[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 175 (Wednesday, December 11, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8724-S8750]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




NOMINATION OF PATRICIA M. WALD TO BE A MEMBER OF THE PRIVACY AND CIVIL 
                       LIBERTIES OVERSIGHT BOARD

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the 
nomination.
  The bill clerk read the nomination of Patricia M. Wald, of the 
District of Columbia, to be a Member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties 
Board for a term expiring January 29, 2019.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Pursuant to the provisions of S. 
Res. 15 of the 113th Congress, there will now be up to 8 hours of 
postcloture consideration of the nomination equally divided in the 
usual form.
  The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I yield back the majority's time on this 
nomination.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The time is yielded back.
  The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I would like to speak on the nomination.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am glad to have this opportunity to 
come to the floor of this great body to talk about issues that are of 
great concern to the people of Ohio whom I represent and to the 
country. We are facing a lot of challenges right now. Certainly health 
care costs are on the rise, as we have seen, but jobs are also hard to 
come by.
  There is a middle-class squeeze going on out there where paychecks 
are down and health care costs are up, and belief in the American 
dream, as a result, is on the decline. Some say for the first time 
since polling has begun people think that future generations are not 
going to be as well off as we are. This is sad, and there is work we 
can and should do to address this.
  It starts with dealing with some of the gridlock in Washington and 
getting some things done. One of my concerns about what the majority 
has done in terms of taking away the rights of the minority to be heard 
on nominations is creating a very tough environment to break through 
that gridlock and get things done.
  I think about the judiciary. Today we are talking about a court judge 
who is up for a nomination and the question is whether she is going to 
be confirmed. Right now, under the current rules that exist, 
Republicans have no voice, in essence, because the 50 votes from 
Democrats--and there are 55 Democrats--can put up a judge and get the 
votes and put anybody through they want.
  Under the system that has prevailed in this body for decades, and one 
consistent with the intention of the Founders, you have to get 60 
votes. In other words, the minority would have some voice, and 
specifically Republicans, in that there are 45 of us and we would have 
to supply about 5 votes. That makes a big difference in terms of the 
kinds of judges who are nominated and ultimately confirmed.
  There has been a lot of discussion about what is going on here on the 
floor in terms of ending the ability of the minority to have their 
voice heard. I think we also need to focus a little on what impact this 
will have on the judiciary.
  When someone is appointed to the DC Circuit Court--somebody was 
recently confirmed yesterday and the day before for that body--these 
are lifetime appointments. Instead of having to go through a process 
where you have to figure out how to get some Members of the other party 
to support you, right now--under the new rules that were done by 
breaking the rules, and again, inconsistent with the intent of the 
Founders who allowed their voices to be heard--they don't have to get 
the minority. They can do it with just 50 votes. Again, with 55 
Democrats, there is no need to consult with Republicans or to get any 
support. In fact, they can allow five Democrats to vote the other way.
  I worry this will polarize the judiciary. I think we are polarized 
enough in this place. I think Washington is becoming dysfunctional for 
a lot of reasons, but one is this increased polarization. Now to have 
this rule change only creates a difficult environment to get work done, 
but it will also put judges on the judiciary with lifetime 
appointments; these judges who, frankly, are more liberal under the 
Democrats and more conservative under the Republicans than they would 
otherwise be.
  In States such as mine where there is a Republican Senator and a 
Democratic Senator, we work together to try to put judges forward. 
Democrats realize in the majority they have now, they have to get some 
Republican support, so they work with us. You tend to get center-left 
judges nominated and confirmed right now.
  Again, under the new rules that Leader Reid and the Democrats have 
insisted on, that will not be required. Why would you have to consult 
and work with your counterpart in your State or Republicans on the 
other side of the Chamber?
  When there are 50 votes, you can put forward any judge you want. I do 
think this will result in judges who are not center left but left and 
not center right but right. This will polarize the judiciary more, and 
that concerns me.
  I hope, as we are thinking about how we deal with our own 
procedures--and I know this is an issue that has been debated a lot in 
the last few weeks because of the decision the Democratic leadership 
made to take away this right--we also think about what impact this will 
have on the judiciary. Do we want a more polarized judiciary where some 
of these ideological differences make it difficult for them to operate 
just as it makes it difficult for the Congress to operate? I don't 
think so.
  I don't think that is what the American people want, and I know it is 
not

[[Page S8725]]

what the Founders intended when they gave the minority a voice in this 
body, and I hope we can get back to a regular order where we have a 
limitation on amendments that is reasonable with reasonable time limits 
so we can get our work done.
  Let's allow amendments to be offered. Let's allow the voices to be 
heard. Let's allow--in the case of these nominations--input from the 
other side.
  I am very concerned about where this is headed. The logical extension 
of what the Democrats have done, of course, is to extend this to 
legislation as well, which I think creates more of a problem than we 
have already in terms of legislation being passed here that is not 
reflective of the will of the people, that is not subject to the checks 
and balances we would have under a rule where we have to get 60, not 
50, votes in order to pass legislation.

  A prime example is ObamaCare. Let's be honest. The reason it got 
through the Senate was because a special provision was used called 
reconciliation, which is supposed to be used for budget matters, 
revenues, and spending.
  I believe that was an inappropriate use of reconciliation as do many 
other observers who are objective observers and have followed this 
place for a long time.
  ObamaCare was pushed through, not with 60 votes--because after the 
election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, they didn't have 60 votes to 
get ObamaCare through because not a single Republican would support it 
because Republicans supported an alternative plan. So without a single 
Republican supporting it, Democrats chose to ram it through with 50 
votes. That is all they needed because they used this so-called 
reconciliation provision that, again, is supposed to be for budget 
issues, not health care.
  I think the results are now plain to see. We have law in place that 
is affecting my constituents and affecting the constituents of every 
Senator, that has very negative consequences. Did we need to do 
something to reform the health care system? Yes. Was the status quo 
acceptable? No. Is it acceptable now? No.
  There are smart reforms to reduce costs, smart reforms add more 
choice, to allow markets to work better in health care, to not only 
provide for better quality and better choice but also lower costs. 
Those were not pursued. We still have the opportunity now to do that.
  I talked earlier about the fact that health care is a big concern to 
the American people. It certainly is among my constituents in Ohio. We 
do a tele-townhall meeting periodically. We had a couple of them last 
month where I will get maybe 25,000 Ohioans on the phone at any one 
time and talk to them about the issues of the day and hear their 
questions and concerns.
  During the tele-townhall meeting, we ask a poll question, such as 
what is the most important issue you think is facing the country? We 
ask whether it is national security and terrorism, energy policy and 
costs at the pump, health care and health care costs, jobs and the 
economy, or some other issue.
  It is interesting in that every single tele-townhall meeting I have 
had over the past few years has always been that jobs and the economy 
is the No. 1 issue. Again, there may be 25,000 people at any one time. 
When we asked the poll question, that has been the No. 1 question. 
Usually the No. 2 issue is debt and deficit and spending.
  The last two tele-townhalls we did last month--guess what the No. 1 
issue was. It was not jobs and the economy or debt and deficit. It was 
about health care because people are so concerned about what ObamaCare 
is doing to them and their families.
  I will let them speak for themselves. Some of us were on the floor a 
few weeks ago talking about this, but since that time I have received a 
lot of stories from people I represent.
  Here is one from Susan from Batavia which is in Clermont County in 
southern Ohio. She says:

       I am a single mom. I pay for my own health insurance. I am 
     active and fit. I have cycled over 4,000 miles this year. I 
     am seldom sick. In the 3 years I have paid for my own 
     insurance, I went to the doctor once for illness. My rate was 
     $146 a month. In September I received a letter from Anthem 
     saying that my plan does not meet the requirements of the 
     Affordable Care Act and will be discontinued as of January 1, 
     2014. I was offered the same coverage I had--not for $146 a 
     month but for $350 a month.

  To Susan from Batavia, thanks for your story and letting us know what 
is happening and how this is affecting you as a single mom who is 
taking care of herself, doing the right things, and had a plan that 
worked for her and was told, no, the government knows best. You can't 
have your plan. Here is the plan you have to have, and in order to have 
comparable coverage we are going to raise your rates by over double.
  This is from Mike from Westlake in northeast Ohio. Mike says:

       I own a small business. Our health insurance rates for 
     single employees under 30 went from $198 per month last year 
     to $650 per month this year. That is a 260-percent increase 
     thanks to ObamaCare. This bill is going to put small 
     businesses out of business.

  Here is one from William from Columbus, OH:

       We were paying $540 per month but received a letter from 
     Anthem stating that the rates would increase to $662 per 
     month beginning September 2013 and then $1,014 per month in 
     September 2014 as a result of the requirements per ObamaCare. 
     If that wasn't bad enough, our family doctor of 25 years 
     informed us that he will end his practice on January 1, 
     2014. The reason being is the government requirements of 
     ObamaCare just made it too difficult to continue.

  That is William from Columbus, talking about an issue of price, 
obviously, going from $540 a month to $1,014 per month. But it is also 
about choice because his doctor is stepping out because of ObamaCare.
  Rachel from Solon says:

       My family owns a small business. We were notified that our 
     current health care plan is substandard at $860 per month. To 
     comply, we now must pay $1,880 a month. This is beyond 
     outrageous.

  That is what Rachel says. I agree with her: $860 to $1,880 per 
month--more than double--in order for her to have health care as a 
small business owner for her and her husband.
  Jon from Dublin:

       We currently have a high-deductible plan from Anthem and 
     pay $331 per month. We are perfectly happy with our plan. It 
     provides wellness visits for free, which is what we really 
     need, and then catastrophic coverage in case of something 
     very unpleasant. When I recently reviewed our coverage and 
     tried to renew it, I asked what an equivalent plan would cost 
     under the exchange. The quote I received was for $833 per 
     month.

  Remember, he was paying $331 per month. He likes his plan with 
wellness visits and catastrophic coverage. It goes from $331 per month 
to $833 per month.
  Back to his letter:

       The deductible even went up from $11,000 to $12,700.

  So this notion that people have to get out of these plans because 
their deductible is too high--the one that is acceptable based on 
ObamaCare and this top-down approach is now a higher deductible.
  He says:

       My family simply cannot afford this plan.

  Here is Sarah from Raymond, OH. Sarah writes--and this is painful. 
These are painful. But Sarah writes:

       I am literally crying right now because of our insurance. 
     My family's new monthly cost starting January 1 is $323.82 
     biweekly and $647.64 a month, a difference of $420 in what we 
     currently pay, and the new plan offers less with more out-of-
     pocket expenses. The ACA has failed and it is hurting my 
     family, not helping.

  Here is Chuck from West Chester:

       I tried to give this health care thing the benefit of the 
     doubt. I went to the Web site and all the estimates are more 
     expensive than my canceled policy. My canceled policy was not 
     only cheaper; it was better, and I don't qualify for any 
     subsidies. Do I have any choice besides paying more money?

  Chuck, I am probably not qualified to give advice, but I will anyway. 
Your choice is to pay a penalty or pay more. That is what the 
government is telling you. That is what ObamaCare is telling you.
  Cynthia from Canton, OH:

       I am a substitute teacher. Recently I received notice that 
     I was not getting jobs every day like I have been for most of 
     the past 13 years. I am a good, dependable sub, and I work 
     for $70 a day before taxes. I contacted the school system and 
     was told that they are watching any sub to prevent over 30 
     hours a week because of the Affordable Care Act.

  Cynthia's letter to me, unfortunately, is something that I am hearing 
all over the State of Ohio. It is that people are being told: We need 
to keep you under 30 hours. She is finding out

[[Page S8726]]

as a substitute teacher in Canton, OH, that she can't get the jobs she 
used to get because they are telling her they want to watch the subs to 
prevent anybody getting more than 30 hours a week because of the 
Affordable Care Act. My colleagues probably know this: Under the act, 
if a person works over 30 hours a week, that person is considered full-
time; therefore, the company has to provide the health care insurance 
that, again, this top-down approach insists on; not the health 
insurance you may want or your employer may think is appropriate, but 
the health care insurance that the Affordable Care Act thinks is 
appropriate. So companies are telling folks, as in the case of this 
substitute teacher--private and public sector--we need to keep you 
under 30 hours because we simply can't afford that kind of health care.
  Here is Mark from Urbana, OH:

       My wife and I are farmers. We have our own private health 
     insurance, which is not cheap. We just learned that our 
     insurer is canceling our plan and that the ObamaCare plan 
     will double our premiums to more than $1,000 per month. My 
     wife is 55 years old. We do not need maternity coverage or 
     free birth control or so much other coverage mandated by 
     ObamaCare. We are modest, middle income people. What we need 
     in this country is a policy to make health care more 
     affordable. We can do this if we let Americans determine 
     their own health care needs and shop for the best and most 
     affordable care. Why not medical savings accounts for 
     everyone? They would be privately owned so that no one is 
     chained to their employer-sponsored plan. Why not require 
     that health care providers post prices of their services? We 
     can come up with much better alternatives to ObamaCare. 
     Please help us.

  I agree with him. We can come up with much better alternatives, 
including letting people save money for their own health care. Why 
should we want to discourage that? By the way, those HSA savings 
accounts that Mark is talking about that he would like to see for 
everyone, those are made less attractive because they take away some of 
the health care tax benefit.

  So we are moving the wrong way. We are moving away from people taking 
care of their own health needs and encouraging them again to focus on 
wellness and prevention, understanding that it is their dollar that is 
at stake and allowing them to build up a little nest egg if they are 
healthy and if they are able to avoid a health problem, and if they do 
have a problem, they have coverage, with a high deductible, and they 
have coverage to take care of it. People should be able to make that 
decision on their own if that is what is best for them and their 
family.
  Here is Brian from Mentor:

       My family's Aetna plan has been canceled due to ObamaCare. 
     My old plan was $454 per month with a $5,000 per person 
     deductible. The same deductible policy to buy a new plan is 
     $1,038 per month--

more than double for Bryan.
  Dean from Sandusky:

       Ever since I lost my job in 2009, I have been purchasing my 
     own health insurance. Last month, I received a letter in the 
     mail stating that my plan is being canceled due to the ACA. I 
     was told to look at plans on the exchange, which I did, and 
     found a comparable plan that is over twice the cost of what I 
     now have. In addition, this is over half of my monthly 
     pension. I simply cannot afford this.
       I have always been a responsible, hard-working, self-
     dependent person. Now, because of the actions of our 
     government, for the first time in my life I will not have 
     health care coverage. I am 59 years old now and I need this 
     coverage. I am outraged, to say the least. How can our 
     government do this to us? I will remember this come election 
     time.

