[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 142 (Friday, October 11, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H6532-H6537]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
A WEEK IN REVIEW
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield to my friend from
Florida (Mr. DeSantis).
ObamaCare
Mr. DeSANTIS. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to say a few words about accountability.
Normally, the way it works is that Congress can consider a piece of
legislation. Maybe it passes. Maybe the President signs it. You
implement it. Then the voters can decide whether they like it, whether
it lived up to its billing, so to speak.
With ObamaCare, it was interesting because this was rammed through
Congress at the beginning of 2010; yet it is just now really being
implemented. I am starting to get a lot of people in my district
contacting my office who are really shocked at some of the stiff
premium increases they are seeing. So I think it is useful just to
review some of the promises that were made and whether any of those
promises have been kept. I think what you will find is that this is a
law not only that the public opposed, not only that was rammed through
with no bipartisan support, but a law that in many ways is resting on
false pretenses.
Promise one, the President made this: it will lower premiums by up to
$2,500 for a typical family per year.
I have not seen that true anyplace. In fact, people are seeing $2,500
increases. There was a family in California, it was reported, who saw
an increase of $10,000. So I think, right here, as this is being
implemented, we know that that is just not going to be the case.
{time} 1830
Promise number two, the President said this: ``If you like your
doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. If you like your health
care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.'' Period.
Well, we know that that is not true. We see spouses losing spousal
coverage. We see people with major companies losing their employer-
provided insurance, getting pushed into some of these exchanges.
So the idea that ``if you like your plan, you can keep it'' is
absolutely not proving to be true for thousands of people throughout
the country.
This is just beginning. People who have looked at this from the
Congressional Budget Office to other groups say you could have anywhere
from 7 to 30 million Americans who actually lose their employer plans
because of ObamaCare.
Of course, if you are losing your plan and you are getting pushed
into an exchange, you may not be able to keep your doctor because that
doctor may not be in the network, may not be available based on the
plan that you are having to take because you have lost your original
plan.
Promise number three--this is the President: ``I can make a firm
pledge: under my plan no family making less than $250,000 will see any
form of tax increase.''
Well, we know that the individual mandate he said wasn't a tax. Then
when it got challenged in the Supreme Court, his administration was
saying, yeah, uphold it because it is a tax. That is eventually what
the court did, saying that it is a tax. That is a tax that hits blue
collar ``salt of the Earth'' people, forcing them to buy a product that
essentially they may not even be physically able to obtain because the
Web sites don't work, and if not, they are going to tax you. That
certainly hasn't been true.
But there are a whole bunch of other things in the law that hit
middle-income and lower-income people. There is a cap on flexible
spending accounts. It is actually harder under ObamaCare to deduct
medical expenses from your income taxes. Even a tax on indoor tanning
salons. I think there are a lot of people who make less than $250,000 a
year who are doing the tanning salons.
Then, of course, there are a whole bunch of other taxes--over a
trillion dollars--that may not be directly levied on somebody making
less than $250,000, but the costs will end up being passed on. For
example, the employer mandate, the tax on health insurance plans, the
medical device tax. Those taxes are on companies, but those costs are
going to get pushed to individuals, and they are going to have to bear
the cost of that. And, oh, by the way, certain good health care plans
that a lot of union members have who are not making $250,000 a year,
those are considered Cadillac plans, and those will be taxed extra
going forward.
Finally, the President said: ``I will sign a universal health care
bill into law by the end of my first term as President that will cover
every American.'' It is interesting--people on the other side of the
aisle will say, oh, you
[[Page H6533]]
Republicans, why don't you want everybody to be covered? The most
recent analysis from the Congressional Budget Office said that in 10
years from now--so after 13 years of ObamaCare being the law--you will
still have in this country 31 million Americans that don't have any
insurance. Of course, we know ObamaCare is causing people to lose the
insurance that they have.
So this is not something that is a universal health care bill, by any
stretch of the imagination. There are going to be a lot of people who
aren't going to have any insurance.
The point I just wanted to make with this is, there has got to be
accountability in government. People want to have a redress of their
grievances. These issues were not necessarily teed up in the election,
and so now people are coming to terms with what has happened. So the
point I would just make is, at a minimum when you are dealing with the
broken promises of ObamaCare, we have got to communicate to the public
that this has got to be based on some semblance of fairness.
