Promoting Energy Savings in Residential Buildings and Industry - Motion to Proceed - Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, turning to the matter upon which I asked unanimous consent and to which the majority leader objected, and that is to take up legislation that I have sponsored here in the Senate, which has been passed in the House, which is the Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act, with each passing day it seems as though more and more supporters of ObamaCare are having second thoughts. As I mentioned last week, three of America's most powerful labor leaders have declared the President's health care law is ``creating nightmare scenarios'' and threatening to ``hurt millions of Americans.'' Those are some pretty remarkable words from people who were some of the foremost advocates for the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare.

Meanwhile, the union that represents IRS employees has announced it does not want its members to receive health insurance through ObamaCare exchanges. In fact, earlier today the IRS Commissioner himself said he wants to keep his current health care policy and does not want to sign up for ObamaCare, as millions of other Americans will be required to do.

Speaking of the Internal Revenue Service, the agency's political targeting scandal continues to grow. I listened in my office to Senator Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, the one primarily responsible for Internal Revenue oversight in the Senate, and I hope the questions he posed will be answered by the bipartisan investigation we are conducting. We recently learned the Internal Revenue Service's Chief Counsel's Office, headed by an Obama administration appointee, was aware of the abuses.

So much for a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati, as was originally reported. We have also learned that IRS officials have been improperly targeted, not only conservative organizations but political candidates and donors as well.

To make things worse, the same person who ran the IRS division that targeted conservative groups is now running the agency's ObamaCare office. I can't make this stuff up. Truth is stranger than fiction. Americans might be asking: What does the IRS have to do with ObamaCare?

America's tax collection agency will be responsible for administering several of the law's most important provisions, including the individual and employer mandates, which we have heard so much about, and all of the subsidies. In other words, all of the tax dollars will go to fund the exchanges under ObamaCare. Those will be administered by the Internal Revenue Service under the current law.

It is remarkable that at a time when public trust and the Internal Revenue Service has plummeted and IRS officials are complaining their staffers are overworked and overburdened, the Obama administration wants to use this tax agency to administer a massive new entitlement program affecting one-sixth of our national economy. To me, that sounds like another recipe for disaster.

Back in May I sponsored legislation that would prevent the Internal Revenue Service from a role in implementing ObamaCare. Last week, I introduced it as an amendment to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill that was pending before this Chamber.

Congressman Tom Price of Georgia has introduced a similar bill in the House of Representatives. Unfortunately--and this is pretty amazing--even before the House passed the House bill and before the Senate had a chance to take up the Senate bill, President Obama has already issued a veto threat were we to pass it. It sounds a little defensive to me. I understand ObamaCare is a deeply decisive issue in Washington, and I understand that while many have been compelled to defend the law previously, they are now feeling a little skittish about it 3 years later.

I ask my colleagues: Given all we have learned about corruption and institutional abuse at the Internal Revenue Service, does anyone truly believe we should dramatically expand the agency's power to implement ObamaCare? Does anyone truly believe IRS agents should have access to even more personal financial information--not to mention medical information--about American citizens? If IRS officials conducted a systematic campaign of political targeting against conservative organizations, why should we have any more confidence that the agency will fairly and objectively implement the President's health care law?

Remember, the IRS has already announced it will violate the text of the law and issue health care subsidies through Federal exchanges. Let's recall what happened. Many States said: We will pass on State-based insurance exchanges upon which ObamaCare depends to be implemented in the States. So what the IRS has said is: We are going to paper over the fact that Congress never explicitly authorized tax dollars to subsidize the Federal exchanges, even though the law clearly states that those subsidies can be issued only through State exchanges. That is another example of lawlessness when it comes to ObamaCare.

In other words, the agency has already shown utter contempt for the rule of law when it comes to implementing the President's most cherished legislative accomplishment. They have already shown that contempt, and they don't deserve, nor have they shown themselves worthy of, our confidence when it comes to implementing this health care law.

In my view, the IRS has absolutely no business playing such a huge role in the American health care system. For that matter, I ask my friends on the other side of the aisle one final question: Do you still believe ObamaCare will reduce health care costs? After all, it is estimated that the law will cause a dramatic spike in individual insurance premiums across the country--from Maryland to Florida, to Indiana and Ohio, to Kentucky and Missouri, to Idaho and California.