  That is Dean from Sandusky. He lost his job and picked up a plan on 
the individual market that worked for him. He is now going to have to 
pay twice as much. He can't afford it. He is not covered. He is on a 
fixed income. It sounds as though he is going to go without coverage.
  By the way, new polling data is out showing that a lot of young 
people are going to go without coverage. One number is 28 percent of 
them are; another number is closer to half. I don't know how many. But 
a lot of young people I talk to say they would rather pay the penalty 
and take the risk than be covered. That is a problem for them, but it 
is also a problem for the Affordable Care Act because it is based on 
those people coming into the system and, frankly, providing the ability 
for others to get coverage under the risk pools that are set up under 
ObamaCare.
  So the stories I have told are real people facing real problems and 
they are problems that Washington created for them and their families. 
They were fine with their coverage. They liked their coverage. I know 
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have their own stories 
about people who are getting coverage and benefiting from it, 
particularly those with preexisting conditions. I understand that. But 
these stories really obscure the question we should be debating on the 
floor. I agree we should cover people with preexisting conditions, and 
so do most Republicans. The question is how do we do it.
  So when Democrats come to the floor and tell me, Rob, you have all of 
these stories about people who cannot afford health insurance anymore 
and are having a really hard time on the individual market, but we will 
tell our stories of folks with preexisting conditions, my answer is 
that I also believe we ought to cover those people. I don't dispute 
that. We want to get coverage for more Americans. That is not the 
question we are debating. The real question is whether ObamaCare, with 
its mandates, its top-down, centralized controls is the way to 
accomplish those goals.
  If the President and my friends on the other side of the aisle 
believe that the only way to increase coverage is to make everyone to 
pay more, to force millions of Americans to give up their insurance, to 
make people lose their doctors, then they should say that is what their 
plan is because that is what is happening.
  A lack of honesty and transparency, in my view, is one of the great 
failures of the Affordable Care Act. I believe ObamaCare was sold to 
the American people under false pretenses. President Obama famously 
said, ``If you like your health care, you can keep it.'' He said, ``If 
you like your health care, you can keep it, period.'' But the one thing 
he could not do then was keep his word. He had to have known it then. 
All of the information coming out indicates that was knowledge he 
should have had, yet he kept saying it. What began as a broken Web site 
and cancellation notices has turned into sticker shock for millions of 
Americans who are seeing their health care costs soar under ObamaCare. 
By the way, as I said earlier, these rising costs are not a mistake in 
ObamaCare; they were intended in ObamaCare. Under ObamaCare, millions 
of Americans have to pay more for insurance in order for the program to 
work. The Web site can be fixed. I assume it will be at some point, 
although they are certainly having a tough time with it. But this basic 
premise that is the heart of ObamaCare that other people's costs have 
to go up, and pretty dramatically, cannot be fixed.
  The reason goes back to a critical choice made at the beginning of 
the health care debate. There are different approaches to covering the 
uninsured, covering those with preexisting conditions. The approach 
favored by Republicans, at least many Republicans, including me, would 
create real economic incentives to bring the uninsured into covered 
access to health care while taking critical steps to reduce the costs 
of health care. One of the reasons people aren't covered is cost. The 
best way to lower the number of the uninsured is to make it easier and 
less expensive for people to get insurance in the first place.
  The President chose to take a very different approach. He chose not 
to focus on the costs, which have gone up; not to focus on providing 
incentives for people to get coverage, but instead a top-down, 
centralized approach. He turned to mandates. ObamaCare requires that 
all Americans purchase insurance. It mandates what type of insurance 
that coverage includes, and it requires that private insurers accept 
all comers, including those with preexisting conditions.
  Again, we all want to ensure that those with chronic conditions 
receive health care, but it also changes the way health insurance 
underwriting works. Normally, insurance works by pooling resources for 
some future harm. So for those who have preexisting conditions, 
obviously the harm is already present and their premiums are not going 
to be able to pay for their care, for the most part. That is why these 
high-risk pools in States are something I support and others support, 
providing tax incentives for that. But the offset is these often have 
astronomical costs. That is how ObamaCare was designed.

[[Page S8727]]

  So this notion of these costs are going up and we didn't intend 
that--of course they intended it. It is exactly the way they intended 
it. ObamaCare needs more money than these policies would provide, so 
these private plans we talked about earlier--people in the individual 
market--many of which are high deductibles, low cost, catastrophic 
plans, many of the people who have these plans are young people who are 
relatively healthy. These folks were forced to buy insurance they 
didn't need because ObamaCare needed the money. The plans they had met 
the needs of those people--met the customers' needs--but, frankly, 
didn't meet the government's needs. So those plans were regulated out 
of existence, padded with extra benefits and consumer protections that 
many of those who chose this policy didn't want, as Mark from Urbana 
said, and will never use. Sometimes these policies are double or 
triple, and we have heard cases where they are five, 10 times more.
  What we have seen in the individual market is only the beginning. 
Next year, the same mandates and government outreach that have hit the 
individual market will come to effect for the employer-based market as 
well, where the vast majority of us get our health care, through our 
employer. So at some point 80 million Americans will likely see their 
health plans canceled or sold and replaced by--when the employer-based 
market comes under the ObamaCare mandates, which, as we recall, is 
going to happen about a year from now, because it was put off for a 
year--that was the delay the President put in effect--we are going to 
see much more of this.
  Again, there is a better way. There is a way to put this partisanship 
behind us and do this together. We talked earlier about the fact when 
you cram something through with all votes on one side of the aisle and 
ignore the other, we tend to get a policy that doesn't work for the 
American people.
  That is exactly what we are seeing here. There is a better way, and 
we still need to pursue it. Instead of having less choices and higher 
costs for all Americans, there is a way to put together a plan that 
actually helps people.
  This is something that Republicans and Democrats alike need to focus 
on. Instead of a top-down, centralized, government-knows-best solution, 
we need to go to solutions that actually reduce the costs of health 
care and provide more choice in health care. It can be done.
  ObamaCare should be repealed and replaced, in my view, but it should 
be replaced. The status quo is not acceptable. I think the failures of 
ObamaCare point the way as to what we should do--reduce the costs. 
There are steps we could take today; for instance, remove the shackles 
of government regulations from the market. Let health care insurance 
and health care be less expensive. Let health care insurance be sold 
across State lines. That is something you can do with Federal 
legislation that will provide more competition. It will lower the cost. 
There are some areas in my State where there are only a couple plans. I 
am told under ObamaCare, in some States there are only a couple plans. 
You want to have more competition, not less.
  We should give people the ability to get health care on their own. We 
talked about health savings accounts. We should help create a healthy, 
vibrant individual health care market by giving people a tax incentive 
to purchase health insurance comparable to incentives they would 
receive with employer-provided coverage where there now are tax 
incentives to provide health care coverage. Let's deal with these 
frivolous lawsuits. That reduces the costs.
  So I appreciate the fact that one of my colleagues has joined me on 
the floor and is going to continue this discussion. But I wish to go 
back to where we started. It does not have to be this way. What we are 
doing in the Senate by taking away the rights of the minority is not 
going to help us with regard to getting better judges. It did not help 
us in terms of cramming ObamaCare through with 51 votes rather than the 
normal 60 that should have been required. It does not help for us to 
now continue down this track of a government, one-size-fits-all 
approach to health care. We have heard the stories. We see what is 
happening and have not even hit most Americans yet because they get 
coverage from their employer.
  Instead, let's work to together. Let's provide more choice. Let's 
reduce the costs. Let's ensure that everybody has access to health care 
that works for them and their families. If we do that, the American 
people might regain a little bit of trust in this institution and in 
this town.
  Madam President, I would like to yield the floor, if I could, for my 
colleague and your colleague from North Dakota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I thank the esteemed Senator from Ohio 
for his remarks and express my support for his remarks as well.
  Myself and other colleagues have been on the floor today talking 
about the need to work in a bipartisan way. Obviously, the business 
before the Senate right now is nominations, and we want to emphasize 
again the importance of advice and consent in the nomination process 
but that it needs to be on a bipartisan basis.
  The change that, of course, has been made is that now the majority 
party can vote through, confirm a nomination without any input, any 
consent, any debate from the minority party. That is an issue not only 
in terms of the nomination process, the confirmation process of advise 
and consent, but that is also very much an issue in legislation.
  The importance of bipartisanship, whether it is in advise and consent 
in the confirmation process or whether it is in passing legislation, is 
seen because we have a country of more than 300 million people--
Republicans, Democrats, Independents--but at the end of the day, if we 
are going to have broad-based public support for the work we do, for 
the legislation we pass, it has to be done in a bipartisan way.
  My colleagues have been pointing that out in terms of the 
confirmation process. Also, they have been pointing that out in the 
context of the Affordable Care Act and ObamaCare. That is legislation 
that was passed on a partisan basis. One party, and one party only, 
voted for that legislation. What we have seen is that does not work.
  To get broad-based support for any legislation--let alone something 
as important as reform of health care--both parties have to be part of 
that work product. That is the only way we are going to get broad-based 
support across this great Nation on the important issues we face.
  Earlier today I read story after story from people from our great 
State expressing real challenges, real difficulties--the higher costs, 
higher deductibles, higher premiums, higher copays--they are facing as 
a result of the Affordable Care Act. I talked about the need to engage 
in the right kind of health care reform, the kind of health care reform 
that truly empowers individuals to pick their own health care insurance 
and their own health care provider; the need to pass the kind of 
legislation that will help us provide expanded health savings accounts 
tied with higher deductible policies that will encourage our young 
people to purchase health care insurance because they will be able to 
do so with lower premiums; the need for tort reform to help bring down 
health care costs; the need to increase competition across State lines 
so people have more choice, and with that competition, lower prices 
when it comes to choosing their health care insurance; and I talked 
about the need to reform Medicare, as the Presiding Officer knows, to 
provide the right incentives.
  Look at our great State of North Dakota. We have lower health care 
costs than most other States, and we have very good outcomes. For that 
we get not more Medicare reimbursement but less. That is exactly the 
wrong incentive--providing more reimbursement to States that have high 
costs regardless of outcome and lower reimbursement for States even 
with lower costs and better outcomes; in essence, getting less 
reimbursement, getting penalized for good performance. That is exactly 
the wrong approach and why we so desperately need to make reforms that 
create the right approach.
  These are the kinds of solutions we are advocating that we will 
continue to advocate to put in place for the American people. We need 
Members on both sides of the aisle to come together with

[[Page S8728]]

a step-by-step, comprehensive approach, market-based approach, that 
will truly create more choice, more competition, and empower people--
empower people--the great citizens of this country to take control of 
their health care decisions and make the decisions that best suit them 
and their families.
  I see that my colleague from the great State of South Dakota is in 
the Chamber. As always, I am very pleased to see him, and at this time 
I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Thank you, Madam President. I thank my colleague from 
North Dakota--both colleagues from North Dakota who are here in the 
Chamber--and I appreciate his leadership as a former Governor, 
understanding these issues such as health care, which do profoundly 
impact the people whom we all represent in the Dakotas. There are some 
unique challenges, obviously, of meeting the health care needs of 
people in our States because we have a big geography, lots of wide open 
space. We do not have the big population centers that are in other 
places in the country, and so health care delivery and coverage of 
health care, health care insurance and access to it are enormously 
important to the people we all represent.
  I would say it has become abundantly clear that the American people 
are rejecting ObamaCare, which is the law that was passed several years 
ago in the Senate, in the house, signed into law by the President. I 
remember being here at the time and voting on that on Christmas Eve. We 
were actually here. It was December 24, 4 years ago, I think now, in 
2009. We were right up here until the end, and this was, I would say, 
jammed through the Senate.
  The majority had the votes. They were not all that concerned about 
having participation or input from those of us who served in the other 
party--as a consequence of that just shoved this thing through right on 
Christmas Eve. I think that was an unfortunate way in which to conduct 
the business of the Senate, to enact major legislation. It is very rare 
around here that legislation of that consequence that literally impacts 
one-sixth of the American economy is shoved through on a partisan 
party-line basis.
  So that is the way it was done. We said at the time--many of us were 
down here on the floor over and over predicting that because of the way 
this was structured it was going to lead to higher insurance premiums, 
it was going to lead to fewer jobs in our economy, a lot of stress on 
employers that were trying to create those jobs. All of that is coming 
to fruition as we hear now reports day after day after day across this 
country--from my State of South Dakota, other States across the 
country--from people who are feeling the very real and harmful impacts 
of the ObamaCare legislation, both in terms of higher premiums but also 
canceled coverages, higher deductibles, things that affect the 
pocketbooks of millions of Americans and issues that are discussed and 
debated at kitchen tables, but they are profoundly important to the 
economic well-being of people in this country.
  When you are seeing the dramatic increases in premiums, the dramatic 
increases in deductibles, the loss of coverage, the canceled coverages 
we are seeing across the country right now, it is very disturbing to 
people. That is why I think you have seen this widespread rejection of 
ObamaCare.
  Interestingly enough, yesterday Health and Human Services released 
new enrollment numbers for the exchanges for October and November. Over 
the course of those 2 months, in my State of South Dakota, just 372 
South Dakotans--or less than one-half of one-tenth of 1 percent of my 
State's residents--signed up for health care on the exchanges.
  Ten other States also had fewer than 1,000 people sign up.
  Oregon, which embraced ObamaCare very early on, had just 44 
enrollments. Think about that--44 enrollments to show for 2 months 
thanks to their Web site, which suffered an even more catastrophic 
failure than the Federal Web site.
  In all, there were 364,682 enrolled in the exchanges during the 
months of October and November--not even one-quarter of the number the 
administration had projected after 2 months. To meet its goal of 3.3 
million signups by December 31, the administration would have to sign 
up almost 3 million people in the next 3 weeks or more than 145,000 
every single day.
  Considering that the administration has averaged fewer than 6,000 
enrollments a day over the past 2 months, I would not want to put a lot 
of money on them being able to meet that goal. It is obvious from the 
sluggish enrollment numbers that the American people are rejecting 
ObamaCare. But if anyone needs more proof, three new polls came out 
last week, all reporting strong opposition to the law among the 
American people.
  The Pew Research Center poll reports that 54 percent of the American 
people disapprove of the President's health care law.
  According to Pew's most recent survey, the percentage of Americans 
who think the health care law has ``had a negative effect on the 
country'' rose 11 percent just since September of this year.
  In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released yesterday, the 
President's disapproval rating reached an alltime high of 54 percent. 
When asked what issue shaped their view of the President this year, 60 
percent cited ObamaCare.
  The same Wall Street Journal poll also found the number of Americans 
who think the President's health care law was ``a bad idea'' reached an 
alltime high.
  Quinnipiac University also released a poll yesterday that found that 
57 percent of the American people oppose ObamaCare.
  The President's health care law has never enjoyed strong popular 
support. But Democrats and the President argued that public support for 
the law should not be judged until the law's benefits were in effect.
  The law is now in effect. People can buy insurance on the exchanges. 
Yet opposition to the law is not declining; it is the opposite that is 
happening. It is actually rising. Opposition to the law is increasing 
over time as more and more people become aware of the impact on their 
personal economic well-being.
  Quinnipiac reported a 10-point jump in opposition to the law between 
October 1 of this year and December 11.
  Meanwhile, support for the law, already low, dropped a further six 
points over the same time period.
  Even worse for the President, it is not just Republicans and 
Independents who are fleeing the President's signature law. Many of the 
President's strongest supporters, those who initially supported his 
health care law and helped reelect him last year, are deserting the 
President.
  The Pew Research Center found a 10-point drop in support among 
African Americans since September and a 9-point drop in support among 
Hispanic Americans--both groups who strongly supported the President in 
the last election.
  The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll also found ``faith in Mr. Obama 
has dropped noticeably in recent months among young voters and 
Hispanics, two groups that had been among his steadiest supporters.''
  So the question, I guess, is why are the American people and even the 
President's strongest supporters rejecting ObamaCare? Why, now that the 
law is mostly in effect, is opposition growing rather than declining?
  Well, I think the answer is very simple. It is because the law has 
failed to deliver on the President's promises. From rising premiums, to 
canceled health plans, to lost doctors, ObamaCare is doing the exact 
opposite of what the President promised it would do. The President said 
his new law would reduce the cost of health care. In fact, he claimed 
families would see their premiums fall by an average of $2,500 a year. 
But that promise fell apart almost immediately after ObamaCare was 
enacted. In fact, what we are seeing out there is that the average 
family has seen its health care premiums rise by more than $2,500 since 
the law's passage. Now that the law is being implemented, those numbers 
are only going higher. Those families who are lucky enough to keep 
their plans have been receiving insurance renewal notices with 
staggering premium increases. Premiums are doubling or