For example, the Members of Congress who wrote this law must live
under the exact terms of the statute. They should not be granted any
extra legal relief from the burdens of ObamaCare. The fact that
businesses have had the law delayed for them--and, of course, Members
of Congress have gotten special treatment as well--I think individual
Americans have got to be given the same deal. It is just wrong to have
the IRS tax people to buy something from Web sites that aren't
functional--and buy products that they may not like.
So accountability is key. This is a law that was passed. There were
specific promises made over and over again. What we are finding now,
unfortunately, is those promises are not being kept.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much my friend from
Florida. I am always greatly appreciative and thrilled when I find
somebody who attended an Ivy League school that got a good education.
The points are well made by my friend from Florida. There were many
promises made and promises not kept. Go from top to bottom:
``If you like your insurance, you can keep it.'' Not remotely true.
``If you like your doctor, you can keep them.'' Not remotely true. So
many stories are coming forward.
``It is actually going to be cheaper for Americans under ObamaCare.''
Not remotely true, unless perhaps you are in New York. There is a small
part of the country, a small group of individuals, who were already
paying so much because of a massive amount of waste or laws that
allowed for a great amount of waste or abuse; in those there may be
some people that actually saved money. But for most Americans, they are
not only going to have to pay more, they are going to pay dramatically
more.
As we have seen the government shutdown play out, it has been
interesting to note the things that have been open and the things that
have been closed. We were told that only essential government services
would be provided.
We had also passed immediately before the shutdown and sent to the
Senate a military pay bill. Now, that military pay bill was
intentionally left broad enough so that it could take care of the need
to take care of the death benefit, broad enough to take care of the
needs of the family that are always provided by the military, by the
Department of Defense, for those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in
losing a loved one in the course of combat. And lo and behold, even
though that was made clear, it also was made clear in the bill that
civilian employees could be included. Even independent contractors
under that law were allowed to continue working that were supporting
the role of the military. So it was a very broadly worded act in order
to give the Obama administration, and particularly the Defense
Department, great latitude to make sure important things got done.
Now as we have seen, the Secretary of Defense has laid off hundreds
of thousands of civilian workers, though the bill gave him latitude to
leave them working and they supported the military. It was only after
about a week that they finally said, okay, we are going to let a whole
lot of those employees come back now that we have made the
determination that the bill gives us enough latitude to allow them to
work.
We told him it did. The bill gave him that kind of power. Perhaps he
had talked to President Obama and they decided, yeah, let's put lots of
people out of work, or perhaps he had not talked to the President. We
don't know.
But as Peggy Noonan pointed out recently, talking about things that
have gone on here in the last couple of weeks, she reminded us of Harry
Truman's sign that was on his desk: ``The buck stops here.''
They didn't have to hurt all those civilian employees. They could
have left them working. But they chose to send them home, creating more
hardship. They chose not to pay the death benefit for families who were
entitled to it after losing a loved one who is a patriot. They chose to
do those things.
They have chosen to close parks, farms, different things that don't
cost the Federal Government a dime, don't cost anything. But they have
strategically chosen to close things that create suffering, some chaos,
different problems for people. It is as if the park rangers, who were
quoted recently, were exactly right in saying that they were told: make
life as difficult as possible for people, because that is what the
administration has done.
But there is good news. This story was published by FOX News:
National Parks Are Closed, the IRS Call Centers Have No
Staff.
And I insert parenthetically here:
The IRS is still getting your money in, the money is still flowing
in, they are just not helping people as it flows in.
The article says:
Countless government Web sites have been taken down.
We know even the panda camera was turned off, even though it required
no monitoring.
Yet despite these changes, which range from inconveniences
to major headaches, a number of not so essential government
operations are still up and running. Here are a few that have
evaded the partial government shutdown:
The Denali commission.
You have probably never even heard of the Denali
Commission. But the tiny Alaska-based economic development
agency gained some notoriety after it emerged that the
group's inspector general was petitioning Congress to defund
it.
But guess what agency survived the shutdown? According to
its own contingency plan, because the Commission's staffers
are paid under the prior year's budget, all 14 employees are
exempt from furlough, and ``reporting to work.''
That is a commission that its own inspector general petitioned
Congress to defund.
Another government function that was left up: ``The White House
Twitter.'' Oh, sure, there were plenty of government help Web sites
that would have made life easier for people having to deal with the
Federal Government. They were shut down because they would have helped
people. But the White House Twitter was left up and rolling. As the
article says:
Right as Congress missed the deadline last week to pass a
spending bill, First Lady Michelle Obama's office informed
its Twitter followers that: ``Due to Congress' failure to
pass legislation to fund the government,'' updates to the
official First Lady Twitter account would be limited.
