Justice For Victims Of Trafficking Act Of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I agree entirely with my friend, the Senator from Kansas, and I thank him for his leadership and thoughtful deliberation on this matter.

I would like for a moment to talk about this bill that is on the floor, S. 178, the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. I have an amendment that I am offering today on human trafficking in Indian Country. I will tell you that human trafficking is widespread in Indian Country, and we have to do everything we can to stop it. Violent crime rates against women and girls in Native American communities are far higher than the national averages. This amendment delivers help to trafficking survivors and gives tribes the resources they need to battle human trafficking in their own backyards. This amendment has broad support and is a vital addition to the bill on the floor today.

My amendment would provide tribes the opportunity to access funding for recovery programs for survivors and special training for local law enforcement in order to combat human trafficking specifically in Indian Country. This amendment would allow Indian tribes to be able to compete for resources for programs to prevent human trafficking. It would provide for training for local tribal law enforcement so they would be better able to track trafficking activities. These trainings and additional resources will better equip the tribal resources to better spot human trafficking in local communities and to act quickly to respond.

This funding would also help the survivors of sex and labor trafficking in their recovery. Programs such as this assist survivors in human trafficking and enable them to begin to heal and restore their lives. The bill, S. 178, allows for more protections for victims of human trafficking in our country, and my amendment would extend those protections to the tribes in Indian Country as well.

OBAMACARE

Madam President, I noticed earlier today the minority leader as well as the minority whip on the Senate floor talking about the President's health care law.

I would like to point out that the Congressional Budget Office released a report Monday about the Obama health care law--ObamaCare. I see the White House is actually championing the report. They call it great news for America.

Let's be clear. This report contains significant amounts of bad news for people--bad news for people who signed up on the ObamaCare exchanges for getting their health insurance coverage.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that health care premiums will increase more than 8 percent a year this coming year for ObamaCare enrollees. They also predict it will increase 8 percent next year for ObamaCare enrollees through the exchange for the benchmark plan, and they predict it will increase another 8 percent a year after that. Most Americans can't afford to pay 8 percent more a year in premiums each and every year, which is what the Congressional Budget Office is proposing, but you don't hear the Democrats on the floor talking about that.

Wasn't it the President of the United States who said that premium rates would go down for families by $2,500 a year?

Isn't it so that many Senators on the other side of the aisle came to the floor and said rates would go down. Nancy Pelosi said they would go down for everyone. Why are the Democrats not mentioning what the CBO is saying, that year after year after year the rates are going to go up 8 percent, another 8 percent, another 8 percent?

So we know the reality of what is happening to people all across the country, which is why this health care law continues to be unpopular, unaffordable, and unworkable. So I think it is time for the White House to stop celebrating and start thinking about the people who have been impacted specifically by this expensive and unworkable piece of legislation.

I found it interesting that on Monday, the Secretary of Health and Human Services held an event to celebrate the number of people who had signed up for coverage this year. Secretary Burwell said she was ``pleased with the results to date.'' She repeated the administration's sound bite about the health care law working.

Well, that is not what I am hearing from people at home in Wyoming. It is not what I am hearing from my friends, neighbors, and patients. As a doctor who has been taking care of patients in Wyoming for 25 years, I talk to lots of patients every weekend at home. It is also not what I read in the papers. Papers all across the country, from the east coast to the west coast, talk about hard working Americans who have been devastated by the impacts of this terrible health care law. It seems that every day there is more bad news about more ways that ObamaCare is hurting American families and failing to live up to the many promises made by the President and the Democrats in this body who voted for it--the promises they made.

When you take a look at the Congressional Budget Office's new estimates of how many people are going to sign up for ObamaCare this year, they had originally said there would be 14 million people who would sign up for ObamaCare plans by the end of the year. Now they have dropped that number down to 11 million people. So it is not a surprise when fewer people--3 million fewer people--sign up, that it is going to cost the taxpayers less than the very high number they were expecting to have to pay. So that number has dropped, but it is because fewer people are choosing to sign up for the Obama health care plan. Is the Obama administration pleased that the President's health care law is so much less popular with the public than the President and Democrats expected it to be?

As I talk about some of the stories that are coming out from the east to the west coast, I would like to start with a story from the Portland Press Herald newspaper in Portland, ME. On February 27, the headline was: ``Many insured under Affordable Care Act taking a hit at tax time.''

The article tells the story of Diana Newman, who lives in Southwest Harbor. She had ObamaCare insurance last year. She went to file her taxes a few weeks ago. The article says that ``she got a $400 surprise.'' That is how much she owed on her taxes specifically because of the new health care law. She told the newspaper that her tax troubles are just another stumbling block in what she said was a long, difficult year trying to figure out how to use and how to pay for her new insurance.

She said: ``At the end of all this confusion, I was hit with hundreds of dollars at tax time.'' She said: ``It's frightening.''

