Protect Women's Health From Corporate Interference Act of 2014--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we hear the President is planning to spend the week calling for Congress to pass highway funding legislation that Congress is already planning to pass. It seems odd for the President to be focusing so intently on something that is inevitable while ignoring other issues that really should be addressed--issues such as ObamaCare.

So many middle-class families in my State and across the country continue to suffer from the impact of this law. One thing that becomes increasingly clear with each passing day is the extent--the extent--to which ObamaCare is particularly hard on women.

Research shows that women make about 80 percent of the health care decisions for their families in our country. Yet ObamaCare has caused countless women to lose the health care plans they had and liked. When these women first spoke out about the betrayal they felt when they lost their plans, many of the law's supporters simply waved their concerns away or said they were making it up. They said they were lying or that their plans were ``junk''--because, of course, the critics knew better. It is a pattern that seems to have continued ever since.

American women also now have fewer choices of doctors and hospitals under ObamaCare. The bill's supporters have continually waived those concerns aside too.

Millions of Americans use flexible spending accounts to pay for out-of-pocket health care expenses. But ObamaCare imposes arbitrary limits on how much of a family's own hard-earned money can be set aside, and the law also prevents people who have come to depend on FSAs from using them to pay for common expenses such as allergy medicine or cold medication.

ObamaCare's cuts to Medicare Advantage and other regulatory actions could reduce the average benefit for women and men who rely on this program by more than $1,500 a year. Concerns such as these are all simply brushed aside by ObamaCare's supporters.

Washington should also be looking for ways to grow economic opportunities for women, but ObamaCare, of course, does just the opposite. I have heard from businesses large and small in Kentucky that fear they will not be able to cope with the higher costs of coverage under ObamaCare. They do not want to cut hours for their staffs or eliminate jobs, but many may no longer really have a choice.

Many of them are worried about new mandates that place millions of Americans--nearly two-thirds of them women--at risk of having their hours and wages reduced. One of my constituents from Somerset recently wrote to tell me what this new ObamaCare mandate has meant for her.

I'm employed at a major chain putting these rules into effect now. This is causing us to lose up to eleven hours per week averaging $440.00 ..... [less] per month less in wages. Obamacare [is] causing us to lose hours [and] lose wages, yet expecting us to spend more.

Let me repeat that. She says ObamaCare is causing her to lose hundreds of dollars a month in lost wages and at the same time causing health care costs to skyrocket. This is simply not right.

Yet despite these terrible stories that keep pouring into our offices, the people who supported this law when it passed continue to defend it now. We kept warning them that ObamaCare would hurt jobs and increase costs. They had to know ObamaCare was going to reduce choices for women and limit their access to certain doctors and hospitals. But Washington Democrats voted for ObamaCare anyway. They created these problems. That is why they should be working with Republicans now to start over with real, patient-centered reform that lowers costs and that women and men in this country actually want, but of course they refuse. They are just doubling down on ObamaCare.

Now they are trying to convince people of another untruth--that somehow it is not possible to preserve our Nation's long tradition of tolerance and respect for people of faith while at the same time preserving a woman's ability to make her own decisions about contraception. Washington Democrats are doing this based on a claim that, in the words of the Washington Post's nonpartisan Fact Checker, is ``simply wrong''

I realize Democrats may think the best way to keep people from focusing on the impact of ObamaCare on middle-class families is to just make things up and to attempt to divide us. Well, I think that is a shame. It takes a pretty dim view of what we are capable of as a country. The goal here should not be to protect the freedoms of some while denying the freedoms of others; the goal here and always should be to preserve everybody's freedoms. We can do both. That is just what a number of us on this side are proposing to do this week. Instead of restricting Americans' religious freedoms, we should preserve a woman's ability to make contraceptive decisions for herself. That is why we plan to introduce legislation this week that says no employer can block any employee from legal access to her FDA-approved contraceptives. There is no disagreement on that fundamental point. The American people know that. They know Democrats are just attempting to offer another false choice. What we are saying is that of course you can support both religious freedom and access to contraception.

Look, if Washington Democrats really wanted to help women, they would work with us to do so. We have been imploring them to work with us to deliver relief to middle-class women for years now, to work with us on a new approach to the health care law that is hurting millions of American women. It is not too late. Work with us to increase jobs, wages, and opportunity at a time when American women are experiencing so much hardship as a result of this administration's policies--especially ObamaCare.

BAY NOMINATION

I would like to voice my opposition to the nomination of Norman Bay to be a Commissioner of and eventually lead the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC. I fail to see what qualifies Mr. Bay to be Chairman of the Commission, especially when the Acting Chair of FERC, whom he would displace, is much more qualified to hold the position. Unlike most FERC Commissioners in the last decade, he has never served as a State utility regulator, he has never served on the Commission and does not possess the background in policy areas that FERC is charged with overseeing.

In contrast to Mr. Bay, the current Acting Chair of FERC, Cheryl LaFleur, is much more qualified to hold the Chair position. Ms. LaFleur came to FERC with more than two decades of experience in the electric and natural gas industries, including roles as chief operating officer, general counsel, and acting CEO of National Grid USA and its predecessor. I find it shameful that this administration would seek to displace a well-qualified woman in favor of a male nominee with less experience.

More importantly and of utmost concern to my home State, there are factors that lead us to believe Mr. Bay would reliably serve as a rubberstamp for this administration's extreme anticoal agenda. This agenda harms the people of Kentucky and is one I most strenuously oppose.

As the current head of FERC's enforcement office, he has shown a history of targeting carbon-intensive businesses. Who is to say that if installed as the next head of FERC, he will not come after Kentucky businesses relying on the coal industry for electricity, which is 90 percent of my State.

Moreover, during his testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this past May, Bay cited his home State of New Mexico as an example of a real-life ``all of the above'' approach to energy. He mentioned his State's reliance on solar, wind, oil, and gas for its energy mix. Notably left out of this supposed ``all of the above'' approach, however, was any mention of coal--which, by the way, provides 70 percent of the electricity in New Mexico.

For all of these reasons--because he is not qualified, because he holds an anticoal agenda, and because he will be only too willing to implement this administration's anticoal policy--I will be opposing Norman Bay's nomination to FERC. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Source