Obamacare

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I did a lot of listening over the past several weeks in meetings and events all across Kentucky. Last week I participated in my 51st hospital townhall since 2011, and one thing kept emerging over and over: Kentuckians are really, really worried about ObamaCare. They read the same stories we have about businesses being forced to cut hours and eliminate health care and about people being laid off. They read about how the rollout of this massive law is becoming a massive mess and how their personal information could be compromised by scam artists. I know there are some who supported the law who are thinking: Well, they will learn to like it. But it is precisely the kind of ``we know what is good for you'' attitude that is so upsetting to my constituents. That is what got us into this mess in the first place.

So let's at least get this much straight: The doctors, the nurses, the health care professionals, the patients, and everyday Kentuckians I have been speaking with on this issue are not ignorant of the facts. They know what they are talking about. A lot of them know more about health care than those who voted for this law ever will.

The fact is that the more my constituents seem to know about ObamaCare, the more worried they tend to be. That is true for the business owners too. One small business owner in Murray wrote to me about how she is looking at premium increases of nearly 90 percent. I think she summed up the situation pretty well. She wrote:

Government is crippling the businesses that are keeping this country going.

Another constituent wrote to me to say that as a matter of conscience, he doesn't want to let his employees go uninsured but that realistically he may no longer have a choice. One of Kentucky's biggest employers recently announced plans to stop providing health care to spouses of 15,000 of its employees--also due in part to ObamaCare.

This is part of a growing trend across America. These are just some of the human costs of this law, and it hasn't even fully come online yet. So it is small consolation for business owners in my State that they will have a little more time to work through this mess after the President's decision to delay the so-called employer mandate for a year. They get a reprieve for a year, and then the mess comes along a year later.

Interestingly enough, just yesterday the country's largest union federation, the AFL-CIO, outlined serious flaws in ObamaCare that could hurt its members too.

Apparently, they came very close--very close--to calling for outright repeal. This is the AFL-CIO that came very close to calling for outright repeal. News reports suggested a lot of harsh words were said. I don't think I can even quote all of it on the floor.

But one union leader implied that ObamaCare could lead to the federation losing three-quarters of its membership in just the next few years. This is the AFL-CIO--the biggest supporter the President had--coming this close to calling for outright repeal.

So we know Big Labor is leaning on the President. We know they want him to let them rewrite the same law they helped ram through, and apparently he is listening to them.

But what about everybody else who is not in Big Labor? What about the single mom in Bowling Green who will not be able to cover rent if her hours are, in fact, cut as she anticipates they will be? What about the recent college graduate in Louisville who is barely scraping by as it is and who will not be able to afford a premium increase? What about the families from Covington to Paducah who are worried sick about this law? Doesn't the administration think those folks deserve some relief too? The same kind of delay at least businesses will get? Republicans do. That is why the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a bill on a bipartisan basis--that means Democrats voted for it too--before the August recess to do just that. Last month I tried to pass that same bill in the Senate, but the Washington Democratic leadership blocked it. I am not sure why.

This legislation is just common sense. It is the fair thing, the right thing to do. So today I am going to try again. Yesterday, along with a number of my colleagues, I filed an amendment to the Portman-Shaheen bill that would provide the same reprieve for individuals the administration has already offered to businesses. This time I hope my colleagues on the other side will join me in supporting it, as a number of Democrats did over in the House.

I know they all got an earful when they were home last month. So maybe they have reconsidered the wisdom and fairness of their earlier position. Maybe now they think individuals and families should be treated no differently than businesses when it comes to protecting them from ObamaCare. This same legislation, as I indicated, attracted votes from both Republicans and Democrats in the House, and there is no reason for blocking it in the Senate.

We need to pass a 1-year delay--a 1-year delay--of ObamaCare for everyone. That is what the amendment I filed would do. Then we need to enact what Kentuckians and Americans truly need, a full repeal of this job-killing mess of a law--job-killing mess of a law; that is what it is--and what I intend to keep fighting for. As I said earlier, union members who pushed for this bill now are turning against it in droves, so are businesses and so are our constituents. I don't care what party people are in, we will hear from them. So let's take this first step together. Let's delay ObamaCare mandates for families right now, just as the White House did for businesses, while there is still time to do it. Then let's work together, Democrats and Republicans, to repeal the law for good and replace it with the kind of commonsense, step-by-step reforms that will actually lower costs.

That is what Kentuckians want, that is what Americans want, and anybody who actually listened to their constituents last month already knows what I just said.

I yield the floor.

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