[[Page S8729]]

even tripling for many families, and deductibles are increasing as 
well. Imagine getting a $600-a-month increase in premiums. That is 
$7,200 a year. How on Earth is a working family, a middle-class family 
in this country supposed to be able to afford that?
  The President would like you to believe that these Americans' 
updated, more expensive health plans are far superior to what they had 
before. But, in fact, many of these plans were as good or better than 
what these families are getting now. Many of these plans are falling 
short of people's expectations because they have higher deductibles. Of 
course, with all of the mandated coverages that are in many of these 
plans, there are all kinds of things that people who are subscribing, 
trying to get on the exchanges, are finding they do not need. I have 
had people in my State of South Dakota who are in their fifties and 
sixties who are asking why they need to have things such as maternity 
coverage.
  You see that as these letters and emails and phone calls are coming 
into your office and people are finding out about the specifics--the 
details, if you will--of these various plans, they are rejecting them 
not only because they have higher premiums, but they are also plans 
that are not sufficient or adequate compared to what they are currently 
experiencing with the plans they had before. Now thousands of families 
around the country are going to be struggling to pay huge premium 
increases without receiving any additional benefit.
  The situation is no better on the exchanges. While there are 
certainly plans with low premiums on the exchanges, many of those plans 
have deductibles that are so high that, barring some catastrophic 
illness or injury, the family might as well not have insurance at all. 
A family without insurance who typically pays $8,000 a year in health 
care costs may see no benefit at all from an insurance plan with a 
$12,000 deductible. In fact, they may spend more on health care because 
now they have to pay high insurance premiums as well. So you have 
higher insurance premiums, higher deductibles, meaning in many cases 
that they are not going to reach the threshold that would trigger a 
payment from their plan, and so they are getting no additional benefit, 
but they are paying way more for the same or worse coverage.
  In addition to promising a new era of affordable health care, the 
President also promised that nothing would change for people who liked 
the health care they had. He repeated many times--we have all seen the 
videos of this--that if you like your health care plan, you can keep 
it. He even went so far as to say ``You can keep it, period'' to make 
it even more emphatic. ``If you like your doctors, you can keep your 
doctor, period.'' But Americans are now finding out that was not even 
close to being true. Millions of Americans have seen the health care 
plans that they liked canceled by insurance companies in response to 
new ObamaCare regulations. So far, more than 5 million Americans have 
lost their health care plans as a direct result of ObamaCare. In fact, 
today, millions more Americans have lost health care than have gained 
it under the President's signature law.
  Millions of Americans are also realizing that they cannot keep their 
doctors or their hospitals. ObamaCare put in place scores of new 
regulations on insurance companies and the plans they offer. To meet 
all of the ObamaCare requirements while still getting their plans 
approved, insurance companies have been forced to drastically shrink 
their networks of doctors and hospitals. As a consequence, many 
families are finding that their new health care plans force them to 
give up doctors they have been seeing literally for years.
  That may not sound so terrible to some of us if we do not have a 
close relationship with our doctors, but what if you are a cancer 
patient who relies on your network of doctors and oncologists to 
coordinate your lifesaving care?
  More than one cancer patient has spoken openly in the press about the 
struggle to find a replacement health care plan after having their 
original plan canceled as a result of ObamaCare, a plan that covers all 
of the doctors and the medicines they are currently using.
  Joan Carrico, a nurse from Michigan and a cancer patient, published a 
heartbreaking column on CNBC yesterday updating readers on her 
struggles to find a health care plan that covers all of her care. I 
will let her words speak for her and the other Americans in her 
position:

       I can't begin to describe how devastated I am. Many people 
     like me, who are in a difficult health crisis and fighting to 
     regain good health, are finding it very difficult--if not 
     impossible--to make sure that we can keep our doctors and 
     receive the chemotherapy and other treatments and medicines 
     that are keeping us alive. . . . I'm scared and wondering 
     what surprises are around the corner.

  Well, Ms. Carrico brings up another thing people may lose under 
ObamaCare besides their doctors and their health care plans; that is, 
their medications.
  Forbes published an article this week outlining the reasons ObamaCare 
may cause millions of Americans to lose access to the medications they 
are currently taking. The author points out that many exchange plans 
have steep cost-sharing requirements for prescription drugs. Purchasing 
a bronze plan, for example, the article points out, means you will 
likely be responsible for 40 percent of a drug's cost. That may not be 
so bad if we are talking about a common antibiotic, but that gets very 
expensive when we are talking about more sophisticated drugs, such as 
cancer drugs and other lifesaving treatments.
  The second reason patients may lose access to their medications, 
according to Forbes, is that some plans simply may not cover the 
prescription drugs that person has been taking. Out-of-pocket limits, 
the article notes, do not apply if the drug you are taking is not on 
your new insurance company's ``approved'' list of drugs. You may find 
yourself paying for a very expensive drug without any benefit at all 
from your new insurance plan.
  In addition to higher costs and the loss of their doctor and health 
care plans, there is another reason Americans are rejecting ObamaCare. 
ObamaCare is not just bad for health care, it is bad for the economy. 
New health care regulations are discouraging businesses from hiring and 
expanding their businesses.
  Earlier this week a CBS News article reported that ``nearly half of 
U.S. companies said they are reluctant to hire full-time employees 
because of the law.'' The Hill reported on a recent survey by the 
National Association of Manufacturers that found that 77 percent of 
manufacturers cite soaring health care costs as the biggest issue 
facing their business. The title of the Washington Post article on the 
health care law's impact on small businesses says it all: ``Health care 
law's aggregation rules pose a compliance nightmare for small 
businesses.'' That is the headline of the Washington Post.
  Small businesses are responsible for a majority of the job creation 
in this country. If we look at some States around the country, my State 
of South Dakota being a good example, most of the jobs, a huge 
proportion of the jobs created in States like mine are created by small 
businesses, but the health care law is discouraging them from hiring, 
drowning them in regulations, and promising stiff new requirements if 
they have 50 or more employees. I can't tell you how many times, when I 
am traveling in my State of South Dakota--or, for that matter, 
traveling outside my State but specifically in my State of South 
Dakota--when I am talking to businesses, to people who are creating 
jobs, investors, the uncertainty associated with this health care law 
and the new costs because of its mandates and its requirements are 
making it more difficult and more expensive for them to create jobs.
  So what are we seeing as a result of that? We are seeing a slower, 
much more sluggish economy; chronic high unemployment; and fewer jobs, 
particularly for people who are coming out of college. Younger 
Americans in particular are paying a dear price because of the slow 
economy. When businesses do not hire, the economy suffers. Every 
American who has spent weeks, months, or years struggling to find a job 
suffers too.
  I know my Democratic colleagues here in the Senate know all of this. 
That is why some of them are starting to run away from ObamaCare too. 
Democrats in Congress may have supported the law, but now that they 
have

[[Page S8730]]

seen how it looks in reality, some of them--particularly those running 
for reelection--are eager to distance themselves from it. No one 
running for reelection wants to be too closely associated with the law 
that is raising Americans' health care costs, taking away their health 
care choices, and hurting an already struggling economy.
  The American people have spoken. They do not like ObamaCare. They do 
not want ObamaCare. They cannot afford ObamaCare. It is time for 
Democrats in Congress to start listening. I always think it is never 
too late to do the right thing. I hope that as more Americans start to 
weigh in and start to engage in the discussion about how this is 
impacting them personally, that will have such a profound impact on 
Members of Congress here in Washington, DC, that they will come to the 
conclusion that many of us reached a long time ago; that is, this is a 
bad, flawed bill, built upon a faulty foundation that is destined to 
fail, and that the best thing we can do is pull it out by the roots and 
start over in a way that makes sense for the American people, that 
addresses the challenges we have in our health care system in America 
today but does it in a way that does not require the government to take 
over literally one-sixth of the American economy and create political 
control--command and control from here in Washington, DC, over 
literally one-sixth of the American economy.
  One out of every six dollars in our economy today is spent on health 
care. Think about that. There are very few areas where you can say that 
complete, total government intervention impacts that big of a swath of 
our economy. Unfortunately, government intervention is impacting way 
too much of our economy. As a consequence, we are paying a price in the 
form of fewer jobs, chronic high unemployment, and a slower, sluggish, 
anemic economy, which is making it more difficult for people to find 
jobs and more difficult for us to get ourselves out of what is a very 
difficult economy.
  My hope would be that before this is all said and done--and I do not 
know when this will happen; hopefully sooner rather than later because 
I think the sooner we make that adjustment and decide this was the 
wrong course and reverse course and go in a different direction, the 
less damage we will do to people's livelihoods, to their personal 
economic circumstances, and the less damage we will do to the overall 
economy in this country. I hope that realization comes sooner rather 
than later. But I think what will drive it--I have maintained all along 
that ultimately the only thing that can really change this is the 
American people because clearly we have a President of the United 
States for whom this is his signature achievement. Unless he starts 
hearing from the American people, he is unlikely to change.
  We have a lot of people here in the Senate--every Democrat here today 
who was here in 2009 voted for this. Not a single Republican who was 
here in 2009 voted for it. That is probably one of the reasons this is 
such a failed policy. It did not have input or buy-in from the other 
side. It did not get some of the best ideas coming to the forefront.
  There was a much better way to do this. Many of us who have been 
around here for very long have been proposing solutions to address 
health care challenges that have been rejected by Democrats here in 
Congress.
  We have talked a lot over the years about allowing people to buy 
insurance across State lines. Why wouldn't we create interstate 
competition? Competition in a free market economy generally, as a 
matter of principle and as a matter of practice, drives down price. If 
we create more competition and give people more choices, that tends to 
drive down prices. That is a fairly basic economic principle.
  Why wouldn't we allow small businesses to join larger groups where 
they can get the benefit of group purchasing power and thereby put 
downward pressure on the cost of health care in this country?
  Why wouldn't we allow for expanded opportunities for people to take 
care of their own health care circumstances by allowing for expanded, 
larger health savings accounts, opportunities for people to put money 
aside in an account, perhaps buy a catastrophic policy with a high 
deductible but tax free. They can put money aside that allows them to 
cover some of those health care costs that don't reach that 
catastrophic level.
  What about finally doing something to reduce the cost of defensive 
medicine, which means we would have to reform our medical malpractice 
laws in this country and weed out a lot of the junk lawsuits that clog 
our legal system and make it so much more expensive to deliver health 
care. I talk to physicians all the time for whom concern about 
liability is a major issue. It creates overutilization. You take all 
this great technology we have in America today, and you have physicians 
who are worried about being sued. Of course, they are probably going to 
run duplicative tests. Anybody who is involved in the delivery of 
health care in this country knows very well about the cost of 
practicing defensive medicine. There have been many studies done on it, 
all of which conclude that it adds significantly to the cost of 
delivering health care in this country. There are differences of 
opinion about how much that is, but there is no question that it is a 
factor in the high cost of health care.
  There have been proposals. There are a number of my colleagues on 
this side of the aisle who have suggested allowing people to have their 
own personal, refundable tax credit for the purchase of health 
insurance and to create equity between the tax treatment of health care 
that people can get through their employer with that which they would 
be able to get in the individual marketplace.
  Again, the principle is greater choice, greater competition, and 
therefore lower prices. It is a fairly straightforward and simple 
formula when it comes to a market-based approach to how we deal with 
the health care crisis we have in this country.
  Clearly, we have programs such as Medicare and Medicaid where the 
government is fairly heavily involved in the delivery of health care in 
this country. That too is an area where we need to be looking at how we 
can reform and make those programs work more efficiently, more 
effectively, in a way that hopefully maximizes the return the taxpayers 
get on those particular programs.
  If we look at programs such as Medicare, there was a good example a 
few years ago, which was Medicare Part D, which is the only program I 
can think of since I have been here--or, for that matter, since I have 
been following policies that have been put in place over time--that has 
actually cost less than what it was projected to cost. Why? Because it 
allowed for competition. It created a private component where private 
insurance companies would vie for, would bid for the business of senior 
citizens across this country when it comes to their medications. As a 
consequence of that, we have seen those costs come down to a reasonable 
level. It actually has cost less than what was anticipated.
  That is a principle we could start to apply in other areas. There are 
a number of things that could be done to reduce the cost of delivery of 
health care when it comes to the component of it that the government is 
heavily involved with.
  But the point, very simply, is that whenever we create more choices, 
when we create more competition, it has a downward impact on costs. It 
drives costs down. So why weren't a lot of these things considered or 
incorporated into ObamaCare when it was passed? Well, we all know the 
answer to that. It is because the majority party, which had the votes, 
decided to do it their way. They decided to go their own way, and as a 
consequence we ended up with a bill, a piece of legislation, and now a 
huge new program that has been an utter disaster.
  I think any objective observer would come to that conclusion based 
upon the rollout of the Web site and everything subsequent to that that 
impacts costs; that impacts people's ability to keep the plan they have 
and the doctor they have; that impacts to the economy, which is 
overburdened with the cost of regulation in the new law; as well as the 
many--and I say ``many''--taxes that were included in the new law. 
There were many new taxes included, not to mention lots of cuts to 
Medicare, which, interestingly enough, were double-counted. That was 
allowed to be used as ``savings'' put in the Medicare