But the White House Twitter account is alive and well.
The account has blasted out a series of tweets calling on
Congress to end the budget impasse.
Another item that has been left up and running despite all of the
government Web sites and help call centers and all that have been shut
down, and that is ``Let's Move.'' The article says:
While a number of government Web sites have been
temporarily taken offline, and the First Lady's Twitter
account has been largely abandoned, not so for Michelle
Obama's Let's Move campaign.
The Web site for the First Lady's healthy-living initiative
remains operational--though it doesn't appear to have been
updated much since September. The top of the site displays
the message: ``Cheers to Water!''
Another thing left up was the ``Park Rangers on Patrol.''
Despite national parks and monuments being shuttered across
the country for lack of funds, the National Park Service is
devoting considerable resources to putting up barricades and
patrolling them.
An innkeeper along the Blue Ridge Parkway who was forced to
close his business due
[[Page H6534]]
to the partial shutdown told FOXNews.com that park rangers
have set up a ``24/7 blockade'' outside his inn--to prevent
would-be customers from coming in.
Another thing, the ``Obama Campaign Stop.''
President Obama canceled a long-planned trip to Asia over
the budget impasse.
But he, nevertheless, ventured outside the beltway last
week for a rally in nearby Rockville, Maryland, to pressure
Republicans to pass a budget bill.
{time} 1845
The article says budget bill, but actually we are past the budget
time. Now it is appropriation time, and that is what we need.
The Patent Office. If you happened to invent something during the
stalemate, good news. The United States Patent and Trademark Office is
open for business. According to the office, it is using fees from the
prior year to keep running and should be able to for roughly 4 weeks.
The IRS is taking but not giving. IRS call centers are closed. The
IRS is not issuing refunds during the partial shutdown. The agency,
though, will gladly accept tax payments during that time. The IRS says
in a statement on its Web site:
The IRS will accept and process all tax returns with
payments, but will be unable to issue refunds during this
time.
Another article from the Right Scoop had talked about the Amber Alert
Web site being taken down. Although some have been kept up, the Amber
Alert Web site was allowed to go down. And, thankfully, the
administration realized there was enough pressure. For heaven's sake,
it is for children who are kidnapped, lost. So, thankfully, the
administration finally decided after enough pressure to bring the Amber
Alert Web site back up.
It has been amazing to me, and I saw it again today in some of our
memorial sites, memorials that are down on The Mall, the Iwo Jima
monument, or the memorial, we have spent--this administration, that is,
has spent more money keeping people out of open-air memorials than it
ever spends just to leave them open. They are open 24/7. I have been up
to the Iwo Jima, the U.S. Marine Corps monument so many times since I
have been in Congress, again, all hours of the day and night. I don't
sleep that much while I am here on the Hill.
Although we have some park rangers who don't know the parking laws
and give tickets to people who are lawfully allowed to be there--
apparently not enough training for our rangers--but they have gone to
the trouble to get barriers to make life difficult for veterans, World
War II veterans that fought to secure Iwo Jima, being kept out of
seeing the Iwo Jima monument. Why? Because they put barricades in the
way to keep people from going up and being able to drive up there.
One of the times I went up there during the last couple of weeks,
there were probably 200 people up there, but they had to park over by
the townhouses, go over rails, down steep embankments and get in there.
Unfortunately, as this administration knows, our World War II veterans
in their eighties and nineties that I have been with and that I have
helped and pushed wheelchairs for, they are not able to climb over
rails and go down steep embankments, although they sure did while
fighting in the Pacific, European theater, and North Africa. But they
cannot do it now. And for anyone to keep putting up the barricades at
that Iwo Jima monument just to screw over our veterans is outrageous. I
don't know who is doing it, but shame on the people who are doing it.
I was gratified last weekend, on one occasion I went up there, and
there were plastic barricades that had been filled with water to hold
them in place, make them too big for a person to push over, and yet
there were three busloads of World War II veterans up at the Iwo Jima
monument, and someone had rammed those plastic barriers, knocking them
over, spilling the water everywhere. Once the water was dispersed,
pushed them out of the way. A wooden barricade looked like it had been
run over so the buses could go up there. I don't know if those buses
did that or not. I like to think they did, that those World War II
veterans were not going to have some mean-spirited person in the
administration up there to prevent them from seeing the Iwo Jima
monument for one time before they left this world.
