Burwell Nomination

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the ObamaCare train wreck just keeps rolling on. Every day it seems there is another story about another ObamaCare failure.

Mr. President, 80,000 Oregonians must reenroll in health plans after the State's ObamaCare exchange site failed. The health care coverage of 2 million Americans enrolled on the exchanges could be in jeopardy.

The Congressional Budget Office says there have been so many delays and changes to ObamaCare that it can no longer estimate the fiscal effects of the law. And that is just the ObamaCare news from yesterday. The Democrats' victory lap is a distant memory replaced by the constant flow of stories about ObamaCare's many failures. Americans are losing their health insurance, Americans are losing their doctors, Americans are unable to obtain medications, employers are facing higher costs, and employees are facing higher costs. The list goes on.

The President promised that his health care law was going to be a solution for American families. If they liked their health care plans and their doctors, they could keep them. If they didn't like their health care or if they didn't have health care, they would be able to get an affordable plan. Those were the promises that were made.

Unfortunately, Americans quickly discovered those promises were not to be kept. Millions of Americans were forced off their health care plans and into the exchanges where they frequently found they were paying more and getting less. Too many Americans discovered their new health care coverage meant losing doctors and hospitals they liked and that their choice of replacement was limited.

When the President was campaigning for his health care law, he claimed families would see their health care premiums drop by $2,500. In fact, health care premiums have increased by almost $3,700 under the President, and they are still going up.

Middle-class Americans are hurting. The past 5 1/2 years of the Obama administration have brought higher prices and fewer opportunities. Gas prices have almost doubled. Food prices have risen. Meanwhile, Americans' household income has declined by more than $3,500 on the President's watch. So Americans who once confidently expected to be able to put their children through college and retire comfortably are now struggling to make ends meet. Too many families are living paycheck to paycheck, desperately praying they won't be faced with any unexpected bills. ObamaCare was supposed to make things better for these families. It was supposed to make health care more affordable and ease Americans' health concerns. Instead, it is making things much worse.

Today the Senate will vote on Sylvia Burwell's nomination to be Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. As much as Democrats might want it to be true, a change in personnel at the Department of Health and Human Services won't make the mess ObamaCare has created disappear. Changing HHS Secretaries isn't going to lower Americans' health care costs or give them back the doctor or the health plan they lost. It is not going to help the small businesses that are struggling under ObamaCare's burdensome mandates or restore the $1 trillion Americans will lose in wages, thanks to the health care law. It is not going to bring back the jobs that have been lost as a result of ObamaCare.

Every Senator who voted for this law owes the American people an explanation. Every Senator who voted for this law ought to be telling American families what he or she is going to do to fix this mess. Americans deserve better than ObamaCare, and we could give them better than ObamaCare, if Members of the Senate would decide this was the wrong approach and decide to go in a different direction. I hope eventually they will come to that conclusion.

I yield the floor.

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