[[Page S8731]]

trust fund, therefore extending the lifespan of Medicare. At the same 
time, that was going to be spent on the new health care proposal.
  Only in Washington, DC, could someone get away with an accounting 
convention that would allow someone to double-count revenue, which is 
essentially what happened. We raised that question many times, and 
eventually we had a letter from the Congressional Budget Office that 
said: Yes, this is double-counting revenue. You are spending the same 
money twice.
  Yet the majority party had the votes. Around here, it is a function 
of math: If you have the votes, you can do pretty much whatever you 
want. And that is what they did. We are paying a dear price for that, 
but the people who are really paying the biggest price are the American 
people, who are seeing these increased premium costs, increased 
deductibles, fewer jobs, slower economy, and lower take-home pay. That 
is the bottom line.
  It boils down to basic economic terms. What we are talking about is a 
slower, more sluggish, anemic economy, chronic high unemployment, and 
lower take-home pay for middle-class America. In fact, if we look at 
average household income, which is something we use as a metric to 
measure people's overall economic situations, the average household 
income in this country, since 2009 when the President took office, has 
decreased by about $3,700 per family. There are a lot of things, 
obviously, that contribute to that, but I don't think it is any 
surprise that when you drive up the costs of something that everybody 
needs in this country--and by that, I mean health care--in the form of 
higher premiums and higher deductibles, it is inevitable that you are 
going to see a lot of people's household incomes impacted by that. Then 
you couple and layer on top of that the impact it has on the economy. 
When you have a sluggish economy creating fewer jobs, that, too, has a 
very devastating impact on people's personal economic circumstances and 
livelihood. So average household income, since the President took 
office, has gone down by about $3,700--lower take-home pay. That is 
another of the results and the outcomes and the ultimate impacts, if 
you will, of policies created in Washington, DC, that make it more 
expensive and more difficult to create jobs in this country.
  As I said earlier, I think ultimately what will get us to where we 
really can change this, change course, change direction, take this 
thing which is headed for the cliff and turn it around and move it in 
the other direction, is going to be the American people. If every 
Senator, every Member of Congress, if the White House is hearing what I 
am hearing from people in South Dakota, perhaps there is some hope that 
we can persuade enough people in Congress that we have to change the 
direction we are heading.
  I would like to share a few things that I heard from people in my 
State of South Dakota.
  A male constituent from Sioux Falls, SD, wrote and said:

       I just received notice that our health insurance will go up 
     almost 60 percent due to the ACA, from $718 per month to 
     $1146 per month. We will also lose our prescription drug 
     benefit and office co-pay benefit until each of us reaches a 
     $5,000 deductible. We have maternity benefits now and 
     pediatric dental and vision care, although I am 64 and my 
     wife is 59. This will cost us an additional $5,000 per year.

  For somebody who is trying to make ends meet in this country, trying 
to get the mortgage paid, trying to put a little aside for their kids' 
education, $5,000 is real money. That is a tangible impact of this law 
on the economic circumstances, the standard of living, the quality of 
life this particular couple is experiencing in America today.
  ObamaCare is sticking hard-working Americans with higher costs for 
unnecessary coverage. Families were denied the ability to keep their 
plans--the plans that best fit their needs, lifestyles, and budgets.
  The following is a letter we received from a female constituent from 
Wilmot, SD:

       My husband and I have four small children and purchase our 
     own health care. My husband runs his own small business and I 
     am privileged to stay at home. We are very healthy, so we 
     have always purchased a plan with a large deductible, so we 
     can afford a reasonable premium.
       Today we received our letter from our health insurance 
     provider letting us know that next month our premium will be 
     jumping 232 percent! That's over $500 more a month--and we 
     barely use our health insurance.
       We currently live in an 1,800 square foot house and have 
     been trying to find something bigger. This jump in our 
     monthly health care premium could prevent us from being able 
     to afford any kind of monthly house payment.

  ObamaCare is cutting into the carefully planned budgets of American 
families, holding them back from the futures for which they have 
carefully budgeted. This is an example of a family who is trying to get 
by--four small kids--and they buy their own health care in the 
individual marketplace. The husband is self-employed, runs his own 
business, and the mom has been able to stay home and care for those 
four kids. They work very hard staying healthy and very rarely use 
their health insurance policy. They are going to see a 232-percent 
increase, over $500 more a month. They live in a 1,800-square-foot 
house. They had hoped to be able to find something a little bit bigger, 
and they aren't going to be able to because of the consequences of 
ObamaCare.
  A female constituent from Spencer, SD, writes:

       Thanks to ObamaCare, my monthly premium will increase over 
     100 percent, which equals 45 percent of my monthly income. My 
     daughter lost her insurance, as well. The ACA is not 
     affordable, and if I could tell the President so, I would. My 
     private insurance did change.

  The Obama administration has broken its promise that Americans who 
wanted to keep their plans could. We are also learning that this law 
simply isn't affordable for many middle-class families, such as this 
lady from Spencer, SD, whom the Obama administration said it would 
protect when they said: ``If you like your insurance plan, you can keep 
it, period.'' A lot of Americans took that to the bank. Clearly, they 
should have known better. The double talk coming out of Washington, DC, 
is not only frustrating a lot of Americans, it is creating cynicism and 
a lack of trust and confidence, which is going to make it difficult to 
do big things in the future.
  A male constituent from Rapid City, SD, wrote:

       I know you did not vote for this--

  Thank you--

     but I wanted to tell you. My health care premium went from 
     $640 a month to $1080 a month. My deductible went from $3600 
     to $5000. I feel like the federal government has stolen over 
     $5000 a year from me.

  Americans feel betrayed by this law, likening the increased rates to 
theft by their own government. That is the level of frustration people 
across this country are feeling. They are frustrated, they are 
discouraged, they are despondent, and they want something to give. They 
want something to change. They know we can't continue down this path 
and expect that any of these families are going to be able to provide a 
better standard of living and a better quality of life for their 
children and grandchildren. The family has over a $400 increase in 
their monthly premium and a $l,400 increase in their deductible. That 
is the effect on this constituent in Rapid City, SD.
  A constituent family from Watertown, SD, writes:

       You need to know how ObamaCare is harming my life and 
     health care. We were one of the families that lost their 
     health care plan. We heard President Obama say, ``if you 
     like your health care, you can keep it.'' That was a lie. 
     Our new health care plan is going to cost our family 
     $21,600 a year compared to the health care plan of 2013 
     which cost us $7,335.96. That is a 300-plus percent 
     increase. We are a healthy family of six people. We are 
     outraged and upset.

  Madam President, these letters and calls to my office echo similar 
complaints from American families back home in my State of South Dakota 
and all across the country. ObamaCare is costing this family more money 
and denying them the plan they want. That is the real life, real world 
impact.
  If you think about it, this is really pretty staggering. This new 
health care plan is going to cost this family over $21,000 a year 
compared to $7,335 today. A 300-plus percent increase for a healthy 
family of six. You can't blame them when they say they are upset and 
outraged. Who wouldn't be. Who wouldn't be.
  This is from a small business owner from Brookings, SD, who writes:

       In the mail today was a letter from my health care 
     insurance provider . . . and, well,

[[Page S8732]]

     guess what? Thanks to the great ObamaCare plan, my monthly 
     premium almost doubled, and my deductible doubled. I'm a 
     small business owner, and I would like to hire an employee 
     next spring. . . . Well, that's not going to happen. When 
     will those we elect to Washington ever do something to help 
     people and small businesses?

  Madam President, ObamaCare is not only slamming individuals, it is 
hitting the small businesses, the job creators that Washington needs to 
be protecting. ObamaCare is stopping employers from expanding their 
workforce.
  In a bigger place, in a big city, this may not have the same domino 
effect or the ripple effect that it does in a small State such as South 
Dakota where you have a small business owner, such as this gentleman 
from Brookings, SD, who wants to expand his business, wants to hire 
another employee but is saying that is not going to happen, and the 
reason it is not going to happen is because of this huge increase in 
their monthly premiums--almost doubling the monthly premium, and 
doubling the deductible.
  I don't know how an employer in this country today, who is trying to 
grow a business, expand the business and provide for themselves and 
their families, perhaps put a little aside to use for the kids' college 
education or perhaps put a little aside for retirement, deals with the 
doubling of probably one of their biggest costs of doing business, and 
that is the cost of health care. You double your premiums; you double 
your deductible.
  This is from a mother in Garretson, SD, who writes:

       Next year, our insurance is changing, and I will lose my 
     family practice doctor of 22 years--the doctor that delivered 
     all my children and that has cared for our teenage children 
     all their lives. We will also lose all the backup doctors our 
     family has seen when we couldn't see our regular doctor. I 
     was happy with my insurance, and now I have to lose my 
     doctor.

  This is more testimony from people losing their plans and doctors, 
which the Obama administration--President Obama himself--repeatedly, 
over and over, told the American people they could keep. Families are 
losing their trusted doctors.
  Whether it is a doctor, a hospital, or prescription drug coverage, 
these are all real life examples, real world examples of the impacts of 
ObamaCare that point to just one thing, and that is this law, No. 1, 
doesn't work, and No. 2, it can't be fixed. There is no way we will be 
able to address what most people care about when it comes to their 
health care--and that is the cost--when we require the people who 
provide that health care coverage to deal with more mandates, more 
requirements, higher taxes, all of which are going to get passed on and 
paid for by the very people in this country who are just trying to make 
ends meet and make a living and provide for their families.
  Those are seven examples from my State of South Dakota. I could go 
on, because there are many more examples. There are examples from 
people all across the country. But I think the point that needs to be 
made here--and can't be made often enough--is that these are real world 
economic impacts that are affecting every day Americans in a way that 
is making it more difficult for them, making their economic 
circumstances more complicated and more difficult.
  What, if anything, should we here in Washington take away from this? 
First off, as I said earlier, this doesn't work. Let's start over. 
Let's do this the right way. It is not too late to do that. It is never 
too late to do the right thing. We could, if we decided to pull this 
thing out by the roots and start over, come up with a whole series of 
reforms that would move us in a step-by-step direction toward the 
ultimate goal, and that is to address the health care challenge we face 
in America today; that is, the cost.
  I don't think there is any American family, any individual, as they 
think about having to purchase health care--and particularly if you are 
a young healthy person, obviously, you don't want to pay a lot for it 
because you are probably not going to use a lot. Yet those are the 
people who will get hit the hardest. I can't tell you, if you are in 
your 20s, how much more you are going to have to pay to get health care 
coverage in this country, simply because the law requires what they 
call the community rating band be narrow so that people who are 
healthier and younger are going to pay much more to cover people who 
are less healthy. That is a reality in the legislation and it is a 
reality now in terms of the way it is being applied and being 
implemented.
  So we are looking at a lot of people in this country--for sure 
younger Americans, but Americans of all ages as well--who are looking 
at higher cost because of these regulations and mandates and 
requirements that are being imposed upon the insurance companies and 
health care providers in this country. The new taxes, which I mentioned 
a little bit earlier, are also something that ultimately get passed on.
  When we were debating this, the Democrats argued that we would have 
$\1/2\ trillion in tax increases and $\1/2\ trillion in Medicare cuts 
and that was how this was to be financed. It turns out when it is fully 
implemented the cost is much higher. What they did is they front-end 
loaded some of the revenues and back-end loaded the costs. When the 
Congressional Budget Office looked at it, in a 10-year window, they 
said there will be about a $1 trillion cost.
  When it is fully implemented, and we see the full impact of the cost 
and the revenues together, the 10-year cost is more like $2\1/2\ 
trillion. So it was a massive expansion of the Federal Government--
literally the largest expansion of the government in 50 years. It was 
literally a takeover of one-sixth of the American economy. That is what 
health care represents in this country.
  So if we think about that in those terms, how much this thing is 
going to cost--and at the time they said: Don't worry, it is all paid 
for. It will not add to the deficit--we are finding out now more and 
more information, with more and more analysis being done, and it is 
coming to light that, in fact, it is going to cost way more than what 
was initially expected. I think this is the tip of the iceberg, the tip 
of the iceberg in terms of the cost to the American taxpayers. Again, 
this is financed by higher taxes, all of which get passed on to the 
very people in this country this is supposed to help.

  The Medicare cuts that were proposed to help pay for this, many of us 
said at the time were cutting hospitals, cutting home health agencies, 
cutting nursing homes, cutting hospices--which is what this did. This 
was all designed to take $\1/2\ trillion. But again, when it is fully 
implemented, it isn't $\1/2\ trillion, it is $1 trillion, when you look 
at the full 10-year implementation. But taking this out of Medicare 
was, No. 1, going to help pay for all the new benefits that would 
happen under ObamaCare; and No. 2, somehow--somehow, don't ask me how--
it was going to be credited to the Medicare trust fund, thereby 
extending the life of Medicare.
  How do you do that? How do you, with a straight face, say we are 
going to take--let's just use the conservative number used by the 
Democrats on the floor--$\1/2\ trillion out of Medicare, use it to 
finance a new entitlement benefit and somehow be able to say we are 
going to credit the Medicare trust fund and that this is actually going 
to prolong the lifespan of Medicare? It was absolutely stunning at the 
time that we were having this debate and we raised these issues. But 
people would say: The CBO says this, the CBO says this. That is because 
CBO uses some pretty strange accounting conventions that aren't used 
anywhere else in the world. Anyplace else in the world you would be in 
jail for doing something like that, for double counting revenue--
spending the same money twice. But that is essentially what happened.
  Many of us at the time, as I said, raised this issue on the floor and 
tried to point out we are spending the same money twice. At that time 
it fell on deaf ears. To me, that is again a symptom of a process that 
is geared to get a result with a majority vote driven through here, 
jammed through here, forced through here on Christmas Eve. We all had 
that vote Christmas Eve morning, and all I can say, as someone who was 
here and observed that entire process, we tried our best to warn the 
American people about what was going to happen.
  It is too bad we didn't at the time decide, as we usually do when we 
do major legislation--major legislation that has enormous consequence 
for the American people--to do it in a bipartisan way that incorporates 
the best