Mr. Speaker, I hope the people in this administration that keep
trying to punish the American people so that they can get the money
that they are demanding, that S&P and Moody's has said you guys have to
get responsible about the money you are spending, the money that
American taxpayers gave the Republicans, the majority, in 2010 to do
something about. My friends across the aisle are constantly saying
elections have consequences. That is right. The American people didn't
like ObamaCare, and so they voted the Democrats in the House out of the
majority with people running on that main issue. We will do everything
we can to get rid of ObamaCare.
It is true that the President won reelection. Many of us still
believe that if we had had a candidate that could challenge the abuses
of ObamaCare before the last election last year instead of one that
gave a prototype for it in his home State, the President would not have
been reelected. But Republicans chose a very nice man, a philanthropic
man, a great businessman, a very caring American, but somebody who had
already shown he supported a type of socialized medicine in his home
State.
ObamaCare, as it was passed, as it was originating in the Senate and
then passed in the Senate, sent down to the House as bill H.R. 3590,
should have originated in this House because it raises revenue, called
penalties. It is called penalties throughout the bill. The Supreme
Court noted that. In a very hypocritical opinion, the Supreme Court
went to page 15 and noted that Congress called it a penalty. It only is
applied if people don't do what is required. That makes it a penalty.
Clearly, it is a penalty because the anti-injunction act makes very
clear that if Congress passes a tax, then no Federal court can take it
up and make a decision on it until the tax is actually imposed and the
person suing has standing by virtue of having the tax actually imposed
on them. That is a nutshell.
So if the Supreme Court had found that ObamaCare contained a tax and
not a penalty, then it would not have jurisdiction. But the Supreme
Court opinion at page 15 decided it is a penalty; it is not a tax. If
it was a tax, we couldn't go any further on the opinion. The opinion
would be over. We would have to dismiss and wait for the tax to
actually be assessed. But since it is a penalty, like Congress called
it through the bill, and since it is a penalty, as President Obama made
very clear to the American public--it is not a tax; it is a penalty--
the Supreme Court went on. Eventually, after determining that
ObamaCare, as written, based on what the proponents said was the
interstate commerce clause that gave it the authority to pass
ObamaCare, the Supreme Court said, no, it doesn't. The interstate
commerce clause does not give authority to Congress to pass a bill that
takes over health care. That is not constitutional.
Then eventually they got over and took up the issue of exactly what
was involved in the individual mandate, the business mandate, and the
Court concluded that actually, despite Congress calling it a penalty,
the President assuring America it was a penalty and not a tax, the
Supreme Court ends up saying it is a tax, and, therefore, it is
constitutional. So we, as the Supreme Court, will rewrite the law and
uphold it as we have rewritten; because as it is written, it is not
constitutional, but we will rewrite it. Though that would be
legislating and it would be unconstitutional, they did it anyway.
So when I hear people say it has been upheld by the Supreme Court,
no, the bill that was passed was not upheld by the Supreme Court. It
was struck down as violating the interstate commerce clause, but the
Supreme Court did them a favor. They rewrote it legislatively, violated
the Constitution in doing so, and then sent it back.
And now Americans across the country, by the millions, are suffering
as a result of a tax the majority of Americans did not want, that all
Americans promised was not a tax, and now it is taking away their
insurance. It is taking a way their doctors. It is taking away, really,
quality health care that most Americans had.
So it would seem if the idea behind ObamaCare was strictly to help
those who are uninsured, we should have dealt strictly with those
Americans.
[[Page H6535]]
But that is not what ObamaCare was about. It was about the G-R-E, the
government running everything.
I am amazed at how many friends across the aisle who have screamed
and hollered about we don't want the government in our bedroom voted
for a bill that puts the government in your bedroom, in your bathroom,
in your kitchen, in your closets. It puts the Federal Government
everywhere. And you combine that with what the all Democratic majority
House and Senate passed with President Obama at the helm, that created
a bureau under the guise of making sure that credit card companies were
fair, and now that bureau is gathering everyone's credit card
information and debit card information under the guise of making sure
they are playing fair. This Federal Government has seized more private
information. They have been more vindictive through weaponizing the
IRS, and we are finding out about other agencies and departments. It is
more than any administration has ever done, and American people will
ultimately pay the price.
