward with a budget is if it includes ObamaCare. What is crazy is shutting down the government because the budget doesn't pay to implement this outrageous and broken system.

We need to wake up and realize what is happening. This is hurting the American middle class, and if we lose the American middle class, we lose what makes our economy different and special and unique.

So, Mr. President, as you travel around the country this week, as you come to Jacksonville, FL, on Thursday, I hope you will also explain to the American people how it is that you can justify cutting hours, cutting benefits, taking away existing health insurance and existing doctor-patient relationships from millions of working-class and middle-class Americans who are going to be hurt by this law because of your refusal and the refusal of many of your allies to consider suspending this or permanently repealing it and replacing it with something better.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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