[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 14 (Thursday, January 31, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S432-S433]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, this past weekend I had the opportunity 
to attend a conference of the Wyoming American Legion. Many of the 
veterans I spoke with remain very concerned about their health care and 
specifically about the impacts of the Obama health care law on their 
lives and on their health.
  The men and women whom I met with are very worried they may lose 
their health coverage. Why? Because of the law. They wonder what 
happened to the insurance premium cuts they were supposed to have 
gotten by now--not in the future but promised to have gotten by now.
  These men and women have not gotten many of the benefits they were 
told to expect, but what they are getting are all the costs. That is 
why the people I talk with every weekend at home in Wyoming understand 
what the Democrats in Washington still will not admit: that the 
President's health care law remains unworkable, unpopular, and 
absolutely unaffordable.
  Remember when the President promised that if you like your health 
care plan, you can keep it? Well, all of America now knows it was an 
empty promise, just as when President Obama promised health insurance 
premiums would go down. Over and over, the President said that his law 
would lower premiums by $2,500 a family by the end of his first term in 
office. The President has not talked much about that lately. I did not 
hear anything about it in his inaugural address, and I do not expect to 
hear very much about it in his State of the Union Address. It is 
because average premiums across the country for families have not gone 
down--not by the $2,500 that the President promised, not by even 
$1,000, not even by a cent. Instead, average family premiums have 
actually gone up by more than $3,000 during the President's first term. 
That is a pretty big math error on the part of President Obama, and the 
American people, unfortunately, are the ones who have to pay for his 
mistake.
  Because of his policies, health insurance is a lot less affordable 
for a lot of people and for a lot of small businesses. Now many small 
businesses are facing what is turning out to be an impossible decision. 
If they expand their business and cross the law's threshold of 50 
employees, they will be subject to the employer insurance mandate. If 
they choose not to expand, then they are holding back potential growth 
and the opportunities that come with it. In this current economic 
environment, the last thing we should be doing is making it more 
difficult for businesses to expand and hire more people. But because of 
the President's health care law, that is exactly what is happening.
  The Wall Street Journal ran a piece recently about a small business 
owner named Carl Schanstra. He owns a parts assembly factory near 
Chicago, IL. It is called Automation Systems LLC.
  Sales have been growing, and the business is doing well, but he has a 
problem because he already employs close to 50 people. That means he is 
getting dangerously close to the law's threshold and the new health 
care burdens it would place on him, including all the expenses.
  As he puts it, he says: ``I'll be hammered for having more people at 
work.'' The cost of providing insurance would be enormous. The cost of 
paying the tax penalty for not offering insurance would also be 
enormous.

  That is not a good option for a small business such as Automation 
Systems--a small business that wants to expand, a small business that 
has an opportunity to expand and hire more people. So he has to look 
for ways to stay under the law's limits.
  He plans to raise prices to give himself a buffer against the new 
health care law, and he may even have to break his company into two 
different companies so they can stay below the limits. He may avoid 
hiring more people or buy more machinery to replace some of the 
workers.
  A rational and responsible business owner wants to make decisions 
based on what is best for the business and its employees. Now we have 
business owners having to make these decisions based on the crushing 
regulatory burden imposed upon them by Washington.
  Carl is not the only business owner who is having to face tough 
choices because of the health care law. According to a new survey 
Gallup put out last week, more than half of small business owners say 
health care costs and taxes are hurting them a lot. Those two things--
health care costs and taxes--led the list of their concerns by a wide 
margin. When Gallup looked specifically at businesses that were not 
hiring, 61 percent of them--nearly two out of every three--said it was 
because of the potential cost of health care.
  Washington should be creating policies that encourage businesses to 
hire and making hiring easier. Again, that is what our economy needs to 
recover. Instead, this administration has been piling up more costs, 
more regulations, and more ways to discourage hiring.
  That is one person's story. But just down the road from where Carl is 
trying to do what is best for his business and his workers, the city of 
Chicago itself is facing some of the same concerns. Chicago has decided 
it cannot afford to pay the health care costs of its retired city 
workers. So what is the whole city of Chicago going to do? Well, it is 
looking at dumping those former workers into the ObamaCare exchange. It 
would save the city a lot of money, but the taxpayers of Illinois and 
every other State would have to make up the tab because the city is 
trying to skip out on paying their own bill.
  Federal subsidies for Chicago retirees would be $44 million in 2014, 
and that amount would only grow over time. Of course, we know the mayor 
of Chicago is Rahm Emanuel. He was one of the main figures in the room 
where ObamaCare was being written, and we

[[Page S433]]

all know--all of America knows--that room was behind closed doors. He 
knew exactly the kinds of incentives the law was creating. He also knew 
exactly how many people would be affected. And he knew how people such 
as him could use the law to push health care costs onto someone else.
  Chicago takes that step today. Other cities might be right behind and 
waiting to do the same thing tomorrow and the day after that, and so 
on.
  We need to reduce health care costs in America. But all we do and all 
we see is cost-shifting, robbing Peter to pay Paul. We need businesses 
to hire people so our economy can grow. Those businesses are holding 
back because of the health care law. We need to reduce Washington's 
out-of-control spending. But cities such as Chicago are trying to shift 
their health care costs to hard-working taxpayers elsewhere.
  Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate and the White House refuse to 
accept that we have any problem at all with entitlement spending and 
the budget deficits we are looking at. It is time for Democrats to take 
their head out of the sand, to admit that the President's health care 
law did not solve our problems; in fact, it made things worse.
  Then I picked up the paper this morning--today's Wall Street 
Journal--and a front-page headline is: ``Some Unions Grow Wary Of 
Health Law They Backed.'' We all remember the days when unions lobbied 
for this health care law. Their Web sites said: We need this health 
care law now. They came to Capitol Hill, lobbying here, members having 
rallies.
  Well, let me read some of the beginning of the article that is on the 
front page of today's paper.

       Labor unions enthusiastically backed the Obama 
     administration's health-care overhaul when it was up for 
     debate. Now that the law is rolling out, some are turning 
     sour.
       Union leaders say many of the law's requirements--

  Many of the law's requirements--

     will drive up the costs for their health-care plans and make 
     unionized workers less competitive.

  So there we have it. We have what happens to a small business, why 
the health care law is hurting it. We see how the city of Chicago is 
responding to the perverse incentives in the health care law to force 
its costs onto other hard-working taxpayers, and now we see the very 
unions that supported the health care law during the lobbying phase and 
during the time of the vote now saying the law's requirements are going 
to drive up the cost for their health care plans.
  It just seems it is time for people on Capitol Hill to realize how 
bad this health care law is. We need real entitlement reform that 
preserves vital safety net programs for future generations. We need 
real health care reform that gives people the care they need, from a 
doctor they choose, at lower cost.
  President Obama continues to give the American people and give all of 
us empty promises. Congress should give hard-working American taxpayers 
the solutions they expect and they deserve.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COONS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Delaware is recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Coons pertaining to the introduction of S. 193 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. COONS. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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