I hope and pray that the Supreme Court will take up the origination
clause litigation because that bill did not originate in the House; and
the origination clause says any bill that raises revenue must originate
in the House, and the only single thing in that bill that was left was
the number. Even the title about being a change to the Internal Revenue
Code to provide a tax credit for first time home buyers who were in the
military or veterans, they didn't leave a single word of that bill; and
they brought in something completely ungermane to that bill for
veterans and military members.
{time} 1900
And instead of taking care of the millions they said were uninsured,
that was the whole purpose of ObamaCare, they have done tremendous
damage across the country to so very many.
As the shutdown has gone on that was brought on, not by the House
Republicans, who passed a bill, we said, Look, Americans are being
devastated by ObamaCare. The health care industry is being decimated.
Since a majority of the American people didn't want it, gave us
control of the House as a result of it, let's get rid of it. We have
got to start acting responsibly about the money we spend. Taking away
Americans' rights to decide whether they should have knee surgery, back
surgery, get a pacemaker, taking away the right and the ability of
Americans to determine what kind of treatment they should get is not
something, when we are in financial difficulty, we should be doing.
That was struck down. It shouldn't have been a surprise. Harry Reid
didn't want to pass it. The President didn't want to.
Then the House began sending down one compromise which was turned
down. Okay, let's just suspend it for a year. That would be the fair
thing to do. As so many have said, Republicans and Democrats across the
country, it was not ready for prime time. It was a train wreck. It was
a nightmare. Let's just suspend it for a year. We know the President
wants it, so we are not talking about getting rid of it like a majority
of Americans want to do. Let's just suspend it for a year.
When that didn't go and the Senate said, No, we want a shutdown, we
are not doing this, then we sent down a further compromise to basically
suspended for 1 year the individual mandate just as businesses had
gotten, as the President rewrote the law. The Constitution doesn't
allow him to do it. Congress is supposed to step up, as happened in
past generations where I'm told no matter whether a Democrat or
Republican President, no matter who controlled the House and Senate,
when a President overstepped his constitutional authority this far,
usually there would be a trip down Pennsylvania from leaders of the
House and Senate, both parties, that would privately tell the
President, You overstepped your bounds. Back off, or we are going to
defund everything that you are trying to push through on this, and it
would get worked out.
Unfortunately, at the other end of the Hall in the Senate, they are
not bothered by the fact that the President, by a stroke of the pen,
wrote legislation and undid what the law said and made up his own law.
That is not supposed to happen under our Constitution, but it did. We
were bothered by it in the House, so we said, Look, let's work this out
like gentle people. Let's just postpone it for a year. When that didn't
work, we said, Let's at least suspend the individual mandate. You have
suspended it for the business community. Let's do it for individuals.
They wouldn't even do that.
Then when that didn't work, we sent a bill to the Senate that said,
Okay, we are not trying to push anything on you. Just sit down and
talk. Here are our negotiators. You appoint your negotiators. That is
what the Constitution, law, and the rules require, and we will have
this worked out probably by the time people get up in the morning; and
they would not even appoint negotiators. Why? Because I believe they
believe the conventional wisdom from the last 3 years that if the
Democratic Senate and President forced a shutdown, the Main Street
media would blame Republicans. It would enure politically to their
benefit, and it would be worth causing the pain of a shutdown. So they
refused to even negotiate at that point. It was not until the polls
showed that the President had dropped to 37 percent from a favorable
rating of 53 percent to an unfavorable rating that we finally had a
willingness to sit down and talk.
During those times that so many things have been shut down, including
the Normandy Cemetery--this story emerged yesterday from
Marketplace.org:
Coming Soon to Your Favorite TV Shows: Plot Lines About the
Affordable Care Act.
Hollywood Health & Society, a program with the USC
Annenberg Norman Lear Center got a $500,000 grant this week
from The California Endowment to help TV writers tell better
stories about the new health insurance law.
That is $500,000 to Hollywood for propaganda to tell people who are
suffering from the ravages of losing their insurance, losing their
doctors, losing the ability to make decisions under new policies as
they once did, telling them how good they had it. That $500,000 would
have paid to open a lot of memorials and parks. It would have kept the
Moore farm going for years that doesn't get a dime of Federal money and
hasn't since 1980, but may lose the farm because of the outrageous
actions of the National Park Service in forcing it closed; as the park
Ranger said, making it as difficult as they can for people.
Here is an article from Ken Blackwell:
When President Obama signed the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010, it was the starting
gun for a massive Federal effort to get the new system up and
running. The administration had deliberately allowed for 3\1/
2\ years for the launch, October 1, 2013.
