Making Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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Mr. McCONNELL. I am not sure if you have a fax machine at home. Many Americans don't anymore and neither do a lot of small businesses. It seems a bit odd to tell small businesses they need to fax in--fax in--enrollment forms for ObamaCare, but this is what the Obama administration is now doing.

If I might paraphrase the President: The 1980s called, and they want their health policy back.

To be fair, snail mail is also an option and it looks as though the President's people will try to have the issue fixed soon, despite passing a law more than 3 years ago. Again this is the same President who told us that ObamaCare is ``working the way it's supposed to,'' and that those who already have health care won't see many changes under this law. This is the same guy who promised us his health care ideas would make American premiums lower and that they would be able to keep the plans they like.

Forgive me for being a little bit skeptical, given how these other rosy scenarios have played out. I am not the only skeptic out there. Just ask the folks who have already been laid off or seen their hours cut. Ask the graduate who can't find anything but part-time work. Ask the twenty-something who is going to lose her employer health plan and pay more over in the exchanges.

The reality simply does not match up with the rhetoric. That includes the President's remarks yesterday in Maryland. He said there is no ``widespread evidence'' that ObamaCare is hurting jobs. That is actually what he said, no ``widespread evidence.''

We all know the President was hanging around with Bill Clinton the other day. What we didn't know was he was getting pointers on syntax. It makes you wonder what would constitute widespread evidence of job loss in this President's mind. I mean, only yesterday his press secretary dismissed reports of a company dropping health insurance for 55,000 employees as only an ``anecdote.''

Maybe that is how things look from the south lawn. It looks a lot different if you just lost the health care plan you liked and wanted to keep. As Senator Moynihan used to tell us: Data is the plural of anecdote. There are just too many stories about the impact of ObamaCare, far too many to be dismissed with the wave of a hand.

Ironically, the same day the President was painting more rosy scenarios in Maryland, the administration announced yet another delay in this law's implementation. That is about the time we found out about the fax machines and all that follows the revelation of yet more exchange problems, this time with an exchange in the District of Columbia. You might be able to take away any one of these ObamaCare problems in isolation and explain it away, say it doesn't matter and call it an anecdote, but what we are getting here is a constant drip, drip, paired with the effect of seeing what is happening to our jobs, our health care, and the economy.

It all adds up to just one thing: a law in trouble, a law that needs to be repealed. This is the goal of every Republican Member here in the Republican Conference in the Senate. We are united on the need to repeal ObamaCare. We want to replace it with sensible, bipartisan forms that actually will work, and in a few minutes each and every one of us will vote against funding ObamaCare.

The American people want this repealed. Republicans want it repealed. I wouldn't be surprised if a number of our Democratic colleagues secretly want it repealed as well. The problem is we can't get this done unless my friends on the other side are prepared to step up with us and work on the issue, because there are 54 of them and 46 of us. This doesn't mean we will give up the fight if they don't. We won't. There are a lot of other things we can do in the meantime.

For instance, we can follow the administration's lead in offering ObamaCare a delay for the American people. After all, the administration seems to think businesses deserve a break from ObamaCare. Doesn't the middle class deserve the same treatment, the very same treatment? Republicans think so. I think we might be able to convince enough Democrats to join us on that to help us provide fairness--fairness to the middle class.

Yesterday, one Democratic Senator already signaled his willingness to delay some of the worst aspects of the law as well. He called a delay for the American people ``very reasonable and sensible.'' He posed a question: ``Don't you think it'd be fair?''

The answer is: Yes, that would be fair. That is a question for my Democratic colleagues to respond to. Many of them know how badly this law is hurting their constituents. Isn't that the fair thing to do? Of course it is.

I am calling on Democratic Senators to put the middle class ahead of the President's pride, calling for them to pass a delay for everyone. We have already filed legislation that would do just that. A bipartisan majority of the House already supports it. Let's work together to actually do it. Once we get that done, let's keep working to get rid of this law and replace it with real reforms, not with ideas from the 1980s, but with commonsense, step-by-step reforms that will actually lower the cost for the American people and spare them from this terrible law.

I yield the floor.

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