Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act of 2014

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Yesterday, the administration announced that 7.1 million people had signed up for private health care all across the country in exchanges that range from the national exchange down to the State-based exchanges. Many of those who signed up are women who are enjoying new benefits and new protections under the health care law. So I wanted to come down to the floor, as Senator Kaine did earlier today, as Senator Boxer will in a few moments, to talk about why women all across this country have a completely different health care experience today under the Affordable Care Act and why they have no interest in going back to the days before the Affordable Care Act, and to talk also about what it means to have 7 million people all across this country who now have access to private health care insurance who did not have it before.

The story for women all across this country, as Senator Boxer will talk about in far more articulate terms than I can, is pretty stunning. Mr. President, 8.7 million women will gain maternity coverage in 2014; 8.7 million women did not have maternity coverage either because they did not have coverage to begin with or because they had a plan that did not provide maternity coverage. The health care law says if you buy insurance, we are going to expect that insurance has just a basic, commonsense level of benefits, and I think every American would agree with the fact that insurance for a woman should probably cover what for many women will be the most expensive intersection with the health care system they have in their life: And that is when they get pregnant. For families across the country, getting pregnant can bankrupt a family if they do not have maternity coverage. That changes with the Affordable Care Act.

Twenty seven million women can receive lifesaving preventive care without copays all across this country. A copay for many people is just $5 or $10. But for some cancer screenings, it can be a significant amount of money, running more than $100. For low-income women, who are the primary breadwinner for their family, who are perhaps only making about $25,000 a year, that is a barrier for them in seeking this basic preventive care, seeking care that could catch a cancer when it can be treated before it becomes a killer. Because of the Affordable Care Act, 27 million women now can receive lifesaving preventive care.

But maybe the most important statistic for women is this one: zero. Zero women can be charged more just for being a woman. The reality was, as Senator Boxer will talk about, if you were a woman in this country, you were sometimes paying 50 percent more simply because insurance companies believed in many cases that being a woman constituted a preexisting condition.

So we have 7.1 million people who are now on these private exchanges. Many of them are women who are already enjoying the benefits of the Affordable Care Act but now are going to be able to get lifesaving treatment because of the ACA.

There were a lot of people who said this day was not going to happen. There were a lot of naysayers out there who said there was no way we were ever going to be able to hit the 7 million mark.

It is kind of interesting to look back now on all of the folks who predicted catastrophe for the Affordable Care Act who have been proven wrong. Before I yield the floor for Senator Boxer, I want to go through a couple of these statements.

A lot of people in the House of Representatives have spent the majority of the last several years trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act. I was a Member of that body, and I probably was down on the floor of the House of Representatives for about 40 different votes to repeal all or part of the Affordable Care Act. I think we are now at about 50 or 51 votes.

But when the Web site ran into some troubles in the beginning of the year, they all went down to the floor and went on the cable news networks and said this was an example of how bad this law is and there is no way to fix the law, there is no way to fix the Web site.

Representative Bill Johnson of Ohio said this:

This may be the most stunning example of overpromising and under delivering in recent U.S. history. Based on my review, the problems with the Healthcare.gov website are catastrophic.

That is a bit of hyperbole to suggest that the problems with the Web site were the most stunning example ever in recent U.S. history of overpromising and underdelivering. But, of course, the Web site problems were fixed. They were fixed within a few months such that we have actually gone straight through the CBO's estimate--after the Web site troubles--of 6 million people enrolling and we now have 7 million people enrolling.

But as early as this month, Republicans and mass media sources were telling us there was no way we were going to hit 7 million or 6 million. An Associated Press article said:

..... the White House needs something close to a miracle to meet its goal of enrolling 6 million people by the end of this month. With open enrollment ending March 31, that means to meet the goal, another 1.8 million people would have to sign up during the month. ..... That's way above the daily averages for January and February. ..... The math seems to be going against the administration.

Well, what the Associated Press did not get is that there is desperation out on the streets. People who have not had insurance for years, if not decades, well, they might have taken their time to price out the right plan for themselves. Some of them might have simply waited until the last minute. But the reality is, the demand there is, frankly, almost insatiable, such that the Web site actually came down for a portion of time on the 31st because so many people were going to it. The number eventually eclipsed even the CBO's rosiest estimate of enrollment.

