National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2014 -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Madam President, as a result of ObamaCare, millions will be forced to use money that they would have used to pay rent, help their children attend college, or invest in a business. Instead, they are going to have to use that money to pay for higher premiums and skyrocketing deductibles. Here is one such example from Huntsville, AR, which is in a congressional district which I used to represent when I was in the House. This constituent writes about how he and his family must have to take drastic steps to be able to afford the cost of ObamaCare, not the least of which includes returning to work after retiring last year. The email reads:

I have never before contacted a Senator until today. Sir, I am outraged about the ObamaCare issue and the Affordable Care Act. Because of recent developments over the affordable health care act, and the obvious problematic issues related to its operation, policy and implementation, we are selling two of our vehicles to save money.

This is due to the direct impact of this legislation and due to the broken promises of President Barack Obama that have been repeated over and over to us for 3 years.

We are also canceling our cable TV, and will save about $1,500 per year. We are cutting back on Internet, switching to save another $1,000 per year. We are Christmas shopping in January. Our purchase of a new vehicle is now delayed for another 3 years. Our planned vacation trips for 2014 and beyond are being pared back.

This is the No. 1 issue I am hearing from Arkansans, the high cost, in some cases the unaffordable cost, of ObamaCare.

It is interesting, as we hear other Members of the Senate come and read the same types of emails, the same types of letters that they are getting, they all have the same thing--they are put in positions that are simply untenable. They simply do not have the money to afford the so-called new insurance that they needed as their old insurance was dropped from them.

We need health care reform, but ObamaCare certainly is not the answer. We need to transition the employer-based private insurance market toward one that allows for flexibility, choice, portability, and fairness. Let's allow small business owners to pool together to purchase group insurance, introduce portability into the market. These are things that we need to do, and continue--some of these things are actually in the Affordable Care Act. Yet the reality is we can do that without $1 trillion of increased taxes, and rapidly, because of the way that the business community is responding, making us a nation of part-time employees.

We need to allow individuals to purchase insurance across State lines. We need to expand health savings accounts and flexible savings accounts. These are free market reforms that would drive down costs.

The problem that we had prior to introducing the Affordable Care Act was affordability. What has happened is, instead of driving down costs, we have driven up costs dramatically because of the way the bill was structured.

We also need medical malpractice reform. I am an optometrist by training. I can tell you in the course of taking care of patients that there are people all over the country who have to do things that are above and beyond, sometimes, the things they believe they need to do in order to protect themselves. As a result, there are no ifs, ands, or buts, that definitely drives costs.

I yield the floor.

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