Obamacare
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, in North Dakota we have a lot of farmers and we have a lot of ranchers. They are small businesspeople. They run small businesses. They are being hit very hard by ObamaCare like other small businesses across this country.
A rancher from Rhame contacted us. His name is Wayne. He ranches there. Rhame is an area where we have a lot of cowboys, a tremendous rodeo. They compete nationally. They have great livestock herds there. He writes and he says:
I'm not one to get too upset about things, but this deal really has me mad. We got a letter a few weeks ago that said they were dropping our policy. I paid my own insurance for years and years. When I got that letter, it just hit me--because somebody in Washington decided I was too stupid to figure out if my policy was right for me or not.
I don't pay a lot of attention to politics, but usually what gets decided in Washington doesn't slap you in the face like this law has with me. I have gone on HealthCare.gov and used the estimators they direct you to. I could be going from a $2,500 deductible to something between $10,000 and $12,000, the way it looks to me. This is going to cost me a lot more for something I don't even want.
If I could, I would like to read another short story from a couple in Grand Folks who got ahold of us on the marriage penalty that ObamaCare creates. She wrote:
My husband and I met with the primary health insurance carrier in North Dakota and were told that our current coverage under the guidelines of the Affordable Care Act will cost us at least another $400 more a month, and our deductible will increase from $2,000 to $12,000. Because we are married, we cannot choose individual plans, which would be a lower deductible. In essence, we are being punished for being married. We are looking at paying more than $1,500 a month in health care because we are only 61 years old and not eligible for Medicare for another 4 years--$18,000 a year for health care!
We were told that part of the problem is the provisions in the law which require us to choose a plan that has maternity benefits. How does this make sense for seniors to be forced to buy coverage that does not apply to them? We agree that benefits shouldn't be denied to people, but it is not fair to be forced to buy coverage that does not even apply.
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