[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 113 (Thursday, August 1, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6144-S6145]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, many of us will be leaving in the next 
day or so and heading to States across the country. As we travel across 
our States, we will be listening to our constituents and hearing what 
is on their minds.
  One of the things I hear about every weekend in Wyoming is that 
people are concerned about the President's health care law, and 
specifically how the law affects their lives, their families, and their 
jobs. People all across Wyoming--and I believe all across the country--
are angry. They are angry that the White House is unfairly giving 
employers a 1-year delay in the mandate to offer insurance but did not 
delay the individual mandate that says every American must buy or hold 
Washington-approved insurance. For many of these people this is very 
expensive insurance.
  Instead of granting a permanent delay or helping all Americans, 
President Obama and his supporters are trying to convince the American 
people that this health care law is working fine. Once again, the Obama 
administration is lecturing the American people instead of listening to 
the American people. They think if they give more speeches and deliver 
more sales pitches the American people will finally like this law. It 
is not going to happen.
  Look at how far the Obama administration is willing to go with its 
latest sales pitch. Last week CNN reported the administration called 
together a bunch of Hollywood celebrities to help convince young 
Americans to buy expensive health coverage. The youth of America are 
not going to fall for it. Even though many of these Hollywood stars are 
great actors who always remember their lines, young Americans 
understand that ObamaCare is the wrong script for America. Even though 
some of these stars deliver funny jokes on ``Saturday Night Live,'' 
they are about to find out that this health care law is no laughing 
matter.
  In fact, Americans of all ages believe the law is unworkable, 
unaffordable, and deeply unpopular. They are also finding out it is 
unfair, and that is what CBS found out last week. They did a poll. They 
found that 54 percent of Americans disapprove of the law. They also 
found that only 13 percent of the people say the law will actually help 
them personally. Three times as many Americans in the poll believe the 
law will hurt them personally. Three times as many people believe the 
law will hurt them personally than the people it will help. So over the 
next couple of months the American people can expect a barrage of 
advertising.
  There was a big story about it today in the New York Times. Musicians 
are playing songs on the west coast and trying to get people to sign up 
for the exchanges. It was all aimed at trying to distract the American 
people from the health care train wreck that is coming.
  According to the Associated Press, at least $684 million will be 
spent nationally on publicity, marketing, and advertising for the law. 
The Washington Post found that the States will be running ads not just 
on TV and radio--and you are not going to believe this--they are also 
putting slogans on coffee cups, on airplanes flying banners across 
beaches, and even, believe it or not, on portable toilets at a cost of 
nearly $700 million. It is a windfall for advertising agencies and a 
hard sell for hard-working taxpayers.
  The administration is picking the pockets of the American people for 
advertising while the health care law is shrinking the paychecks of the 
people who can only find part-time work.
  Speaking of part-time workers, I wish to talk about a new story that 
is out that demonstrates the height of hypocrisy surrounding the 
President's health care law. Frankly, the story is so outrageous that 
it is one of those things a person can't make up. The headline of the 
article reads ``Half of Affordable Care Act call center jobs will be 
part-time.'' Here are the details.
  The article is about a new call center in Contra Costa County, CA. 
This is part of the effort to have so-called navigators who will answer 
Americans' questions about the health care law. The call center ran ads 
for more than 200 jobs that said all of these jobs would be full time. 
That is what people are looking for in America--full-time jobs, full-
time work. But once the new workers started training, some of them got 
a different story. They found out that they would actually be part-time 
employees with no health benefits.
  Let me emphasize that point. Even the ObamaCare navigators are not 
going to be covered by the health care law and are not going to be 
provided health care. Even some of the navigators will not know how 
they can get affordable health care coverage even though they are the 
ones who are supposed to be giving advice to Americans. Some navigators 
are being forced to work part time because the company cannot afford to 
provide the expensive government-mandated, government-approved 
insurance they are supposed to teach others how to get. It turns out 
the ObamaCare navigators need their own ObamaCare navigators.
  The article even quotes one worker saying, ``What's really ironic is 
working for a call center and trying to help people get health care, 
but we can't afford it ourselves.'' That is what this

[[Page S6145]]

administration has done to this country. I don't call that ironic; I 
call it outrageous.
  So the question is, Who are the navigators going to call for help and 
how are they going to answer Americans' questions when many of them 
don't know how they are personally going to be able to afford the 
health care coverage the government and the President of the United 
States mandate they have?
  The bad news is this story is only one of many new examples of 
hypocrisy recently surrounding the President's health care law. Week 
after week we have seen labor unions--one after another--that 
originally supported the law now express concerns about how the health 
care law will impact their members' access to care. Late last week we 
even heard from something called the National Treasury Employees Union. 
It is important to know that this union represents most of the IRS 
workers--the 100,000 IRS workers--who are going to be enforcing the 
health care law. What about these IRS workers? What are they saying? 
Well, it turns out the IRS employee union said they are very concerned 
they might actually have to buy their own health insurance in the 
exchanges, just as other Americans will. These are the exact same IRS 
agents who will collect massive amounts of data--personal data--on 
people's individual lives and their health care choices. They will 
investigate whether people have the right coverage. They will apply the 
tax penalties to anyone who doesn't. These are the agents who now say 
they want no part of the health care law's exchanges for themselves. 
They actually have sample letters the union has sent to the IRS agents 
to send to Members of Congress to say: I am one of your constituents, 
and we don't want it to apply to us, and we want to hear back.
  This health care law is bad for all Americans. Each of those stories 
demonstrates again that the President's health care law is 
fundamentally broken. Instead of spending the rest of the summer trying 
to sell an expensive failing product, the President should simply 
listen. He should listen to young people who are about to see their 
premiums soar. He should listen to ObamaCare navigators who can't find 
affordable health care. He should listen to the IRS agents who enforce 
the law and who don't want to live under the law. He should listen to 
the American people and what they have to say about the high costs of 
their health insurance coverage. He should listen to what Americans 
have to say about how hard it is to find a doctor who will take care of 
them.
  Front-page story: So many people on Medicare cannot get a doctor to 
take care of them. Why? Because of the health care law. Twenty percent 
of family physicians in this country--this story was reported in the 
Wall Street Journal--20 percent of family physicians are not taking new 
Medicare patients. Thirty-three percent are not taking new Medicaid 
patients. But a big part of the President's health care law was to 
force people onto Medicaid--a program that is not working already.
  The President should listen to what Americans have to say about how 
hard it is to keep their current coverage. And the President should 
listen to what the American people have to say about trying to make 
ends meet on a part-time salary--a part-time salary because of the 
health care law, because of the incentives of the health care law to 
knock down employees' work hours to less than 30.
  Then the President should come back to Washington after he actually 
listens, not lectures, and sit down with Congress--Republicans and 
Democrats working together--and work on real solutions that will give 
Americans what they wanted in the first place with health care. 
Americans want the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower 
cost. These are the things that have not been provided under the health 
care law.
  Remember what Nancy Pelosi said: First we have to pass it to find out 
what is in it. The American people now know more and more what is in 
this health care law, which is why it is even less popular today than 
it was the day it passed and why; for every American who thinks they 
will be helped by the health care law, three Americans believe their 
lives will be made worse by the law forced through this body.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and note the absence of a 
quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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