Health Care

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Senator from Wyoming, who is one of the most knowledgeable, eloquent Members of our side of the aisle or in this Chamber on the subject of health care law. As a former practicing orthopedic surgeon, he knows the subject better than almost anyone I know.

But we are on the floor today to talk about the cuts to the only real choice that seniors have when it comes to their health care coverage under Medicare. There are basically two choices. One is called Medicare Advantage, which I will talk more about in a minute, and the other is Medicare, traditional Medicare, which is a fee-for-service program that many people find is less advantageous to them than Medicare Advantage.

Close to 16 million people currently receive health care benefits through Medicare Advantage--about 1 million of them in Texas, the State I am honored to represent. Of course, they represent roughly 30 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries.

Why would somebody choose Medicare Advantage rather than traditional Medicare? Because it gives a lot more flexibility and greater patient choice. It actually delivers better results than traditional Medicare. It has been one of the main sources of innovation when it comes to health care, producing better outcomes for seniors under Medicare. Medicare Advantage is the primary driver.

Unfortunately, the President's health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, slashed about $300 billion from Medicare Advantage. My constituents are already going to start to see premium increases to their Medicare Advantage policies. Many of them will have to then question whether they can afford that, whether they will drop Medicare Advantage, lose the choices, the flexibility, the innovation that goes along with it, and end up basically turning to traditional Medicare fee-for-service.

In Texas, about two out of every three doctors will see a new Medicare patient because it actually reimburses physicians at a lower rate than regular health insurance does, so many doctors have found that they have to limit their practice, much as they have under Medicaid as well.

But we know that the $300 billion that has been taken from Medicare Advantage, and these seniors--who rely on it to shore up the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare--know that the news on ObamaCare continues to unwind and bring us bad news almost every day. Not only have millions of people lost their existing health care coverage, even though they were promised by the President of the United States that if you like it, you can keep it--I lost count of how many times the President made that statement, but I think it is somewhere in the high twenties. Of course, now we are finding out that more and more people are having to pay higher premiums as a result of ObamaCare.

Another promise the President made is he said that a family of four would see a reduction of $2,500 in their average premiums, but they are seeing their premiums go up. Indeed, on Friday, in a late-afternoon news dump--that has become a new art form for the administration, they dump news on Friday afternoon and hope nobody notices, or it won't be covered--we learned that roughly two-thirds of the people who work for small businesses will see an increase in their premiums as a result of ObamaCare, some 11 million small business employees.

The people who are concerned about Medicare Advantage aren't only on this side of the aisle. In fact, we have had bipartisan accolades for Medicare Advantage, called a great success by both Senators from New York, for example, and the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from Colorado. They recently joined me, along with a couple of dozen colleagues, to urge CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner to ``maintain payment levels that will allow [Medicare Advantage] beneficiaries to be protected from disruptive changes in 2015.''

This bipartisan support for this important choice for seniors, known as Medicare Advantage, is in real jeopardy as they are going to see as a result a $300 billion cut from Medicare Advantage in order to shore up this failing experiment in big government known as ObamaCare.

People's existing health care arrangements are in serious jeopardy and they are concerned and they are calling and writing us and wondering what we are going to do. Unfortunately, those calls and letters seem to fall on deaf ears, as far as the President and the people who voted for this bill are concerned. The American people have seen they are whistling past the graveyard and hoping that what will likely happen in November--which will finally be the day of electoral accountability--is that their voices will actually be heard.

I yield the floor.

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