Bill Kristol said this:

If the exchanges are permitted to go into effect ..... there will be error, fraud, inefficiency, arbitrariness, and privacy violations aplenty. ..... Just as economic shortages were endemic to Soviet central planning, the coming Obamacare train wreck is endemic to big government liberalism.

Well, the exchanges are working pretty well, such that we broke through the 7 million barrier. In my State of Connecticut, which has run a really good exchange, we are coming close to doubling our expected enrollment. Senator Boxer will talk about her numbers in California. But when you actually work to implement the health care law, rather than work to undermine it, as several States are, the exchanges work very well.

So then they turned and said: Well, yes, lots of people are signing up, and, yes, the exchanges seem to be working, but the wrong people are signing up. So one conservative scholar said:

They have thrown the entire health-care system into unprecedented chaos for a population--

The uninsured--

that is, it seems, staying as far away from it as possible. Little has been fixed. .....

Well, Kentucky, just in the first 6 months of implementation, has reduced its uninsured population by 40 percent. The RAND Corporation said that 9 million Americans who had no health insurance now have health insurance. The reality is that people without insurance are signing up for the new health care law. Why? Because they can afford it and they desperately need it.

The fact is Republicans are going to continue to attack this law, and they are going to continue to change their arguments, they are going to continue to be shifting in the messages they send to the American people because every time they tell us that something is wrong, they are wrong.

Now they have said--do you know what--that 7 million figure, well, that just cannot be right. They are cooking the books. That cannot be right. There has to be something wrong with the methodology. Well, it is not just the Obama administration that says it is 7 million; it is independent analysts who say it is 7 million. And guess what. By the end of the year it could be 8 million once people who have had life-changing events sign up for care, once we incorporate all the State numbers.

Nobody is cooking the books. The uninsured are not staying away. The exchanges are not catastrophic. The Web site is not unfixable. All of these things have been proven untrue. Yet we still have people come down to the floor and tell us why this thing cannot work.

I listened to one of my colleagues come down to the floor earlier today and tell a story about a family in Wyoming. I do not know the specifics of the family there. But let's talk about families in a State like Wyoming that is on a Federal exchange--the real story of the options that are out there for families out there.

I think my friend from Wyoming was talking about a family of five. Again, I cannot know all of the specifics of that family. But let's say that family of five in Carbon County, WY, was making $100,000 a year--which would be about twice the average salary in that State and across the country. Well, that family of five making $100,000 a year would qualify for a $677 per month tax credit. A bronze plan would be about $550 to $750 per month. That is about 40 percent cheaper than a lot of private plans that may be available today.

Now let's say that family is actually making the median income in Wyoming, which is around $56,000. Well, if you are making $56,000, and you are a family of five in Wyoming, all your kids will qualify for Medicaid, which is virtually free, and the parents would qualify for a tax credit of $528 per month. A bronze plan could be as cheap as $171 per month.

That is the reality. That is affordable for a family of five making the median income. That is affordable. I understand people are having stories that do not match up with the 7 million people who have signed up for these plans over the past several months. I get that there is bad news out there. But there is a lot of good news out there as well. There are a lot of people who could not afford to buy a health insurance plan, who now can finally afford health care.

That is why Senator Boxer and myself and Senator Stabenow and Senator Whitehouse and so many others have been coming down to the floor to talk about the fact that the Affordable Care Act is working. And for all of the naysayers, for all of the people who have predicted that this law could not work, well, the example has been set: 7 million people and counting signed up for health care exchanges all across this country--never mind all of the people who have gotten access to Medicaid, never mind all the people who have been able to stay on their parents' plan. We do not know what the overall number right now will be of people who have qualified for health care under the exchanges, Medicaid, and the provisions allowing people to stay on their plans. But this number could be 25 million by the time the year is out.

So I am thrilled to see the success of the Affordable Care Act and the number from yesterday. I am thrilled to see the life-changing benefits for women all across the country. I am pleased to be joined here on the floor by my colleague, Senator Boxer.

With that, I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source