Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act -- Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today, and as I do so, Washington has an incredible opportunity for a new beginning--a beginning that would begin by listening to the American people and what the American people want, and not just what Washington and the Democrats in this body think is best for all the American people.

According to a new Associated Press poll, most Americans say health care reform is the top issue they want the government to work on this year--the top issue they want government to work on this year. Fifty-two percent of people have said that is what they are asking us to work on.

People have seen--and I heard about this all around Wyoming over the Christmas holiday--the complete failure of the health care law's big rollout last year. They saw President Obama and they saw Washington Democrats break one promise after another. As a matter of fact, one of the President's promises was designated ``the lie of the year.'' The American people have lost faith this administration can ever get health care reform right.

It wasn't just a bad Web site. The President said: Well, the Web site was bad. He said: The health care law is more than a Web site.

In spite of what the Obama administration has said, it wasn't all fixed last year because the Web site is just the tip of the iceberg. And huge Web site failures? Absolutely. I heard it everywhere I went around Wyoming, and I actually even heard it brought up when I was in Afghanistan visiting the troops on New Year's Day.

So it is not just the Web site, with the higher premiums, canceled coverage, can't keep your doctor, fraud and identity theft, higher copays and higher deductibles; the Web site continues to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Beyond all of those things we have been talking about coming down the line and hitting the American people, we have also seen even more problems surface already this year.

Here is a headline from the Wall Street Journal, January 3: ``Consumers Hit Snags as Health Law Kicks In.'' The snags? We can imagine what they are. People have been going to the doctor, going to the pharmacy looking for help, and even though they signed up for insurance in the new exchange, it turns out they can't be found. They are not in the system.

So Web site failures? Absolutely. Insurance companies aren't sure who is signed up with them. People aren't sure if they are covered. Doctors aren't sure who is covered.

Doctors, as a result of their training, their compassion, their care for human beings, are trying their best to help their patients. They have been fighting a losing battle against the exchanges and all of the problems with the new Washington-mandated health insurance. One Chicago doctor tried for 2 hours to verify the new insurance for a patient who was scheduled for surgery. The office manager finally gave up. The doctor went ahead with the surgery without what should have been a routine approval from the insurance company.

Here is another problem some people are going to have to deal with this year. The Associated Press ran an article headlined ``Adding a baby to health plan is not easy.'' Every day, babies are born and need to be included in the family's health plan. For common life changes such as having a baby, you would normally just call your insurance company and they would take care of it from there. Not under this law. If you have to buy your insurance through one of the new health care exchanges, it is not that simple. According to the article, ``the HealthCare.gov website can't handle new baby updates, along with a list of other life changes including marriage and divorce, a death in the family, a new job or a change in income, even moving to a different community.'' Yet the Obama administration and the Secretary of Health and Human Services says the Web site is fixed. It can't handle a baby being born, marriage, divorce, moving, change in income. It can't handle any of those things, and they claim it is fixed.

Here is another problem that has turned up. Washington Democrats said the law would lead to fewer people visiting emergency rooms--I heard it right here on this floor: fewer people getting their care in emergency rooms--and that would reduce expenses. The reality is very different. The New York Times, Friday morning, January 3: ``Emergency Visits Seen Increasing With Health Law. Doubt Cast on Savings.'' But Democrats on this floor said that emergency visits would decrease and that it would save money. That is not what the New York Times says. They said, ``Oregon Medicaid Test at Hospitals Found Rise of 40 Percent.'' The Wall Street Journal, in the same issue, talks about how the Medicaid expansion drives up emergency room visits. The Washington Post said, ``Study: Expanding Medicaid Doesn't Reduce ER trips. It increases them.''

Democrats don't want to talk about all these problems. They don't want to talk about all of the reform bills which Republicans passed in the House last year but which never got a vote in the Senate in spite of our efforts to try to get votes on those bills. Democrats hope people believe what they are saying, accept their claims that the Web site is working fine and that all the law's problems have been fixed. The American people see through this. They know that what has been done to them by this administration is not right.

