Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss the fourth anniversary of ObamaCare. Four years ago this past Sunday the President signed his health care legislation into law. The measure was jammed through Congress on a party-line vote against the strong objections of Republicans and the American people. Democrats and the President assured everyone this opposition was temporary. When people find out what is in the law, they will like it, Democrats and the President promised.

Four years later, however, that isn't the case. The majority of the American people still disapprove of the law. Why do they still disapprove? Because the President's health care law has failed in every possible way. We have canceled health care plans. We have seen people who have lost their doctors and lost their hospitals. We have seen soaring premiums, higher out-of-pocket costs, lower pay, disastrous Web sites that have left thousands in limbo, confusion in the health insurance market, and widespread damage to the economy.

The President's law has failed so badly that some of the President's strongest supporters are rejecting it. Young people whose support of the President was so successful in his election and reelection are turning their backs on the President's law. Unions which pushed for the law's passage and the President's reelection are now protesting that the law will destroy their health care plans and damage workers' livelihoods. Democrats running for reelection are running from the health care law as fast as they can for fear that association with ObamaCare will doom their chances of reelection. People are finding out what the law truly means for them and they don't like it.

When the President was trying to pass his health care law, he made a few promises. I think a lot of people remember when the President said: If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. He said: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. The reality of the law has proven to be quite different.

Six million Americans so far have lost their health care plans as a direct result of ObamaCare, and far too many of them found their only alternative was a plan that offered less coverage for more money. Millions of other Americans have lost their doctors and hospitals. ObamaCare placed a number of new taxes and regulations on insurance companies that left them facing huge cost increases. In an effort to manage their costs without raising health care premiums even further, many companies have narrowed their network of doctors and hospitals, especially in exchange plans. As a result, many Americans have lost doctors they have been seeing literally for years. Cancer patients in the middle of treatment have found their doctors are not covered by the new health care plans. Patients are also discovering their hospital options are now far more limited, as many plans exclude top hospitals.

A recent article in the Associated Press reported:

Some of America's best cancer hospitals are off-limits to many of the people now signing up for coverage under the Nation's new health care program.

Practically speaking, the AP reports:

Those patients may not be able to get the most advanced treatment including clinical trials of new medications.

In a particularly cruel twist, many of the patients who lost access to doctors and hospitals didn't know they would lose access when they signed up for their plans as provider information on the health care exchange Web sites is often, to quote a Business Week article, ``missing, wrong, or difficult to navigate.''

In addition to promising that patients would be able to keep their health care plans and their doctors, the President promised his health care law would reduce health care costs, but in fact health care costs have only risen since the Affordable Care Act passed. Families and individuals who were effectively dumped into the exchanges have frequently found that their only health care options cost far more than their previous health care plans and offer far less.

Family shopping for so-called silver plans now can face deductibles up to $12,700, a staggering amount of money that very few families are able to afford.

For many families that number represents a full quarter of their income before taxes.

Last week news emerged that already-high premiums on the exchanges are set to increase substantially next year. This was the headline in The Hill newspaper: O-Care premiums about to skyrocket. The Fiscal Times reported that Americans should ``expect premium prices to soar.'' In fact, The Hill reported that ``health industry officials say that ObamaCare-related premiums will double in some parts of the country.'' The Wall Street Journal reports that ``one recent analysis finds that 80% of firms offering employee coverage have raised deductibles or other cost-sharing provisions, or are considering doing so ..... to avoid a new tax that's set to hit more lavish plans in 2018 and to counter health-cost increases. Thus, employee out-of-pocket costs could rise.'' Perhaps a more accurate name for the law would have been the ``Unaffordable Care Act.''

The havoc ObamaCare has wreaked on our health care system would be ample reason to dislike the law. ObamaCare's damage isn't limited to our health care system; it is also damaging our economy.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that ObamaCare will result in 2 1/2 million fewer full-time workers over the next 10 years and reduce wages by more than $1 trillion. Those are real-world economic impacts.

Household income has already dropped by almost $3,700 over the course of the Obama Presidency, and American families are already struggling. Unemployment is high and economic growth is sluggish. The last thing we need is fewer workers and lower wages.

On top of that, ObamaCare is discouraging employers from hiring and reducing employees' hours, thanks to the slew of new taxes, mandates, and regulations ObamaCare levies on businesses large and small. Chief among these, of course, is the requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees provide health insurance to all of their full-time employees, which the law defines as those working 30 hours or more. If they don't do that, they pay fines. Faced with this mandate, State and local governments, nonprofits, and businesses with small profit margins have been forced to cut employees' hours to avoid health care bills or fines they can't afford to pay. Other businesses have been forced to keep their businesses under 50 workers instead of creating new jobs and hiring new people.

Larger businesses are also deciding not to hire or even letting workers go as a result of the costly taxes and regulations the health care law imposes. According to a recent study, ObamaCare's tax on lifesaving medical devices, such as pacemakers and insulin pumps, has already affected more than 30,000 jobs in the medical device industry.

I don't care what party you are from, you cannot think this law is working. Our health care system may have needed reform, but this was not the way to do it. Instead of improving our health care system, ObamaCare is making it far worse. It is time to repeal this law and pursue real solutions to our health care challenges.

Instead of the failing government health care exchanges, we could create affordable health care plans by allowing the purchase of insurance across State lines. This would allow for interstate competition when it comes to the purchase and sale of insurance. That would increase competition among health plans, which in turn would drive prices down, not up, as is happening now.

We could allow businesses to pool together to negotiate lower rates with health insurance companies.

We could improve high-risk pools to help people with preexisting conditions and expand health savings accounts to allow families to put away money tax free to pay for future health care-related expenses.

We could end the rampant lawsuit abuse that is driving up the cost of care for all Americans.

We do need real reform of our health care system--the kind of reform that will actually drive down costs and expand access to care while allowing Americans, not the government, to make decisions about the health care plans they choose and the doctors they visit. ObamaCare is doing the opposite.

ObamaCare isn't working. We need to repeal it now and replace it with real health care reforms so that Americans don't have to endure another 4 years like the last 4.

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

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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