Justice For Victims Of Trafficking Act Of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. I point out that on Saturday, I am going to be in Buffalo, WY, at a health fair. As a doctor, I continue to attend health fairs around the State which are designed to bring low-cost health care screenings to people. I know I will hear from folks there who are concerned with the fact that the CBO has come out and said the premiums are going to go up 8 percent next year, and 8 percent the year after that. Some of them are actually going to be on the ObamaCare exchange. I know some of them are people who had insurance that worked well for them before the President passed his law, and their insurance was canceled.

The President and the Senator from Connecticut may list them as successes, but they don't believe it is that way. They had insurance. They had insurance that they liked. It worked for them, and it worked for their family. They had the benefits that were important for their family, things for which they needed insurance. The President, on the health care law, came out with this mandate that everyone buy health insurance, and not just what worked for them. The President described it as essential benefits. I described them as excessive benefits, because there is a lot of insurance they are forced to buy, according to the law, that they do not need, do not want, cannot afford, and it does not even apply to their families. They have no choice in the matter.

They have had to lose insurance that worked for them and buy insurance that the President said they had to buy, even though it wasn't what was best for them and their families. They know what is best for them and their families, not President Obama.

I expect while I am in Buffalo, WY, visiting people, listening to what they have to say at a health fair, I will hear stories such as that because I do every weekend in Wyoming. People are concerned about the cost. Even those who have been getting subsidies through the exchanges are noticing that deductibles are higher than their previous insurance, and copays are higher. They are paying more. They are paying more and getting less, which is why this health care law continues to be unpopular across the country.

Take a look at any of the national numbers that are coming out, and you are going to find many more people who feel they were harmed by the law than helped by the law. There is a ratio of more people who think they were harmed than helped. More people want it repealed than continued. That is what we are seeing across the country with this health care law.

The President and I would say we should listen to the American people who have these stories to tell. I was on the floor yesterday, and I talked about a woman from Maine. There was an article in the paper in Maine. She found the whole experience that she has been going through now frightening, and she has insurance through the exchange. She said it is a frightening experience. She did her taxes and found out that she ended up owing a lot of money in taxes that she didn't know she was going to owe because of mistakes that were being made and the way the bookkeeping works. That is what is happening. H&R Block, the insurance folks who do the calculation to help people file their policies, are saying, on average, half of the people filing their returns this year are finding they are getting shocked and surprised that their amount of money coming in to the returns is a lot less, by an average of $530, according to H&R Block. This is across the board.

There are a lot of disgruntled people who are disappointed in a President who made promises to them about a health care law, people who can't keep their doctors, high deductibles they can't afford. A study came out yesterday that many people with insurance can't afford anything close to the deductibles they are forced to be paying under the President's insurance that they had to buy, many of whom lost the insurance they liked. We see these problems, and the amount of government waste in this program is incredible.

Oregon earlier this week shut down their exchange. The State of Oregon spent $248 million putting together their own State exchange, and the Governor just signed something saying we are done with it. They have not signed up one single person on the Oregon computer exchange ever--$248 million, taxpayer dollars, gone. Gone. The only people who could sign up in Oregon had to do it by filling it out with paper and pen. This is supposed to be--I heard President Obama--as easy as shopping on Amazon; insurance is cheaper than your cell phone; keep your doctor if you like your doctor. That is not what happened under this health care law. People lost their doctors and can't afford their policies. It is a very complicated situation related to this. Then you get Washington State. It is State after State--13,000 people had too much money taken out of their checking account as just part of the regular process of the monthly withdrawals.

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