It is time for Washington Democrats to play it straight with the American people and to make a new beginning on health care reform. I am not talking about more fake fixes like the one we saw right before Christmas. That was the Obama administration quietly announcing that people whose insurance had been canceled because of the law could apply for a hardship exemption to avoid the individual mandate.

Well, the newer numbers have come out. There are now more than 5 million health insurance cancellations in 35 States. And we don't even know how many were canceled in Texas, Ohio, Virginia, South Carolina, Missouri, and Wisconsin. We don't know those numbers yet. So we know that a minimum of 5 million people have received cancellation notices and the anxiety that comes with that, as well as the anger. When people tried to replace the plans they lost, many found that their premiums would skyrocket and their deductibles would be higher than ever.

I find it interesting that Democrats I have talked to said: Well, January 1 has come, so the numbers aren't going to go up anymore. That is just not true. I was just in my office and got off the phone with a friend in Douglas, WY. He is a pharmacist and provides health insurance for employees. He has fewer than 50 employees, so it is not mandatory under the law that he do so, but he does it anyway and he has done it for years. But Gary is in a situation where he has now received a letter of cancellation of his own insurance policy, and it was dated January 1. This is not something from last year; this is something dated January 1, 2014. It is a letter from the Madison National Life Insurance Company to Gary Shatto at Shatto's Frontier Drug in Douglas, WY.

``Important Notice.'' Can you imagine getting this letter and opening it? ``Important Notice'' in bold print. ``This Affects Your Insurance Contract Rights. Please Read Carefully.'' That would get your attention.

This notice is to inform your company that Madison National Life Insurance Company ..... will be exiting the employer small group major medical insurance market in Wyoming effective June 30, 2014 at midnight.

Exiting June 30, 2014, at midnight.

So what this tells us is these numbers are going to go up because, at 3,000, the numbers in Wyoming are such that we know more people are going to get cancellation notices. And this isn't just for Gary; this is for everybody who works there.

They ``will be exiting the employer small group major medical insurance market in Wyoming effective June 30, 2014 at midnight. This decision was prompted by the increased regulation since the federal government's passage of its recent federal health care reform, commonly referred to as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (``PPACA'').

``The increased regulation will make it difficult for Madison National to continue to operate and compete meaningfully in Wyoming's small group major medical market. As such, your referenced insurance coverage will terminate at midnight on June 30, 2014.''

This is what people are going to continue to deal with, letters like this continuing to go out, a new round of letters going out January 1.

The President of the United States needs to be honest with the American people about the significant damage his health care law is doing to families all across the country. And as the employer mandate--which the President has delayed for a year--kicks in this year, we are going to see more and more letters like this and more and more people dumped, losing their insurance, in spite of the President's claim that ``if you like your coverage, you can keep your coverage.'' No wonder the folks who look into these things have labeled it the ``lie of the year.''

The White House continues to try to do this little bandaid approach. Now they say they are going to let some Americans buy catastrophic coverage. That is an idea I proposed to the President at the White House health care roundtable back in February of 2010. After 25 years of practicing medicine, I know that for some people catastrophic coverage is the right option. For many people it is, and it encourages patients to be smart consumers of medical services. But at our meeting 4 years ago President Obama said that these plans were suitable only for the wealthy, that they weren't good ideas. He said that letting people be smarter consumers wouldn't help. Now he has changed his mind.

Don't expect him to admit that Republicans were right all along. The President said: Well, the Republicans have no ideas. If they have some ideas, they can bring them to him. There were a number of different bills and proposals by Republicans. The President seems to want to ignore that just as much as he wants to ignore the problems and the misery his health care law has caused for so many people all around the country.

Instead of trying to patch this terrible health care law together with chicken wire and duct tape, it is time for Democrats in Washington to admit that this entire law is failing the American people because it absolutely hurts so many American families. Then we can move on to talking about real reforms to give people access to quality, affordable health care. That is the year's top priority of the American people, and it needs to be our top priority in the Senate.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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