Frightening--that is how somebody whom the President is claiming has been helped by the law is describing the impact on her life. It is frightening. It turns out she was one of almost a million people who got bad information from the government about their tax forms.

Well, that just made things more confusing for her. She said: ``At this point, I don't know what to think. I may owe more, or less, or about the same.''

Is the Obama administration--and all the Democrats who voted for this health care law--pleased about the way it is frightening this woman in Maine? I don't hear the Senate minority leader or the whip talking about that.

Does the administration think that ObamaCare is working for Diana Newman?

The tax preparation company H&R Block says that more than half of their clients--more than half of their clients--have had their refunds reduced because of the health care law. On average H&R Block says their customers owe the IRS an extra $530. That is a lot of money for hard-working taxpayers.

A lot of people count on getting that tax refund to help them pay their bills this time of year.

Is the Obama administration pleased to see the IRS take another $530 from hard-working American families? Some of these people who owe money to the IRS didn't sign up for ObamaCare insurance at all last year.

Many are now finding out for the first time that they owe a tax penalty because the health care law's mandate says they have to buy health insurance and not just necessarily insurance that works for them and their family and their family's needs. Oh, no, the mandate states they have to buy insurance President Obama says works for them, even though they know it doesn't work for them. It may be too much insurance or insurance they don't need, don't want, can't afford, and they don't have the freedom or flexibility to even make that choice. President Obama says he knows what is best for them because they don't.

The problem is that by the time many of these people figured that out, it was already too late to sign up for ObamaCare insurance for this year so now they are getting taxed--penalized. People who didn't understand the tax penalties feel as though the Obama administration has pulled a fast one on them.

Again, as we approach the 5-year anniversary, ObamaCare continues to be unpopular with the American people. There is so much anger about the timing of the tax issues that the administration had to backtrack and allow extra time for people to sign up this year.

The President made a YouTube video saying the deadline was February 15. February 15 came and went, and then the President said: Well, we better open it up again. This President is making it up as he goes along. We have seen it time and time again with this President and this law. He is making it up as he goes along.

Is the Obama administration pleased with this confusion and anger that a lot of Americans are feeling because of the IRS penalties?

It is not just Washington that is causing trouble for people who have to sign up for the President's health care. We are seeing bad news all across America.

I talked about Maine earlier. Let's go over to the other coast. Let's go to Oregon. Oregon tried to set up its own health insurance exchange. They did such an awful job that not one single person was ever able to sign up on the State Web site--not one, no one. People had to fill out paper applications if they wanted to try to buy insurance last year.

How much did it cost the State to set up this exchange where not one person was able to buy insurance from the Web site? It cost taxpayers $248 million.

Last Friday the Governor of Oregon officially gave up. He signed a law dissolving the State exchange. Oregon will just use the Federal Government's exchange and the Federal Web site.

Does the Obama administration think that the failed Web site and the wasting of $248 million in taxpayer money is a sign that the health care law is working? Is this administration pleased with the way Oregon's ObamaCare exchange wasted nearly one-quarter of a billion dollars? That is one State alone.

Just next door in Washington State, they are having troubles of their own. There was an article in The Hill newspaper here in Washington, DC, on February 25 titled ``State's ObamaCare overcharges 13K.'' There were 13,000 people overcharged in the State's ObamaCare exchange in Washington State.

According to the article, the Washington State ObamaCare exchange said it withdrew the incorrect amount of money from the bank accounts of 13,000 people. Think about that in reference to your own checking account, where there may be an automatic withdrawal based on a cable bill, cell phone bill or whatever. Many people--13,000 in this case in Washington State--had an incorrect withdrawal from the Washington State ObamaCare exchange. It says that some of the people say that more than three times the correct amount was withdrawn for their monthly premium for health insurance.

Can you imagine if the electric company or one of the utilities--your cell phone provider or your cable company--withdrew three times the amount expected from your checking account for that monthly bill. For some people that glitch in the State system probably meant their accounts were going to end up overdrawn.

Even if the States get the problem fixed right away, that is an alarming failure by that ObamaCare exchange.

Is the Obama administration pleased with the anxiety the exchange is causing 13,000 people in Washington State? These are just a few of the ways ObamaCare is not living up to the promises that Democrats and the administration made to the American people.

Later this month, on March 23, we will hit the fifth anniversary of President Obama signing this health care bill into law. If Monday's event with Secretary Burwell was any indication, the White House is going to throw a celebration. Once again they will say they are pleased and they will say ObamaCare is working. The Obama administration should not be pleased with its health care law. The Obama administration, and every Democrat who voted for it, should be embarrassed by it.

It is not what Democrats promised, and it is not what people wanted. People wanted something very simple when it came to their health care and health care reform. People want the care they need, from a doctor they choose, at a lower cost, and that is what Republicans in the Senate are planning to give them.

We can do it without a 2,000-page law, and we can do it without all of the negative side effects of ObamaCare. That will be health care reform worth celebrating.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

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