[[Page S8733]]

ideas of both sides of the aisle and perhaps gets a big bipartisan 
vote. Usually, when you pass major legislation around here, you are 
sort of hoping for 70 to 75 votes, perhaps even more, because you have 
the buy-in, everybody has been involved in helping shape and formulate 
that legislation. But that wasn't the case when this passed.
  Again, I understand. This becomes a function of math. You have the 
votes or you don't. That is the way this place operates. At that 
particular time, 60 votes was something the majority had the luxury of 
and didn't seem to care a whole lot about what Republicans had to say. 
The President was bent on getting his initiative through and getting it 
his way. Today, that is the reason, in my view at least, we are where 
we are, with a piece of legislation the impacts of which are now being 
fully felt by the American people, and their conclusion is what I think 
their conclusion should be: This is a really raw deal.
  I can't tell you, as I think about the broader context, beyond just 
the world and the space of health care when it comes to public policy, 
how these decisions that are made here, major policy decisions, impact 
the broader economy. There is no question, there is no debate about the 
impact this is having on the economy.
  If you talk to any small business person in this country, anybody who 
has the responsibility of providing health insurance for their 
employees, who has the responsibility for hiring and employing people 
and, hopefully, paying them a living wage and benefits that go with it, 
there is no question this is having a detrimental impact on the overall 
economy, which continues to sputter along at a 1 to 2 percent growth 
rate. The best thing we could do, if we want to really help the 
American people and really improve the standard of living and the 
quality of life for people in this country, is to first get people 
unemployed back to work; but, secondly, get the economy expanding at a 
faster rate.
  We are growing at 1 to 2 percent a year instead of 3 to 4 percent, 
and that has a profound impact in not only the number of jobs created 
but also the wealth that is created. When we think about an economy 
that is growing at 3 to 4 percent versus an economy that is growing at 
1 to 2 percent, the difference in the gross domestic product, the 
difference in the total economic output is substantial. In fact, it is 
dramatic.
  What does that mean? It means a lot, not the least of which is that 
government revenues are a lot lower than they otherwise would be. If 
you had a more robust economy, growing at a faster rate, people are 
working, people are investing, they are making money and they are 
paying taxes.
  We have this debate around here like it occurs in some sort of vacuum 
or static environment. Republicans come in here, those of us who 
believe in limited government, and we talk about doing what we can to 
make government more efficient and make it cost less.
  Democrats believe that we ought to have more revenue, more taxes; and 
the problem isn't that we spend too much, it is that we tax too little. 
That is a fundamental philosophical debate that we have here on a 
regular basis. One of the reasons, by the way, why it is so hard to 
reach a significant budget agreement: There is a profound difference in 
the way we view the world and how we get our country on a more 
sustainable fiscal path.
  There are those of us who believe in spending reforms, lower 
spending, a more limited role for the government and think that is what 
we ought to be doing. Democrats by and large believe that we just need 
a little more tax revenue. If we just raise taxes a little bit more, we 
could do more here in Washington for the American people. I happen to 
be of the view that the American people can do just fine for themselves 
if you allow them to keep more of what they earn.
  The reality is that there is a third way, and that is to grow the 
economy. We can reduce spending, we can raise taxes. We ought to reduce 
spending. We ought to reform spending in a way that changes this fiscal 
trajectory which we are on today, which becomes increasingly 
problematic the farther we get down the road in the future.
  But in addition to reducing and reforming our spending programs in 
this country, we also ought to be looking at growing the economy and 
actually making the pie bigger. Because that is a surefire way, a 
certain way of getting the kind of growth in the economy which would 
allow Federal revenues to go up rather than down.
  We have seen this over time historically. If history is any sort of 
guide and we go back to the 1920s under Coolidge or to the 1960s under 
Kennedy, a Democratic President who understood the importance of 
reducing marginal income tax rates or Reagan in the 1980s or more 
recently in the last decade President George W. Bush, when you reduce 
taxes on income and investment, you don't get less revenue. You get 
more because it changes the behavior of the American people. People 
have an incentive then to invest, to go to work. That generates not 
less revenue but more and puts us in a situation where we are much 
better off, not only in terms of our economy and the opportunities it 
provides the American people but also to the fiscal track we are on as 
a Nation.
  I see my colleague from Kentucky is here. I know he has some 
observations on this issue of ObamaCare, the economy generally, and 
other matters before us. But certainly one of the reasons we are here 
is because we have this rush to approve all of these nominees to these 
various agencies of government--many agencies which are guilty of the 
very overreach which has contributed to where we are with regard to 
ObamaCare. We have too many regulatory agencies with way too much power 
and are circumventing the will in many cases of the Congress to 
accomplish an agenda that is very contrary to the very things I just 
talked about, which are economic growth and job creation.
  But through the Chair, I yield the floor for the Senator from 
Kentucky. I believe Senator Paul is here to take up the measure.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam President, as we enter into the Christmas season, I 
think it is a good time to talk about stories to describe sort of 
pastorally where the Senate is. So I have a story today I would like to 
tell about how the Senate works--or doesn't work.
  So it came to pass that the filibuster was dismembered, dishonored, 
and indefinitely detained.
  With the end of the filibuster came the end of any semblance of 
comity and compromise on Capitol Hill. The party that never cared much 
for the rule of law broke the rules of the Senate to change the rules.
  Senate rules for nearly 2 centuries allowed the filibuster. The 
filibuster was simply a requirement that 60 percent of Senators must 
approve nominations and legislation. This super majority requirement 
actually fostered more centrist solutions and compromises.
  In order to change the rules, though, and kill the filibuster, it 
required a two-thirds majority to change the rules. However, the party 
which doesn't and hasn't concerned themselves with the rule of law 
simply broke the rules.
  When the Chair said: That is against the rules, they said: We don't 
care if it's against the rules. The rules are whatever we say the rules 
are.
  The best way to put this in perspective: You are watching a tennis 
match. The ball is clearly a foot out of bounds. The umpire says, ``Out 
of bounds.'' Instead of going by the rules, you have everyone vote. So 
the audience at Wimbledon votes that it was in bounds when it was 
really out of bounds.
  That is what we have here: We have no more rules and we have no more 
comity. We have no more compromise. What we have is poison--poison that 
has been given to us by people who have no concern for the rules.
  Historically, it has always required two thirds of the Senate to 
change the rules. But, for the first time, we break the rules to change 
the rules. So when the parliamentarian rules to Senate Democrats that: 
You're breaking the rules, they say: No, it really wasn't out of 
bounds. It was in bounds or we don't care that it was out of bounds. We 
don't care what the rules say. We want our way. We are impatient. We 
want our nominations, and we want them now. We don't care about the 
history of the Senate. We don't care about the history of the Congress. 
We want our way or we will pick up our toys and we

[[Page S8734]]

will go home. We want it now. We want it now. We want all of it. We 
don't want to talk with the other side. We don't want compromise. We 
don't want discussion. We don't want negotiation. We want our way or 
the highway.
  The rules, it seems, aren't binding upon the Senate Democrats. To 
them, the rules are living, breathing, evolving, and apparently 
optional.
  We shouldn't be surprised, though. We shouldn't be surprised that a 
party that believes in a living, breathing, ever-evolving, whatever-
you-want-it-to-be Constitution, might not think the rules of the Senate 
are important.
  We shouldn't be surprised that the party that believes that morality 
is unfixed, unhinged, unchanged, unchained to any constants, that all 
ethics are a situation that this party might break the rules--we 
shouldn't be surprised.
  Is anyone really surprised that such a party with no apparent concern 
for the burden of debt they are placing on every American family would 
break the rules to get their way?
  We are told they are upset because the Senate just takes too long. 
They want their way, and they want it now. They want their people 
confirmed. They don't want to talk to the other side. They won the 
election. They want their way.

  So now they have it. They have bullied and brayed, and they have won 
the day. The iron-fisted rule of the rule-breakers has now begun.
  There will be no return. Are they going to return to the rules 
halfway, partway? No. I predict they will only go further. If they 
don't get their way, if they don't get it quickly enough, I predict 
they will break the rules further.
  What passed for gridlock before this will pale in comparison to the 
poison that seeps from the hands of those who are careless and reckless 
with the law.
  Where the filibuster once created conversation, the iron-fisted rule 
of the rule-breakers will stifle it. For you see, contrary to popular 
belief, the filibuster actually fostered compromise, dialogue, and 
often results. In exchange for the release of nominations, in exchange 
for the cooperation of the minority party with the majority party, 
often there were votes on legislation that not everybody wanted. There 
were discussions, there were amendments, there was dialogue, because we 
were forced to talk to each other because one side couldn't always get 
what they wanted. They couldn't slam their fists down in angry tantrum 
and say: My way or the highway. We want what we want. We don't care 
what 50 percent of America wants or what 47 percent of America wants. 
We want our way, and we want it now.
  The tantrum used to not work. But now we will live in an era where 
the iron-fisted rule-breakers will throw their tantrum and they will 
get whatever they want.
  Contrary to popular belief, the filibuster led to dialogue. Every 
week, the majority party talked to the minority party. There was a 
meeting each week in which the agenda for the week was set through 
dialogue and discussion and compromise, behind the scenes, not always 
out in public. But there was discussion and compromise every week, 
because the majority party could not rule with an iron fist.
  But now, in the era of the iron fist, in the era of the iron-fisted 
rule-breakers, why will there be any discussion? Why not just roll over 
the opposition? Why allow debate? Why have debate? Why have discussion? 
Why have dialogue? Why have votes? It has been getting less and less--
as the grip gets tighter and tighter, there is less debate. There is 
less voting. There are less amendments. I don't think the American 
public likes that. I think the American public disavows this place and 
is unhappy with Congress in general because of a lack of dialogue. But 
that is where we are headed. We are headed towards less dialogue, not 
more.
  In the past, Republicans and Democrats would come together. They 
would agree to votes. They would schedule them for the week. They would 
agree to dialogue; they would agree to nominations; and they would 
agree to quick and easy votes for noncontroversial nominees.
  But if there is to be no rules, what incentive is there for 
cooperation? If it is to be my way or the highway--if the majority 
party is simply to roll over, if they are to beat their iron fists upon 
the table and say: My way or the highway; we don't need you; we don't 
care that half the country disagrees with our policy, it is our way or 
the highway; that is the way it is going to be, then I think there will 
be less dialogue and less compromise.
  Historically, the filibuster encouraged a reluctant President to 
cooperate with oversight from the Congress. This isn't a Republican or 
Democrat thing. This is about the separation of powers. This is about 
the checks and balances to power. This is about a President who might 
say--or not say--whether or not he would kill Americans with a drone.
  This is about using the filibuster to get information from a 
reluctant President. This is about a filibuster that allowed Congress 
to get information and to force a President to say: I will not kill 
Americans with drones.
  This is about a reluctant President being asked: Will you detain 
Americans? Can you put an American in jail without a trial? Can you 
send an American to Guantanamo Bay?
  How do we get those answers from a President who is reluctant to 
answer? Through the filibuster.
  The filibuster is an empowerment of Congress. It really isn't 
Republican versus Democrat. The filibuster is about Congress having 
power to counterbalance a Presidency. Information about malfeasance or 
transparency can be pried from a President in exchange for nominations.
  Quite typically, holds on nominations were used to get information, 
were used to force people to testify. Recently, I had questions for the 
nominee for Homeland Security. I asked him: Does the Fourth Amendment 
apply to third-party records? This is a big constitutional question, 
and there are answers. I might not have agreed with his answer. He said 
he had no legal opinion on the Fourth Amendment.
  I asked him: Can one warrant from a secret court apply to all 
telephone records? Can every American who has their records with a 
phone company have their records looked at through one warrant? Is that 
consistent with the Fourth Amendment?
  And this nominee said: I really don't have an opinion on the Fourth 
Amendment. I really haven't thought that much about the Constitution. 
But he is going to lead one of the largest agencies in our government 
that may well have to do with spying on Americans, and yet has no 
opinion on the Fourth Amendment.
  So what would the filibuster do? Historically, the filibuster would 
stop his nomination. What would a hold do? Would it be petulant? Maybe 
at times. But for the most part, holds were placed on nominees who 
wouldn't answer questions. So if you wanted answers from nominees and 
you didn't want them to get up there and say I don't recall, 49 times, 
I can't remember, I don't have an opinion today, sir, on the 
Constitution; then you would hold their nomination. You would hold 
their feet to the fire.
  The filibuster, holds, about slowing things down--this is about the 
separation of powers. This is about the checks and balances. Currently 
we have a President who apparently thinks he is more than a President. 
He thinks he has a few monarchial powers. He believes more he is a 
monarch than he is a President because he thinks he can amend 
legislation. More than 20 times ObamaCare has been amended after the 
fact. They do not come back to Congress. So what would the filibuster 
do? What would a hold do? It would say to that President: You will obey 
the Constitution. We have no way to get him in court on these matters. 
It is very difficult to prove or disprove the constitutionality by a 
challenge. The beauty of our Founding Fathers is they separated the 
powers. One of the powers of Congress is the filibuster. It is placing 
holds. By doing that we check a rebellious or an adventurous President 
who thinks he can take this power upon himself.
  Montesquieu, who is one of the people we look to about the separation 
of powers, once wrote: When you allow the legislative power to 
gravitate to the President, when you allow the President to take this 
power and he can legislate or do whatever he wants, you are allowing a 
tyranny. That is why Montesquieu wrote you have to separate these 
powers so no one body of people, no one grouping within government 
would assume or absorb too much power. That is what is happening here,

[[Page S8735]]

by giving up our power for petty partisan reasons.
  Let's be very frank with each other. The Senate Democrats have, for 
petty partisan reasons, taken away the power of Congress, taken away 
one of the checks and balances on a rogue Presidency. These checks and 
balances are not something we should stoop to the level of petty 
partisanship over. By allowing us to do so, what has happened is we 
have allowed ourselves to give up one of the great checks and balances 
that was one of the beauties of our Constitution.
  The loss of the filibuster truly weakens Congress and it makes the 
executive, regardless of party, more powerful and less likely to be 
transparent and less likely to compromise. In short, when you give 
power to the party in the minority, when you have that power in the 
party that is in the minority, it works to coax compromise out of 
people.
  In the era of filibusters and holds, someone such as myself who is 
new to the Senate could place a hold on the Federal Reserve Chairman 
and release it in exchange for a vote auditing the Fed. Auditing the 
Fed passed through years ago in the House. It is a transparency bill. 
We should know what decision happened. Congress created the Fed. People 
are getting personally wealthy off the policies of the Fed. There is a 
revolving door between the Fed and the Treasury and the people who sell 
the Treasury bonds. There are Treasury Secretaries who leave employment 
in government and make $160 million a year buying and selling the 
securities that are bought from a bank that we are not overseeing 
properly.
  There are all kinds of reasons why we should audit the Fed. Every 
Republican in the House voted for it, 100 Democrats voted for it. You 
rarely have a bill that 350 out of 435 Representatives voted to audit 
the Fed. It has been over here for 3 years. It has been held hostage by 
the Senate majority. The only way the minority party ever gets any 
votes on anything is by using their leverage, by using the leverage of 
the filibuster, by using the leverage of a hold--I think often to get 
something good. There are a lot of things that need to be discussed 
that are never discussed in this body.
  Whether your phone calls, the records of your phone calls, the 
records of your e-mail should be looked at by your government without a 
warrant, without an individualized warrant, is something that should 
have a debate here. We are, in the next week, supposed to go back on 
the Defense authorization bill. The Defense authorization bill, in 
2011, allowed for the first time in our history an American citizen to 
be held indefinitely. It allowed for the first time an American citizen 
to be sent from America to Guantanamo Bay and held in a foreign prison 
in a foreign land, forever, without charge, without trial, without 
lawyer, without accusation.
  When I had the debate on the floor with another Senator over this in 
2011, I said, incredulously, you mean an American citizen could be sent 
to Guantanamo Bay without a jury trial, without a trial by a jury of 
his peers? He said, yes, if they are dangerous.
  Who gets to decide who is dangerous and who is not? Are these 
questions we would want debated on the floor? One year ago we voted to 
get rid of indefinite detention; 67 Senators voted to get rid of 
indefinite detention. Then, secretly in conference committee, it was 
stripped out by a minority of one or two Senators. So this year we have 
been prepared for 6 months to have a vote on whether an American can be 
detained in prison without a trial. We will get no vote because of the 
iron-fisted rule of the rule breakers. The rule breakers have decided 
no debate, no dialog, no compromise, no discussion of questions until 
we tell you it is time--and it never seems to be time.
  You have to think about this because there have been times in our 
history when we have detained Americans unjustly. You have to think 
about how important a jury trial is for everyone and you do not have to 
go far back in our history to see times when we made mistakes. Remember 
Richard Jewel, falsely accused, unfairly accused of being the Olympic 
bomber in Atlanta about a decade ago. If he had been a Black man in 
1920 in the South, he might not have survived a day. Fortunately, he 
lived in an era when we believed in trial by jury, when we believed 
that no one should be detained without a trial by jury, no one should 
be kept in prison without a trial. For goodness' sake, can there be 
anything more American than that? Yet the law of the land says that is 
no longer true.
  Anybody in our society who ever thinks they have been treated 
unfairly, whether one is an African American or Japanese American who 
can remember what happened to the Japanese Americans in World War II, 
should be horrified that our current law says an individual, an 
American citizen, can be detained.
  The President says: I am a good man and I will never use it. He signs 
into law the authority for all Presidents for all time to indefinitely 
detain American citizens without a trial. Yet he says: I am not going 
to do it. That is not a lot of comfort to those of us who believe in 
the law. I believe the appropriateness or the ability for us to get to 
dialog and discussion is important; that the American people want it 
and that the filibuster actually aided that. I think it aided it. It 
forced us to have discussion. Without the filibuster, I do not think 
there will be discussion. I do not think compromise will occur. It was 
infrequent before. I don't think it is going to occur without the 
threat of filibuster. The Senate will now be run with an iron fist, a 
fist clenched so tightly, a power wound so closely that dissent will no 
longer be heard. Debate will be stifled and amendments to legislation 
will become nonexistent. They are already rare.