Earlier this week, for example, the Florida insurance commissioner predicted that because of ObamaCare, the cost of health insurance in the individual market and Florida will increase by 30 to 40 percent. The reason for that is because the provisions in ObamaCare mandate the guaranteed issuance of health insurance even after a person is sick. Someone compared it to waiting until your house is on fire to buy insurance. It is not insurance anymore, and it drives up the cost, not to mention the fact that young people--such as those sitting in front of me--are going to have to pay the price of subsidizing health care for older Americans. The so-called age-banding requirements don't allow older citizens to pay any more than three times what young people pay for health insurance, even though the cost of their health care, given their age, will be higher.

So this is what distorts the insurance markets, which is causing health insurance premiums to skyrocket across the States because of ObamaCare.

Rather than make our individual health insurance markets even more distorted and more dysfunctional than they are today, we should dismantle ObamaCare and replace it with patient-centered reforms that create a genuine national marketplace for health insurance.

I was just reading a story about an Oklahoma surgical center which publishes the price of common procedures for the public to read and which now has created--what markets always do--greater consumer awareness of what exactly these procedures cost. As we have seen in Medicare Part D, the prescription drug plan Congress passed a few years ago, when a market is created and vendors compete for consumers' business, prices go down and the quality of service goes up. That is what markets do. Ultimately, it benefits the consumer, and it would benefit taxpayers and patients as well.

What do I mean by patient-centered reforms? I am talking about reforms that empower individual Americans by giving them more choices and flexibility in the health care markets--such as the example of the Oklahoma surgical care center--by giving people more transparent information about pricing and quality and by directly assisting people with preexisting conditions.

I heard the majority leader earlier when Senator McConnell offered a unanimous consent to extend the moratorium on the individual mandate just as the President has unilaterally on the employer mandate. He said something to the effect of: Republicans want people to be subjected to preexisting condition exclusions that are not covered. That is simply false. We don't have to embrace 2,700 pages of ObamaCare just to take care of that problem or other problems we have agreement on. We should also work to protect the doctor-patient relationship.

The last thing we ought to do on my list of things to do to reform the health care system is to save Medicare from bankruptcy. It is on an unsustainable path. Yet any time we try to suggest reforms that will strengthen and stabilize Medicare and make sure it is there for future generations, they are met with a ``stiff-arm.''

If we want to reduce health care costs, if we want to expand quality insurance coverage and give Americans more choices and options, we should equalize the tax treatment for health insurance so it is treated the same whether it is provided by your employer or whether an individual buys it. We should let individuals and businesses form risk pools in the individual market, and we should let folks buy health insurance across State lines.

Why shouldn't I be able to buy health insurance in New Hampshire or Alabama or somewhere else if it fits my needs? Right now that is not possible. It would create a market which would create competition, bring down costs, and make it more affordable. We should expand tax-free health savings accounts so people can save their own money and spend it as they see fit on their health care. If they don't spend it there, it is available for their retirement, much like any other individual retirement account.

We should curb frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits. According to one study, the annual cost of defensive medicine is a staggering $210 billion. In my State, we have had a lot of success with medical malpractice reform. It stabilized the cost of medical malpractice insurance that physicians have to buy, and it created a huge surplus of physicians who want to move to Texas and practice their profession. They realize they will not lose everything they have in the litigation lottery. They can buy affordable coverage that will protect their family and their patients should they make mistakes.

We should give each State much more flexibility to design a Medicaid Program that works best for their neediest residents. Medicaid is a wonderful program, but it is broken. This is designed to protect the most vulnerable people in our society and provide for their health care needs. But because of the broken Medicaid Program, only one out of every three doctors in my State will actually see a new Medicaid patient. Medicaid reimburses at about half of what private insurance reimburses, and as a result many doctors can't afford to see a new Medicaid patient. What we have is the appearance of coverage, but there is no real access to the doctor of their choice. So we need to fix Medicaid.

Finally, we should establish greater provider competition in Medicare so the competition I mentioned a moment ago in the Medicare prescription drug program could also apply in other aspects of Medicare and help make it more affordable, shore it up, and guarantee its availability to generations yet to come.

There is no reason why Americans have to accept an unworkable health care law administered by an agency such as the Internal Revenue Service that has grossly abused its power and demonstrated that its current job is way beyond its capacity to perform.

I realize we will not be able to dismantle ObamaCare overnight--not with President Obama still in the White House and with a Democratic majority in the Senate. I realize many of these issues need to be debated further, but I hope we can all agree that the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, should not be administering a law that affects one-sixth of our national economy and which so dramatically affects the quality of life for 320 million Americans.

I yield the floor.

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