That's a long time. It's 1,288 days. You would think, in
that length of time, we could have brought a system online
that would not be bedeviled with glitches. And more glitches.
By comparison, FDR had 912 days from the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, to D-day, June 6, 1944, the
Allied invasion of Normandy. The D-day Museum at Portsmouth,
England maintains a Web site that offers some idea of what
was involved in mounting the invasion.
It says further down:
Today, Obama administration officials are making the rounds
of TV talk shows touting the millions of Americans who have
logged on day one of ObamaCare. They are not able tell us how
many of those millions have actually signed up for ObamaCare.
But that, of course, may be due to the fact that 85% of
Americans already have health insurance and the rest,
primarily healthy young adults, may have reasons for not
having health insurance.
It's interesting to hear administration spokespersons
dodging and weaving about how many Americans actually are
eager to give all their personal data to the IRS and then be
guided about by navigators chosen by Mr. Obama out of his
compassionate concern for his people. Obama Cares was an
inspired idea for a bumper sticker last fall. It helped the
incumbent easily gain a second term in the White House.
It's odd, though, that after 4 years of major liberal
legislation, the FDR comparisons have largely disappeared.
Americans today can judge how warm-hearted President Obama
is. His administration has ordered the closure of the World
War II Memorial in Washington. Ninety-year olds on Honor
Flights faced barricades as they made that last trip to see
the monument to their heroism on D-day and a thousand days.
White House spokesman Jay Carney raced to tell reporters
that it was not the intent of the Obama administration to
deny death benefits to families of soldiers recently killed
in Afghanistan. It just seems to have
[[Page H6536]]
been another glitch. The Obama spokesman's efforts to avoid
responsibility were strenuous. But he might have consulted
another veteran of that great WWII generation. Harry Truman
kept a plaque on his desk in the White House: The Buck Stops
Here.
That was the article I was thinking of earlier.
Here's another article from October 10 by Jocelyn Maminta from New
Haven, Connecticut.
In the midst of major changes in health care,
UnitedHealthCare has sent thousands of pink slips to
Connecticut doctors.
Termination letters went to physicians caring for Medicare
patients. Those letters were sent out to doctors caring for
``Medicare Advantage'' patients. It's a plan, marketed to
seniors to provide additional services through
UnitedHealthCare.
A mix of primary care and specialty doctors are affected by
it. And it comes at a questionable time.
Open enrollment for Medicare starts next Tuesday, and it's
still not clear at this time as to which doctors are still in
the United network.
The Connecticut State Medical Society is fighting back. The
biggest concern is patient access to healthcare.
``What the government is looking for is to manage better
care by adding a patient-centered medical home so that you
have a doctor who is totally invested with taking care of
every aspect of the patient and coordinating it. This is
clearly not a patient-centered decision,'' said Dr. Michael
Saffir, president of CT State Medical Society.
Perhaps that is Connecticut Medical Society.
Anyway, it has an update at the bottom:
In an email statement, UnitedHealthCare spokesman Ben
Goldstein told News 8, ``With the many changes happening in
health care, we are building a network of health care
providers that we can collaborate with more closely to have
the most positive impact on the quality of care for our
members.
And what a lot of people didn't realize, but they soon found out,
ObamaCare, the so-called ``Affordable Care Act,'' actually cut over
$700 billion in Medicare reimbursements. It took money that was going
to be used for senior citizens' health care and put it towards trying
to get this horrendous, this unworkable bill to the American people.
May I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 15 minutes remaining.
Mr. GOHMERT. In an article from WND Radio published October 10, they
wrote:
Sticker Shock! Americans Floored By ObamaCare Cost.
The technical problems with the ObamaCare insurance
exchanges are no surprise, are further evidence the whole
program should be delayed or scrapped and Americans will be
even more horrified when they can get somewhere on the Web
site, according to health care policy expert Grace-Marie
Turner.
The first 10 days of the ObamaCare insurance exchanges have
been a technological and public relations mess for the
administration. Many Americans have suffered through hours of
stalled or crashed Web sites, no reporter has yet been able
to navigate the site, and many people have entered personal
information that online security experts believe could make
them targets for identity theft.
{time} 1915
When WND spent hours online and on the phone trying to get
a cost estimate for an ObamaCare plan, it was told to expect
a quote by January 1. As WND reported, anecdotal evidence on
the government's own health care Facebook page suggests both
problems are significant factors.