  Washington described the Senate as the saucer that cools the tea that 
boils over from the cup of the House of Representatives. The Senate was 
that saucer that cooled the tea, deliberating, gave review and time for 
calmer minds to prevail. The Senate was one of those items that our 
Founders established to separate our Republic from the whims of an 
unrestrained majority, from the headlong dash of an unrestrained 
mobocracy. I think the public will be burned more often as the Senate 
becomes less saucer and more boiling caldron. The loss of the 
filibuster will lead to more enmity and less compromise. The death of 
the filibuster is the death of negotiation. Why negotiate if you do not 
have to? Through brute force and a disregard for the rule of law, 
Senate Democrats have found temporary victory--but at what cost?
  We will now become the other House of Representatives. Will debate 
and amendment then become a thing of the past? Will an iron fist smash 
the saucer that once cooled the tea? Make no mistake about it, the 
death of the filibuster is the death of dialog. All power that is taken 
from the minority party is a leverage that is taken from possible 
compromise. One day I believe those who have seen fit to break the 
rules to change the rules will regret their actions. The question is, 
When cooler heads prevail, will there be anybody left with the spirit 
of compromise?
  All one has to do, to see what happens when there is no debate, when 
there is no dialog, when there is no compromise--all one has to do is 
look at the health care fiasco. It was passed without any discussion 
with Republicans--no input, zero input from Republicans. Why? Because 
at the time, even though we still had the filibuster, Senate Democrats 
were 60 and Republicans were 40. They did not have to talk to us.
  When the majority party does not have to talk to the minority party, 
they will not. So with ObamaCare, with the unaffordable health care 
plan he has given us, there was no discussion, no debate--60 Democrats, 
40 Republicans. We got a bill that is completely and entirely their 
baby--no compromise.
  The same thing in the House. It passed by brute force by a majority 
of Democrats and no Republicans.
  What we have now is something that is completely unworkable and does 
not represent the American people. I will be the first to admit we are 
divided. Not everybody is Republican, not everybody is a Democrat. But 
the interesting thing is it is about 50-50. It is not 80-20. It is not 
that everybody or the vast majority in the country want it one way or 
the other, it is almost 50-50. But instead of having 50-50 solutions 
come out of here, what is coming out of here is my way or the highway.
  You look back, about 1 month ago when the government was shut down,

[[Page S8736]]

we were trying to open the government. Every day we tried to open the 
government. We said what about just delaying ObamaCare a little bit? 
What about delaying just the individual mandate? No way. We will not 
negotiate with a gun to our head, the President said. The President 
bellowed: I will not negotiate. You can't make me negotiate. I will not 
compromise.
  Immediately after the government opened back up he did exactly the 
same thing we were asking for, he delayed the individual mandate. Of 
course he did it unconstitutionally and illegally because he did it 
without the approval of Congress. That is the way it has been from the 
beginning. This is something that we as Americans should be extremely 
worried about. This is the stuff of kings, this is the stuff of 
monarchs, and this is the stuff of tyrants because he thinks he can do 
the legislation by himself.
  But if there is no recourse to come back to Congress, what happens? 
ObamaCare is a story of favoritism, it is a story of dispensing favors 
to your contributors, your friends. Should not we have a government 
where your campaign contribution buys you a different sort of scrutiny? 
It is no longer equal protection under the law, it is protection based 
on contribution history.
  We have given waiver after waiver to special interest groups. You can 
see them with a big smile plastered on their face when they come out of 
the White House. There are special interest groups that have been to 
the White House hundreds of times. Meanwhile, the Secretary in charge 
of putting up ObamaCare and getting it started was there once. But 
hundreds of times special interests came. They paid first. They gave 
their campaign contributions. They paid, they got access to the White 
House, and they got a waiver.
  Why would McDonald's get a waiver and not Burger King? Why would one 
business get a waiver and not another? Why would a union get a waiver 
and not another business that is not union? Is that equal protection 
under the law? Is that the way we are going to live? That is the way 
you will live if you allow all the power to gravitate to one person who 
has no checks and balances.
  That is why we are supposed to have a separation of powers. That is 
why we are supposed to live under a rule of law. Legislation is messy 
and it takes a while. They no longer have the 60 votes to have his way 
or the highway. They cannot get everything they want so they do it by 
executive fiat. But realize that an executive can dictate for good and 
for harm or does one person always know what is best for the country? 
So we have been dictated to, all of these changes with ObamaCare, but 
the bottom line is more people are now losing their health insurance 
than are gaining it. Those who are gaining it, those who have been 
forced into ObamaCare, will recognize a few things. They are losing 
their freedom of choice and they are being forced to pay more.
  There are two things that are irrefutable about ObamaCare: You have 
lost your freedom of choice and you are being dictated four plans. 
Where there was once hundreds of plans you could purchase for 
insurance, there are four plans left in America you can choose from, 
and they are more expensive. Why? Because you are told your kids have 
to have pediatric dental coverage. What if you don't have any kids? You 
are being told you have to have infertility coverage. What if you are 
not married? You are told you have to have pregnancy coverage. What if 
you are not married? The thing is that what has been outlawed is 
cheaper insurance policies.
  Let's think back to the original problem. Eighty-five percent of 
Americans had health insurance, right? Fifteen percent of Americans 
didn't. Of the 15 percent who didn't have health insurance, one-third 
of them were eligible for Medicaid, and we could have helped them by 
fixing some eligibility with Medicaid or actually trying to help people 
sign up. One-third of the 15 percent who were uninsured, some reports 
said, were not here in the country legally, and then one-third of the 
15 percent made between $50,000 and $75,000, but they did not buy 
insurance because they were young and healthy and decided to roll the 
dice and they perceived health insurance as being too expensive.
  The main impediment to the body of people we could have gotten 
insured was expense. What have we done to help them? We made health 
insurance more expensive for them. If you are young and healthy, you 
should want a high deductible with few mandates. That is very cheap. 
What does ObamaCare give you? It gives you a high deductible and gives 
you a million and one things you don't need or don't want and it is 
very expensive. Really what we have done is taken away freedom of 
choice and given you something you don't want and made it more 
expensive.
  This is the danger of having one-sided, one-party rule. There is no 
debate and no discussion. And that is what happened with ObamaCare--a 
lopsided result, a misbegotten legislation that doesn't work, can't 
work, and is leading to disaster.
  Some have said: How can we fix it? Can we make ObamaCare less bad? I 
am not positive we can. Some are saying--and the President came back 
unilaterally and said: OK, I will give you another year. Look at it 
from the perspective of the insurance company. They can offer the 
cheaper policies for 1 more year. What incentive do they have? You are 
being told that within a year you have to buy more expensive insurance. 
Does the insurance company have any incentive to sell insurance that is 
less expensive again? If you are mandated to buy something more 
expensive, why would they do something less expensive? Now everybody in 
the country will be forced to buy something more expensive.
  A lot of young people will say: Well, it is more expensive, and the 
penalty is not that bad for my income. Maybe I would be better off 
without insurance. Besides, now I can buy it anytime I get sick.
  Other than the penalty--there is no incentive to buy health insurance 
when you are healthy other than the penalty.
  Many people may say: I will just wait until I have chest pain, when I 
am rolling into the emergency room, or until I get in an auto accident, 
and then I will buy my insurance.
  This is about choice versus coercion. We have one party that has 
decided they know what is best for you. They feel you are not smart 
enough to take care of yourself. They feel they should be--in a 
benevolent way--your parents. So you have a party that has decided they 
will take care of you from cradle to grave, but don't worry, it is 
free. No big deal. It is free. We are going to give you free health 
care.
  Mark my words. There is nothing free about this. You will pay for 
this. If you had insurance before, you will pay for this with more 
expensive insurance premiums. If you didn't have insurance before, you 
will pay for this with more expensive insurance than you could have 
bought before.
  The question is, How do you make it work? It only works now--if it is 
going to work at all--through coercion. You are forced to buy 
something. To me, that is antithetical to what the American Republic 
was founded upon. We were founded upon freedom of choice. You have 
freedom of choice every day in the things you purchase. Why is the one 
thing you are not allowed to have is the freedom of choosing your 
health insurance?
  Realize what this stems from. This stems from allowing government to 
get so completely in one hand that there are no checks and balances. 
There are checks and balances between the branches of government, and 
there are checks and balances between the parties. If you let one party 
get too strong of a hold in Congress, you will get something that is 
not the product of compromise and not the product of discussion.
  Also, if you weaken the body of the Senate--which was intended to 
slow down legislation--by taking away the ability to filibuster or to 
place holds on nominees, once you do that, you are going to get away 
from compromise.
  I think it is important that people know, when they look at this and 
say: Well, that is just obstruction; Republicans with their filibusters 
and holds are just obstructing the process, if the process is to run 
headlong away from the Constitution or to run head over heels and 
trample the Bill of Rights, you would want things to cool off. You 
would want that saucer the Senate was that allowed the tea to boil over 
and cool off.
  So the question we really have is, Do we want checks and balances? 
That is a

[[Page S8737]]

big question. We have gotten to the point in our history where so much 
power has gravitated to the President--not just this President; 
Republican Presidents also. This is not a 4- or 8-year evolution; this 
is a 100-year evolution toward a stronger Presidency. We have now 
allowed Presidents to go to war without congressional authority. We 
have allowed them to trample over civil liberties without congressional 
authority.
  We now allow regulatory regimes to write so many rules that your 
elected officials have little to say over what laws you live under. For 
example, we complained that ObamaCare was 2,000 pages. The Democratic 
leader in the House of Representatives said: Don't worry; you can read 
about it after we pass it. That was a mistake, and that is why so many 
people still don't understand this piece of legislation.
  To top it off, this was a 2,000-page bill, but then 20,000 pages of 
rules were written. Unelected bureaucrats are writing most of the 
rules. For example, when ObamaCare passed, believe it or not, I think 
the original legislation would have let you keep your doctor, period. 
There was a regulation written 3 months after the bill was passed that 
changed it and said: You can keep your doctor, but you have to pay 
more, and it has to obey this rule.
  Let's just say you can maybe keep your doctor if President Obama 
likes your doctor. This rule was not written by Congress. It wasn't 
part of the legislation. This is a rule that was written afterward.
  About 3 months later, as they are writing 20,000 pages of rules, a 
rule comes up that says: If your insurance ever changes, it is not 
grandfathered in and you will lose your insurance. It will be canceled. 
You will be forced to be canceled.
  The reason millions of people are having their insurance canceled is 
because the President authorized this through his bureaucracy without 
the permission of the Senate.
  However, it gets more interesting. Occasionally, when a regulation is 
passed, we can try to stop it. So 3 months after ObamaCare was passed, 
they passed this regulation that says: You will be canceled. Millions 
of people were being canceled because President Obama and his team 
wrote this regulation.
  One Republican Senator, Mr. Enzi from Wyoming, stood up and said: No, 
we will vote on this. We will vote on whether your policy can be 
canceled. So what happened? It came back. And guess what. The 
regulation that says your policy can be canceled if it ever changed--
the regulation that is allowing millions of people to be canceled--
every Democrat in the body voted for it, including a few of them who 
are running headlong away from the President. They can't get away from 
the President fast enough. They are running headlong away from the 
President and saying: Oh, I didn't know that rule was going to be 
there. I really thought you could keep your doctor.
  Bunk. They all knew it. They all voted directly on it. Not only did 
they vote for ObamaCare, 3 months later they voted for the rule that is 
allowing millions of people to have their insurance canceled.
  So these Senators who are saying: Mr. President, we might need to fix 
this, and I have a solution, all voted for the rule. We had a direct 
vote in the Senate on the rule that says: If you like your doctor, you 
can't keep your doctor. The whole idea when the President said: If you 
like your doctor, you can keep him, period--which we have now found to 
be false--we had a chance to fix it. We had a vote in this body. Every 
Senate Democrat voted to allow your insurance to be canceled. So if you 
are one of the millions of Americans who have had your insurance 
canceled, you can thank the Senate Democrats. Every Senate Republican 
voted to say you should not have your insurance canceled. Every Senate 
Democrat voted to allow your insurance to be canceled if it ever 
changes.
  While some people have been wondering how many people are going to 
lose their insurance because of ObamaCare, the answer is everyone 
because insurance changes gradually over time. So within a few years 
everybody's insurance policy will change and you will be canceled. 
Everyone in America will lose their insurance. They will be canceled 
eventually, and they will have to buy ObamaCare. So people went from 
having hundreds of choices for insurance to having four choices in 
America.
  Really what this debate is about is whether you believe in freedom of 
choice, whether you think you are smart enough to rule over your own 
destiny or whether you want a paternalistic government that makes these 
decisions for you. Are we so insecure as a people that we need the 
nanny state? Do we need the nanny state to take care of us? Do we not 
want choice? Why don't we extend it to all things? Health care is 
important, but so is food. Why don't we have the government decide what 
type of food we eat? Why don't we have the government decide how much 
we can charge? God forbid we charge too much for food. Shouldn't food 
be cheap and economical and affordable?
  Maybe the government should own the farms. If the government can 
distribute health care and health care is so important, so is food and 
water. How can we let anybody in the private marketplace determine 
water? How can we let private people control water? Shouldn't we let 
the government be in charge of everything?
  The bottom line is this: We shouldn't let the government be in charge 
of anything that can't be handled by the private marketplace, which 
means very little should be handled by the government. The reason you 
want minimal government is that government is not very good at stuff. I 
tell people that it is not that government is inherently stupid--
although that is a debatable point--it is that the government doesn't 
get the same signals we get.
  In the private marketplace, you get signals. You have to make a 
profit or you have to meet a payroll. So there are different signals 
that come. As far as health care and the government running it, there 
is no signal. They get no feedback. Right now they have a Web site that 
would have sent any private business into bankruptcy. This would have 
been a failed initiation, and the company would have gone bankrupt. No 
company could roll out something as bad as this, but no private company 
would. The private company is influenced by the marketplace, and they 
have to make good decisions. The government doesn't make good decisions 
because it is not required to. That is why when you have a choice on 
whether something should be done by government or the private 
marketplace, you want the private marketplace.
  Milton Friedman often talked about this. This is a truism of all 
government: Nobody spends somebody else's money as wisely as they spend 
their own. The private marketplace will inevitably make better 
decisions because it is a cruel master. In the marketplace, you have to 
please consumers all the time, every day. They vote. You have heard the 
term ``democratic capitalism.'' There is nothing more democratic than 
consumer and capitalism voting every day, and the people who are 
rewarded are those who give a product that people want to buy, and they 
do it in an efficient manner, so people are forced to be efficient. 
They are forced to have good consumer service.
  The consumer is king only in the private marketplace. The consumer is 
treated as a stepchild if it is government. You are treated with 
reckless abandon by government. As a physician, I dealt with the 
government for decades and decades. You know what. It takes at least an 
hour to get someone on the phone. When you get them on the phone, they 
tell you they can only answer two questions. If they are not in a good 
mood, you have to call again. You have to get on the phone again and 
wait an hour to talk to another bureaucrat who may be surly and may 
have had a bad day and will probably get a bonus anyway.
  If you want government to take over your health care, think of the 
case of Jonathan Beal. He worked for the EPA for 11 years. He told his 
boss that he was a spy and that he worked for the CIA. He took 6 months 
off at a time for years and years. He always got bonuses for good 
employment, good behavior, and good productivity for 11 years. This is 
what goes in government. Would that happen for a week or 2 weeks in a 
private industry? No way would that happen. The government is so big 
and vast, they have no idea who all is even working in government. We 
are going to turn that over, our health care system. The bottom line is 
it will

