Agricultural Act of 2014 -- Conference Report

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss the many ways ObamaCare continues to negatively affect Americans.

Yesterday, the Washington Post published an article exposing yet another problem with healthcare.gov. I would like to share a couple of excerpts from that article. The article begins:

Tens of thousands of people who discovered that HealthCare.gov made mistakes as they were signing up for a health plan are confronting a new roadblock: The government cannot yet fix the errors. Roughly 22,000 Americans have filed appeals with the government to try to get mistakes corrected. .....

Those mistakes, according to the Post, include being overcharged for health insurance, being directed to the wrong insurance program or being wrongly denied coverage.

So what is the status of those appeals?

The Post reports:

For now, the appeals are sitting, untouched, inside a government computer. And an unknown number of consumers who are trying to get help through less formal means--by calling the health-care marketplace directly--are told that HealthCare.gov's computer system is not yet allowing federal workers to go into enrollment records and change them. .....

So let me summarize here. Mr. President, 22,000 Americans are either without insurance or are paying too much for insurance as a result of mistakes made by the Federal health exchange.

Healthcare.gov contains no appeals process. Attempts to find recourse by other means have been unsuccessful, and the administration's response is basically: Tough luck.

President Obama was interviewed by FOX News' Bill O'Reilly this weekend. One of the topics they covered was healthcare.gov's problems.

The President said:

The goods news is that right away we decided how we're going to fix it. It got fixed within a month and a half. It was up and running, and now it's working the way it's supposed to. .....

Let me repeat that The President of the United States said: `` ..... now it's working the way it's supposed to. .....''

Well, tell that to the 22,000 people wondering why there is no appeals process on the Web site or why their paper appeals are stuck in a computer system at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where, the Post says, the appeals process is currently stopped because ``the part of the computer system that would allow agency workers to read and handle appeals has not been built.''

When Bill O'Reilly asked President Obama about the Web site problems, the President responded by saying that--and I quote again--``I don't think anybody anticipated the degree of problems that you had on healthcare.gov.''

That is not an excuse. It was the President's job to ensure that people in the administration were anticipating the problems that would occur, and the President owes the American people an explanation of why he did not because this is not just a story of bureaucratic incompetence. It is the stories of the tens of thousands of individual Americans who are suffering as a result of the Web site glitches and who are wondering how they will afford their health care under ObamaCare--Americans like Addie Wilson, whose story is highlighted in the Post article.

Addie is a 27-year-old who makes just $22,000 a year. She was sure she would qualify for a subsidy on the exchanges, and she was absolutely right. She did--only healthcare.gov did not tell her that.

So Addie phoned one of the call centers, which told her to sign up at the more expensive price she was quoted and to appeal the decision later.

Since her old insurance plan was on its way out and she needed surgery in January, that is what she did. Now she is stuck paying $100 more a month than she should be paying, along with a deductible that is $4,000 higher than it should be. That too-high of a deductible is of particular concern since she incurred huge hospital bills in January when she was forced to have surgery. If she does not get relief from the appeals process, she could end up paying $4,000 in medical bills that she should not have to pay and cannot afford.

But it is not just the Web site that is driving up Americans' medical bills--it is the law itself. As awful as Addie's situation is, at least maybe she will get help eventually. For millions of other Americans, their high deductibles are no mistake.

For too many Americans on and off the exchanges, the reality of the so-called Affordable Care Act has been a staggering increase in health care costs.

Some family plans on the exchanges carry deductibles of almost $13,000. That is more than some families will spend this year on their mortgage.

Upper-income families may be able to absorb these costs--and some limited help is available for lower-income families--but what middle-class family can afford $13,000 a year in medical costs?

Too many families around the country will be putting on hold their plans to buy a home or send their kids to college because they have to devote every spare dollar to paying their health care bills.

On top of crippling cost hikes, many of these same families are facing the loss of doctors and hospitals, as insurance companies narrow their networks in response to ObamaCare's mandates.

So far I have only mentioned the personal devastation ObamaCare is causing. But ObamaCare is not just affecting families' pocketbooks; it is affecting the economy as a whole.

In response to ObamaCare's burdensome mandates and new taxes, businesses are cutting employees' hours, declining to hire new employees, and abandoning their plans to expand. That means fewer jobs available for the millions of Americans looking for work and fewer opportunities for career growth and advancement.

In fact, just this morning, there was a story in the Wall Street Journal, and it references the Congressional Budget Office report that estimates now that the impact of this law through the year 2024 will mean 2.5 million fewer jobs--2.5 million in job losses as a result of ObamaCare. It is so much so that you see many of the very labor unions that supported and wholeheartedly endorsed ObamaCare when it passed coming out now and saying ``[i]t would be a sad irony''--and I am quoting from a letter that went out from several of the labor unions--``[i]t would be a sad irony indeed if the signature legislative accomplishment of an Administration committed to reducing income inequality cut living standards for middle income and low wage workers.'' The letter also says that the ObamaCare law ``undermines fair marketplace competition'' and that they are ``bitterly disappointed.'' This comes from labor unions in this country that wholeheartedly endorsed this law when it passed several years ago.

The American people have endured 5 years of economic stagnation, and ObamaCare has been making things worse.

The President has called for 2014 to be a year of action, but I have seen no evidence that he plans to address the causes of our sluggish growth or provide relief for the millions of Americans struggling with crippling health care costs.

Republicans have a number of health care proposals, from comprehensive plans like that proposed by Senators Coburn, Hatch, and Burr, to commonsense ideas to lower costs by allowing businesses to pool together to negotiate lower rates, and by allowing insurance companies to sell health care plans across State lines to promote more competition and give people more choices.

If the President really wanted to make health care more affordable and accessible, he would abandon this government takeover of one-sixth of our economy and work with Republicans to pass real health care reform. But given the President's record, I am not holding my breath that is going to happen.

But at the very least--the very least--I hope the President will see his way to supporting bipartisan proposals to improve the economy and to open new jobs and opportunities to struggling Americans.

Just last Friday, the Obama State Department released its fifth environmental impact study on the Keystone XL Pipeline. Once again, the review found that the pipeline would have no significant impact on global carbon emissions. Senators and Representatives of both parties support this job-creating measure. It is high time for the President to approve the pipeline and open the 42,000 shovel-ready jobs it will support.

He should also pick up the phone that he keeps talking about to call the Senate majority leader to tell him to stop obstructing bipartisan trade promotion authority legislation that would help American farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs, and job creators gain access to a billion new consumers around the globe.

The President and the majority leader held a White House meeting yesterday, we are told, yet an aide reported that there was no discussion of the majority leader's antitrade comments last week.

Given this legislation's importance for increasing American jobs, it is difficult to understand why the President would not bring this bill up at that meeting.

Finally, the President of the United States also should join the vast bipartisan majority in the Senate that supports repeal of the job-killing ObamaCare medical device tax, which is forcing American companies to send jobs overseas.

The President will be visiting the Democrats' retreat tomorrow, which would be a prime opportunity for him to get on the same page with his party in support of these bipartisan measures.

Republicans are ready and willing to work with the President and with Democrats, and we hope we will have willing partners to do the things that are necessary to get people back to work, to create jobs, to grow our economy, and to help provide and build a better future for middle class families in this country.

The American people should not have to wait any longer.

I yield the floor.

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