A few users seemed simply confused, but the overwhelming
number of comments were critical, and many of those were
scathing. Complaints about the application process had three
recurring themes: long waits, glitches, and sticker shock.
There was also much ridicule of the site's ability to handle
``tremendous demand.''
Information technology experts told The Wall Street Journal
the Web site ``appeared to be built on a sloppy software
foundation.''
Another article from WND published yesterday--I am not sure I like
the title, `` `Pulling Out Hair' Over ObamaCare Web Site `Nightmare.'
'' Sometimes people look okay with their hair out. Sometimes they
don't.
The article says:
Forget, for a minute, all those arguments about the new
health care law's ``death panels,'' the forced cancellation
of existing coverage, the violations of religious liberty,
and the transformation of full-time jobs into part-time work.
Even people who want to sign up for ObamaCare are finding it
impossible.
Digital Trends reports the healthcare.gov Web site already
has ``shut down, crapped out, stalled, and misloaded so
consistently that its track record for failure is challenged
only by Congress.'' That is even though taxpayers paid ``more
than $634 million'' for ``the digital equivalent of a rock,''
the report said.
The site itself, which apparently underwent major code
renovations over the weekend, still rejects user logins,
fails to load drop-down menus and other critical components
for users that successfully gain entrance, and otherwise
prevents uninsured Americans in the 36 States it serves from
purchasing health care at competitive rates--healthcare.gov's
primary purpose,'' the report said.
It goes on to talk about the massive nightmares of the people that
are trying to sign on to it.
Here is an article from Peggy Noonan from The Wall Street Journal:
``Now is the Time to Delay ObamaCare'':
The Obama administration has an implementation problem.
More than any administration of the modern era, they know how
to talk but have trouble doing. They give speeches about
ObamaCare, but when it is unveiled, what the public sees is a
Potemkin village designed by the noted architect Rube
Goldberg. They speak ringingly about the case for action in
Syria but can't build support in the U.S. foreign policy
community, in Congress, among the public. Recovery summer is
always next summer. They have trouble implementing. Which, of
course, is the most boring but crucial part of governing. It
is not enough to talk; you must perform.
There is an odd sense with members of this administration
that they think words are actions. Maybe that is why they
tweet so much. Maybe they imagine Bashir Assad seeing their
tweets and musing: ``Ah, Samantha is upset--then I shall
change my entire policy, in respect for her emotions!''
That gets us to the real story of last week, this week, and
the future, the one beyond the shutdown, the one that normal
people are both fully aware of and fully understand, and that
is the utter and catastrophic debut of ObamaCare. Even for
those who expected problems, and that would be everyone who
follows government, it has been a shock.
They had 3.5 years to set it up! They knew exactly when it
would be unveiled, on October 1, 2013. On that date, they
knew millions could be expected to go online to see if they
benefit.
And it goes on. It is an excellent article. She says:
A quick summary of what didn't work. Those who went on
Federal and State exchanges reported malfunctions during
login, constant error messages, inability to create new
accounts, frozen screens, confusing instructions, endless
wait times, help lines that put people on hold and then cut
them off, lost passwords and user names.
After the administration floated the fiction that the
problems were due to heavy usage, the Journal tracked down
insurance and technology experts who said the real problems
were inadequate coding and flaws in the architecture of the
system.
. . . The founder of McAfee slammed the system's lack of
security on Fox Business Network, calling it a hacker's
happiest nocturnal fantasy. He predicted millions of identity
thefts. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius--grilled, surprisingly, on ``The Daily Show''--
sounded like--and that is unkind, but--she failed to justify
why, in the middle of the chaos, individuals cannot be
granted a 1-year delay, just as businesses have been.
More ominously, many of those who got into the system
complained of sticker shock--high premiums, high deductibles.
She goes on to say, talking about Republicans:
They would make a mistake in dropping ObamaCare as an
issue. A few weeks ago, they mistakenly demanded funding--a
move to please their base. They will be tempted to abandon
even the word ``ObamaCare'' now, but this is exactly when
they should keep, as the center of their message and their
intent, not defunding ObamaCare but delaying it. Do they
really want to turn abrupt focus to elusive Medicare cuts
just when it has become obvious to the American people that
parts of ObamaCare (like the ability to enroll) are
unworkable?
The Republicans should press harder than ever to delay
ObamaCare--to kick it back, allow the administration to at
least create a functioning Web site, and improve what can be
improved.
There is an article from CNN from today about Utah's national parks
will reopen despite ongoing government shutdown.