[[Page S8738]]

not be efficient, it will not try to save money; it will try to spend 
money, and it will not lead to us having lower premiums, it will lead 
to having higher premiums.

  Thomas Payne said that government is a necessary evil, and he was 
right. That sounds kind of harsh, but the thing is we need to have 
government, but because government is inefficient, we should keep what 
government does to a minimum. There are certain things we probably 
can't have private industry do, including a national defense, an Army, 
a Navy, an Air Force. Government needs to be in place for that. We have 
decided with most of our infrastructure to have government involved. We 
have some private entities involved as well. But do we want government 
involved in every one of our affairs? Do we think government is going 
to be distributing goods very well?
  Think of it this way: Tomorrow we nationalize grocery shopping. We 
nationalize and everybody gets insurance and it will be subsidized. 
When people go to Walmart, they will just pay a $20 copay. Do my 
colleagues think they will buy less or more there? People will empty 
the shelves.
  The other day--my colleagues may have heard that food stamp cards 
stopped working and they didn't have any limits; people just kept 
loading up thousands and thousands of dollars' worth of stuff. They 
trashed the whole place, carts were everywhere, and then someone turned 
the cards back on and there were limits and people had to leave the 
store. When there are no limits, people will spend without limit. The 
same goes with health care. So when government gives us something for 
free, the tendency is to use it. So what we find, for example, with 
Medicaid--a big part of ObamaCare is the expansion of Medicaid. I wish 
to help people who can't help themselves. There are a lot of people who 
are missing both legs and on dialysis and they have $10,000-a-month 
insurance. I think we can find a way to help these people. But we have 
now added able-bodied people to this, generation after generation of 
able-bodied people, so instead of a temporary hand up, a helping hand, 
we have turned it into something permanent.
  But it is also the most rapidly rising cost in State governments, so 
State governments, I believe, will ultimately succumb to this burden. 
In our State it will be a 50-percent increase in Medicaid. In fact, for 
most of the people signing up around the country, three-fourths of them 
in my State are signing up for prehealth care. It is not truly free. We 
are going to pay for it. Anybody who is working will pay for it. But 
the thing is that what they are signing up for is free.
  I think if we expand our safety net beyond sort of those who are not 
able-bodied or we expand it to make it permanent for people, what it 
becomes is a drag on the economy and a drag on everything and it 
disallows or prevents us from growing as an economy.
  We have been having this debate for a while. The President has 
decided that people who are working just have too much money and he has 
to take from those who are working to give to those who aren't working. 
That is not how we get more jobs; that is how we make the pie smaller. 
If we keep dividing up the pie and shifting the pie from those working 
to those nonworking, it doesn't help anybody. It divides the pie 
smaller. There have been times in our country where we have greatly 
grown the pie, but we have to get beyond these petty things.
  The President preaches fear and envy, class warfare. He preaches that 
if your neighbor has three cars, send me and I will take one of their 
cars. I will get some of your neighbor's stuff and I will give it to 
you. The problem is it doesn't make us rich as a nation.
  There has been a discussion for thousands of years about whether it 
is good or bad to spend time coveting your neighbor's wealth. It isn't 
healthy personally or spiritually for our country. If I labor my whole 
day saying my neighbor has a Mercedes and I don't--I should instead be 
saying maybe my son or daughter will be working at the Mercedes dealer 
selling to somebody who is buying a Mercedes. Instead of feeling 
jealous and envious of others, I should be saying we are all 
interconnected and we want more people to rise and be part of the top 1 
percent. Instead of taking a meat-ax to those who are successful in our 
society and trying to drive them down, we should try--in the 1920s, 
Coolidge took the top rate from 70 percent down to 23 percent. We had a 
boom. Employment thrived. He balanced the budget. We did it again under 
Kennedy in the 1960s. Unemployment was once again cut in half. By the 
time we get to Reagan, the rates had risen to 70 percent again, and 
Reagan said our economy will boom if we lower rates on everybody, and 
he did. He lowered rates from 70 percent at the top rate--the top 1 
percent. He lowered their rates. He didn't raise their rates. He didn't 
say covet thy neighbor. He didn't say I will get you one of your 
neighbor's cars. He said lower the rates and the economy will boom, and 
it did. We lowered the rates from 70 on the wealthy to 50 to 28 and we 
had a decade-long boom with millions of jobs created.
  We have to have this debate as a country. We can't say the debate is 
over. If we say the debate is over and that what we need to do is just 
divide it up, pass the money around, we are going to be talking about a 
shrinking pie that we pass around.
  We also have a pie right now that has millions of people unemployed. 
So how are we going to grow this economy? Are we going to grow our 
economy by saying let's tax people more? It is exactly the opposite.
  I was in Detroit last week talking about how we could help Detroit. 
We can't send money from Houston to Detroit and bail them out. It 
doesn't work. One, because it is just like when the President did his 
government stimulus. When the President chose to pick winners and 
losers, he wound up with a bunch of losers because no central planner 
knows who is going to win and who is going to lose. Nine out of ten 
businesses fail. That is why we don't want government choosing the 
winners and losers.
  When they do that, they choose people such as Solyndra. One, it was a 
little bit unfair on the face of it. The guy who ran the company was 
the 20th richest man in the country. What business does the middle 
class--that the President says he is so proud of--what business does 
the middle class have giving money to the 20th richest man in the 
country? It turned out people didn't want his solar panels.
  But that is the government picking winners and losers, many times 
based on campaign history and based on environmental politics. It is 
picking winners and losers and it doesn't work. Why? Because the 
marketplace, when it winnows out and finds who will be successful in 
business, who is a harsh task master, but it asks all of you--it asks 
300 million Americans every day to vote on which businesses will 
succeed. So you get to vote every day. So there is a big difference 
between reducing taxes for those who are in business and trying to 
stimulate the economy and taxing people in Houston, bringing it up 
here, and then passing it out to people I think might be good at 
business in Detroit. No one knows that. No one has that knowledge. Only 
the marketplace can decide who is a good risk and who is a bad risk.

  Banks are part of that, but the consumer votes every day on which 
businesses are good and should receive more money.
  So my plan is basically economic freedom zones. Let's lower the taxes 
in impoverished areas. Let's don't tax Houston and bring a bunch of 
money up to Detroit and say: Here, you are going to succeed. The same 
thing will happen to that money that happened to the last 50 years' 
worth of money; that is, it was stolen, some of it was misappropriated, 
some of it was given to the wrong people.
  But if we are to lower the taxes for the people in Detroit, I think 
we could truly help them. My plan would lower the personal income tax 
to 5 percent for everybody in Detroit. It would lower the corporate tax 
to 5 percent. We might find people in the suburbs who want to move back 
into Detroit if their income tax is 5 percent. That is a good thing. 
People would pay those taxes. Instead of being envious of these people, 
instead of saying they might buy another car, I might be saying they 
might buy that car from somebody selling it in Detroit.
  The thing is that economic freedom zones and reducing taxes I think 
would help spur the economy.

[[Page S8739]]

  There are 20 counties in eastern Kentucky that have unemployment 1.5 
times the national rate. A large degree of our unemployment is due to 
the President and his war on coal. He always talks about a balanced 
solution, but he doesn't balance his hatred for the coal industry with 
jobs. He doesn't balance his so-called like for the environment with 
jobs. When we look at regulations, we should preserve the environment, 
and we have many Federal regulations that I do agree with on the 
environment. We shouldn't be able to dump chemicals in a stream. I 
agree completely with that. The Clean Water Act says you cannot 
discharge pollutants into navigable waters of the United States. I 
agree completely. But do we know what they have done over the last 30 
years? They have taken that commonsense regulation, which we can 
probably all agree to, and they now say dirt is a pollutant and your 
backyard is a navigable stream.
  So we have actually put people in prison for putting clean dirt on 
dry land. As a consequence, I think we spend less time protecting the 
Ohio River and more time meddling with some property owner. We have 
gone crazy with regulations because they are now written by unelected 
bureaucrats. They are not written by people we can unelect; they are 
written by bureaucrats.
  We have to get back to some common sense with these issues. We have 
to look at how injurious this is. Even things that are well-intended, 
we think, well, gosh we have to protect the bald eagle and we have to 
have endangered species protected. I agree. I have two bald eagles in 
my backyard. They have come for the second year and they are 
fascinating. They live on the pond behind my house and it is 
fascinating to see them. But what we have done in the name of 
protection for the environment and protection for certain species is we 
have gone nuts with it.
  In my State, we are protecting the Indiana bat. I had a guy come up 
to me and he said: The Indiana bat? They came up to my property and 
they took a survey and they found one bat. It was already tagged as a 
brown bat. The scientists had a big fight. Two of them said it was an 
Indiana bat and the other two said a brown bat, but did they tell me I 
had to do anything to help the bat? No. They just charged me money to 
cut down trees on my own land. So it isn't about the bat; it is about 
money. They charge $2,400 per acre to chop down your own trees.
  Another city in my State, Grand Rivers, when it rained, the sewage 
was flowing into the river overflowing and they were overcapacity and 
wanted to have a new sewage plant. They couldn't do it because the EPA 
was saying we need to know how many pocketbook muscles there are. Are 
we going to stop the building on the planet? No. What it does is cause 
hundreds of thousands of dollars to be spent looking at this.
  The bottom line is, remember, separation of powers is important, and 
the loss of the filibuster I think is leading toward a one-sided party 
rule and leaning toward less power here and more power in the executive 
branch, I think all to the detriment of the voter.
  At this point, I see my colleague from Oklahoma has arrived, and I 
yield the floor.
  Mr. INHOFE. I thank my good friend from Kentucky.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Since he was talking about the EPA, the overregulations 
there, I happen to have been privileged when we were in the majority to 
be the chairman of the committee called the Environment and Public 
Works Committee. It does a lot of very important things in terms of 
highways and roads and infrastructure. What the Senator from Kentucky 
was talking about is all the overregulations that come from that. I am 
very sensitive to that.
  That is not why I am here tonight. In fact, I wish to talk a little 
bit about the nuclear option, about how this has changed things around 
here, and it is somewhat of a crisis level we have arrived at. Before I 
do, I wish to share something on ObamaCare. A lot of things have been 
said on this floor about the problems with ObamaCare. I wish to 
elaborate a little bit about that in a minute but not right now. I only 
wish to say that 2 months ago, when my good friend from Texas, Senator 
Cruz, and 11 of us were concerned about trying to do something to stop 
ObamaCare and we took some pretty drastic steps--he actually stayed up 
and spoke all night--I did not, but I spoke during the evening and 
again in the morning. But I told a story at that time. It puts it into 
a context that people don't understand.
  The story was this: Keep in mind this was 2 months ago. I said it has 
been admitted by Obama and by many of the leaders--even the leader of 
the Senate--that the ultimate goal of ObamaCare would be the single-
payer health care system, very much like what was talked about back in 
the early 1990s when Bill Clinton was President and Hillary had her 
Hillary health care and at that time I think it was ultimately going to 
be a single-payer system. As my colleagues well know, a single-payer 
system by definition is socialized medicine, and that was what it was 
going to be at that time. I remember talking--and we ultimately did 
defeat it, but at that time I asked the question, I said: Wait a 
minute. You are talking about socialized medicine. It doesn't work in 
Denmark or Sweden or Canada or in the UK. Why do you think it would 
work if you were doing it? They never tell us this, but they say it may 
not work somewhere else, but if I were running it, it would work. We 
defeated that back in the 1990s.
  Now, some time has gone by, and we have very much the same situation. 
We have a system that is edging into socialized medicine, a single-
payer system. This is what they want. This is what liberals normally do 
want. They somehow think that government can run things better than 
people can.
  So I told this story, I say to my good friend in the Chair. Keep in 
mind, this was 2 months ago. It had been less than a year before that 
when something happened to my wife--and my wife is just a year younger 
than I am--something happened, and all of a sudden she found out she 
had to have emergency open-heart surgery. It was a valve that was the 
problem at that time. We did some research. She immediately had open-
heart surgery. It was successful. She is great now. They replaced the 
valve, and she is in really good shape.
  But the point I am making is that if this had happened and we had 
been citizens of Canada--we went and checked--someone that age with 
that kind of an emergency would have to wait 6 months before they could 
determine whether they were going to allow them to have that operation. 
If it were in the UK, it would be 2 months. She would not have lasted 
that long.
  That was to let people know that when it hits close to home, it 
really means lot more, instead of just talking about how many people 
are not happy with the enrollment and all this stuff.
  Well, ironically, what happened to me 5 weeks ago was exactly the 
same thing. I ended up having to have emergency surgery. I had four 
heart bypasses. I got to thinking. Just a few weeks before, I had been 
talking about my wife. I would not be here now. That is how serious 
this is. Because those individuals who are talking about ObamaCare, 
they really want a system that the government is running, and it has 
not worked anywhere else in the world. In cases like mine, I would be 
on the waiting list and I probably would not have made it this far and 
would not have been here today.
  I only say that--and I want to elaborate a little bit on that 
shortly, but I need to get in something very significant that is going 
to take place.
  First of all, I do not like the idea of what is going on right now. I 
am very much upset that we had the nuclear option. I think most 
people--and it has been said over and over on the floor--
constitutionally, we have a system that is set up that puts the Senate 
in a position where there has to be a supermajority that will ratify 
the various treaties and will confirm nominees. Well, the nominees who 
are confirmed are confirmed with a supermajority. Consequently, that 
would preclude one party from being able to control the confirmation of 
nominees.
  Well, the makeup of the Senate today and for the next year is going 
to be 53 Democrats dominating, which means, of course, they can always 
get the 53 votes for confirmation but not any more, not enough to reach 
60. So they changed all that, and that is wrong. They should not have 
done it.
  So now we are going through this operation, and I decided that rather 
than to stay here during this Christmas season for the next few days 
just voting no

[[Page S8740]]

on judges, I am going to say right now that I am going to vote against 
all the judges, but I am not going to be around here to do it. I will 
say this though.