Utah will reopen its five national parks by Saturday, as
well as three other nationally run locations. Utah's Governor
Gary Herbert made the announcement Thursday, saying a deal
had been reached with the U.S. Department of the Interior
Secretary Sally Jewell. ``Utah agrees to pay the National
Park Service up to $1.67 million--$166,572 per day--to reopen
eight national sites in Utah for up to 10 days.''
The sad thing is, they don't have to do that. We passed the bill to
keep them all going. We did it at a rate, at an amount the Senate
already agrees to. All they have got to do is pass it, send it to the
President, and it will be taken care of.
[[Page H6537]]
I have an article here from the Mercatus Center, George Mason
University. It is a research summary.
Before I mention that, I want to mention something about one of our
Senators, a Senator from Arizona. Some people have tried to take things
I said in an inappropriate way.
I know that Senator from Arizona. We owe him a great deal for what he
endured on our behalf in North Vietnam. There is no question about it.
And I know that Senator would never intentionally hurt this country.
But he has made mistakes that have hurt it but certainly it was never
intentional.
Let me mention this Mercatus Center, George Mason University research
summary. It says, ``The Debt-Limit Debate 2013: Addressing Key Myths.''
Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important the people understand that
there are a lot of myths about the debt limit.
One myth is this:
Standard & Poor's U.S. credit rating downgrade in August of
2011 was caused by Washington's brinkmanship over increasing
the debt limit. Congress must, therefore, avoid attaching
spending cut demands to the current debt limit increase if
they want to avoid jeopardizing the Nation's fragile economy.
The reality, it says, is:
Washington's failure to deal with unsustainable Federal
spending mostly related to entitlement programs and debt
caused the 2011 S&P downgrade and is spurring warnings of
another downgrade by the credit rating agencies.
Of course this administration went after them through the judiciary
system--after they got a bad rating, they got a downgrade. But they
point out that in June of 2011 that:
S&P reported: ``If the U.S. Government maintains its
current policies, it is unlikely that S&P's ratings services
would maintain its AAA rating on the U.S. Government. From
the same report: ``One contributing factor in our negative
outlook decision is our view that there has, as yet, been no
significant progress in addressing these long-term cost
drivers nor any consensus developing among the Obama
administration, the Senate, and House of Representatives
regarding the specifics of a comprehensive plan to address
the long-term budgetary challenges.''
On July 14, 2011, S&P warned it would downgrade U.S. debt
if ``Congress and the administration have not achieved a
credible solution to the rising U.S. Government debt burden
and are not likely to achieve one in the foreseeable
future.''
So the downgrade was because we did not adequately address the
massive debt that had been building up.
Another myth--and there are plenty more to back up their contention
about that, just facts: ``Had Congress and the administration failed to
raise the debt limit by the Treasury's stated deadline in 2011, the
Treasury would have been forced to default on the Nation's debt.'' Make
it very clear. The reality, ``had the 2011 agreement to increase the
debt limit been postponed, the Treasury could have met Federal
Government obligations, including Social Security benefits and interest
on the debt until the end of the fiscal year, possibly longer.''
And then it goes into the options that the Treasury Department had.
Another myth: ``If Washington agreed to significant spending reforms
and cuts--and then actually followed through on them--it would cripple
the recovery and devastate the economy.'' The reality is that ``the
most dangerous thing Washington can do is continue on its current
course. The economic literature is clear: Chronic overspending and its
result, chronic excessive debt, lead to economic harm. Washington must
agree on meaningful spending reforms--and begin implementing these
policies immediately to satisfy markets about the credibility of
spending cuts.
``Myth number four: The real problem with the last debt limit deal
was that it failed to apply a `balanced approach' of spending cuts and
tax increases.'' The reality is, ``Replacing borrowing with higher
taxes does not solve the fundamental problem: Federal spending--
including Social Security, Medicaid, and especially Medicare--is
unsustainable.
``Fiscal reform that focuses on large revenue increases and modest
spending reductions is likely to inflict the most damage on the
economy. A study of 21 countries looking at 37 years of data
representing 107 episodes of fiscal reform, shows that reform efforts
that focus on a package of both spending and revenue reductions''--that
is, tax decreases--``tend to be much more effective than those that
have modest spending reductions but continue to increase revenue.
``Of more than 100 attempts to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio in all
developed countries over the past 30 years, some 20 percent succeeded.
They had two common components: one, a focus on spending cuts; and two,
policy reforms that increased competitiveness.'' And that is the truth.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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