                            James Nomination

  There is one vote that is coming up, and I am going to appeal to the 
leadership that I hope the confirmation of Deborah Lee James to be 
Secretary of the Air Force does not come up until this next week 
because I want to be here for that, and I would hope it could be 
postponed until Monday. The reason for that is I think that is a great 
appointment. I do not remember in the years I have been here--and I am 
the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee--I do not 
remember anytime when we have had someone who is as qualified at the 
outset as she is. She has an incredible background for this position. I 
have met her. I have talked to her. I have talked to her about the 
concerns about the readiness, which is very serious right now. Our 
readiness capabilities are lower than they have ever been since World 
War II. I know she is the right person to be at the helm to take care 
of that.
  It was not long ago that through the sequestration or preparing for 
sequestration they made a decision to ground one-third of the combat-
coded Active squadrons. Now, let's keep in mind that she is nominated 
to be Secretary of the Air Force, so this is something she would 
directly be interested in and concerned about.
  What they did was, in order to--I suppose at that time the motivation 
was to try to save money. They grounded one-third of the combat-coded 
Active squadrons. That was in April of this year. It was not until 3 
months later that they decided this is not good because you have the 
idle airplanes, the idle pilots. Pilots were resigning; they were upset 
because they were not being used. So they reinstated the squadrons that 
had been closed.
  General Welsh, a great general, the commander of the Air Force, made 
the statement, and made it in a very articulate way, that it is going 
to cost us more to reinstate and to requalify the pilots and to make 
sure the planes are back in flying order than just the amount of money 
that was saved during that 3-month period.
  That is really quite a statement. It is very serious. He said it 
could cut the flying hours by 15 percent in the months to come--and it 
has--as a result of that closure.
  Well, I have to say to Ms. James that I am convinced you are going to 
be confirmed as Secretary of the Air Force. I will do all I can to make 
sure you are confirmed. But you are walking into a hornet's nest. It is 
a real serious problem there. The things that are happening to our 
military, which I am going to talk about in just a minute, are very 
serious.
  She has a background. She served with a technical defense contractor 
in Virginia. It was the SAIC Technical and Engineering Sector. She was 
the executive vice president for communications and government affairs 
and the senior vice president for homeland security. Prior to that, she 
served as vice president for international operations marketing at 
United Technologies. That was all the way from 1998 to 2000. She served 
as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs from 1993 to 
1998, overseeing all matters pertaining to the Guard and Reserve 
forces. So she has probably as much preparation, background, expertise, 
education, and knowledge as anyone who has ever been nominated to be 
Secretary of the Air Force.

  I hope we will be able to have that vote maybe on Monday as opposed 
to some time in the next few hours since I want to be here. I want to 
be one of the first to congratulate her.
  (Mr. COONS assumed the Chair.)


                               The Budget

  Mr. INHOFE. Let me say something about the budget. I try to think of 
things other people have not talked about. I do not even know right now 
whether I am going to be for or against this budget, but I had looked, 
and I was very alarmed. The minority staff on Armed Services did some 
research, and it came out that there are some parts of this act that we 
did not know were there. It would include an annual adjustment for 
retired pay and retainer pay for retired members of the Armed Forces 
under age 62. This penalizes current and future military members who 
have served our Nation for over 20 years.
  Now, keep in mind, people go into the military quite young sometimes, 
knowing that the time they would serve would be for 20 years--many of 
them longer but most of the time 20 years. That is kind of a given. 
They do this predicated on the assumption that retirement benefits and 
all these things are going to be there. They are making a career 
decision, I say to the Chair, and that is very significant.
  To come along with a bill that supposedly saves $6.2 billion--there 
are about 2 million retirees. Of those, just under half are under the 
age of 62. They would see a steady erosion of their retired pay, 
approaching 20 percent of their retirement pay by the time they reach 
age 62.
  The 1-percent annual reduction to uniformed service retired pay cost-
of-living adjustment--those are the COLAs--for those under age 62 will 
have a devastating, long-term impact for those who retire at the 20-
year point. It implements an annual adjustment to retired pay of the 
``Consumer Price Index -1%'' beginning in December of 2015. What that 
means in summary is that you could have a gunnery sergeant retiring at 
age 42, and by the time he is 62, this bill would cause him to receive 
in his retirement pay approximately $72,000 less than he would 
otherwise. So it is a big deal.
  This has not been discussed on the floor, and I think that as we get 
into the discussion we are going to have on the budget, we have to keep 
these things in mind. Again, I have not decided yet because I know it 
is not an easy job. I know we had a Democrat and a Republican working 
very hard on it. But that is one thing that I believe can be changed. 
In fact, it would have to be changed before I would support it.


                   National Defense Authorization Act

  Well, we went through something, and I want to talk a little bit 
about the National Defense Authorization Act. Every year we have a 
National Defense Authorization Act. That act is more important than 
anything else we do around here, in my opinion.
  If you read the Constitution, it will say that providing for the 
Nation's defense is our major concern. This is what we are supposed to 
be doing. So we have always had--in fact, for 51 consecutive years we 
have passed an NDAA bill prior to January. It has always been that way. 
This is a budget that must take place.
  This is very disturbing to me because the House passed an NDAA bill 
some time ago. We in the Senate Armed Services Committee, way back--was 
it May or June--we passed the NDAA out of our committee, not 
unanimously but almost unanimously, and it was bipartisan, had strong 
bipartisan support to come to the floor. Well, it never came up. And 
why it never came up is not that important right now. The fact is that 
we are now in a position where we have to do it and have to have one 
come up, and it has to be this coming week.
  So, anyway, we put together a bill. There is something a lot of 
people do not understand because it is not very often used, but when 
the House and the Senate are not able to put something together, they 
go to the big four. They get the committee of jurisdiction--in this 
case, the Senate Armed Services Committee. So they had the chairman and 
the ranking member--the ranking member is the one who has the most rank 
from the minority, and that is me in the case of the Senate--and then 
the chairman of the House and the ranking member of the House. Four 
people. We sat together 10 days ago here in Washington and put together 
a bill, taking the best parts out of the House bill, the best parts out 
of the Senate bill, and put together this thing, and it is one that I 
think--when people understand it--it is one for which I do not know of 
anyone who would really oppose it.
  The problem we are having is that the way it was done was not the way 
it should have been done. It should have been done as it has been done 
in the past; that is, to take about--in the last 10 years, it has taken 
9 days on average to pass this bill, where we have all of the 
amendments processed and people come forth with amendments. Well, that 
did not happen this time. So what we did in this bill is we took 79 of 
the amendments that people had in the House and the Senate--Republicans 
and Democrats--we did 79; that is, 41

[[Page S8741]]

Republican amendments and 38 Democrat amendments. These are ones that 
had been submitted on the Senate floor, and we were able to go ahead 
and put these into the bill.
  So we have a good bill. It is out there. We really need to do it. 
People are concerned about the process. I am concerned. We are going to 
get busy to make sure this does not happen in future years. We do not 
want it to happen. But we do not want our service people, who are in 
harm's way today, to be paying for the fact that we had a procedure 
that was wrong. We have a vehicle here. We have a bill. It will come up 
for consideration. It will come over from the House, and I anticipate 
in the first part of the week we will have this bill.
  What does it do? First, it authorizes 37 special and incentive pays, 
including reenlistment bonuses and certain health bonuses. Here, we are 
talking about people who are considering reenlisting. Right now they 
are in the service.
  I mentioned a minute ago some of the aviators. Well, this is mostly 
the Army and the Marines and the Navy. These people are making career 
decisions. They make career decisions predicated on what they 
anticipate is going to be out there, and what is going to be out there 
is what kind of a bonus they will get at the time. Of course, in the 
event this does not happen, they would not be entitled to these 
bonuses, if we do not pass this bill. That is how significant it is.
  When you talk about certain health professional bonuses, they would 
expire also.
  These health benefit bonuses are very significant, because these are 
the people who are the health providers for our Wounded Warriors, not 
just the ones that are in our hospitals today but also in hospice care. 
We cannot do that to them.
  However, if we do not pass this bill, that is going to be a real 
serious problem. There has been a lot of talk about sexual assaults. We 
have two Senators, both Democrats, Senator Gillibrand and Senator 
McCaskill, who disagree with each other but who have amendments. So 
what we did is take parts of each one of those amendments--27 specific 
reforms to support victims and to encourage sexual assault reporting 
and an additional nine enhancements to the military justice system.
  Arguably the one on the floor who knows most about this would be our 
friend Senator Graham. I think he has looked at these and agrees that 
these provisions are really very significant, and things that are not 
going to be there otherwise. These would have been in the House bill 
and in the Senate bill in the regular procedure to pass these bills, 
but they will not be there if we do not pass this one bill. They are 
there.
  Gitmo. I look around the Chamber, and it seems like there is such a 
diverse attitude toward what we have done in the past and will do in 
the future with Gitmo. That is Guantanamo Bay down in Cuba. I have 
often said from this podium that is one of the few good deals that we 
have. We have had Gitmo since the year 1904. It costs $4,000 a year. 
Half the time Castro does not collect it. So it is a pretty good deal 
which you do not often get in the government.
  It is very expensive to house people there. But it does perform a 
function that cannot be performed anywhere else. So last year in the 
National Defense Authorization bill, we put a provision in there, 
fortunately at that time, that would restore the 1-year prohibition on 
transferring Gitmo detainees to the United States and to prohibit 
constructing any type of facility to house them if they are successful 
in doing that.
  That was not good. It should have been forever. But it expires now. 
That means if we do not have this bill, we will cede that to the 
President. The President will have total control. If he wanted to take 
every one of these terrorists out of Gitmo and send them to Yemen or 
put them in the United States, he could do it. So that is probably one 
of the most significant parts of this bill.
  So this restores the 1-year prohibition on transferring Gitmo 
detainees to the United States, and it prohibits the construction or 
modification of facilities in the United States to house Gitmo 
detainees.
  Our training ranges. This bill provides DOD with access to millions 
of acres of Federal land. Keep in mind, it does not cost anything; it 
is Federal land--for military tests and training ranges that are really 
absolutely necessary for the readiness of our combat forces.
  We have all heard about end strength. The Obama administration I have 
often said I think will go down in history as the most antidefense 
President ever. One of the things that we know is going to happen is 
the end strength will continue to reduce. This bill allows the Army and 
the Marine Corps' top people to make the decisions as to where this end 
strength is going to be reduced and by what amount. By doing this, they 
can accelerate the strength reduction and save a considerable amount of 
money. So they will have the flexibility to draw down faster, save 
money, do it quicker and do it better. Without this bill, they cannot 
do that.
  Military construction. You know, no other military construction can 
take place. But what is worse than that is, on military construction 
that has already been started, that is new construction, they would 
have to stop that military construction. When you do that then you come 
back later and start it again, it costs millions and millions of 
dollars more, a lot more money.
  Here is another good example of another area that would be a huge 
savings. Right now we are working on several aircraft carriers. One is 
CVN-78, the USS Ford. It is a huge project. It is 75 percent completed. 
We have already spent $12 billion on it. In the absence of this bill, 
that construction would have to stop. Now, I know that we would come to 
our senses and maybe in a few months come up with a CR that might have 
money that would go toward this.
  But that is still--when you stop and then start up again, it would be 
millions, hundreds of millions of dollars of cost. That is corrected in 
this bill. Not to say anything about the number of people who would be 
immediately released: 4,300 ship builders who work directly on the 
ships, and about 1,500 who work indirectly. So it is an economic issue 
for a lot of people. That is important but not as important as the fact 
that it is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars if we do not 
pass this bill.
  The LCS. This allows the littoral combat ship construction to 
continue in the shipyards. That is in Alabama and Wisconsin. Again, it 
does not happen if this bill is not passed. That is not going to 
happen.
  Special operations. I think we are all familiar with the special ops 
guys. I know the chair is very familiar with that. These are the ones 
who go out there in harm's way and take the risk and are specially 
trained. The commander there is Admiral McRaven. That is his No. 1 
priority--the preservation of special operations forces and families 
after the 12 years of sustained combat by authorizing various human, 
resiliency and family care programs. In other words, these people, many 
of them have families. The families are cared for in a way that has 
been certainly well deserved by the fighter that they represent. Yet 
those programs would stop in the absence of this.
  So I think that is very important. Just looking at the human end of 
it, the families, the mothers and the kids that are back there. They 
have special needs because of the sustained deployments that these 
great troops have. I would mention also, that in addition to some of 
the things that we have talked about in using some of the Federal land, 
this includes land use agreements to ensure special operations. That is 
what we were just talking about, so the special operations forces have 
sufficient access to training ranges, including the Chocolate Mountain 
Aerial Gunnery Range in California, which serves an indispensable role 
in training Navy seals.

  In fact, when you go and you watch them, you see that you cannot 
train our Navy seals without this facility. So this takes care of that.
  Lastly--I could mention a whole lot more--one of the significant 
things people are taking about is waste in the Pentagon. This provides 
for an audit of the Department of Defense. It requires a full audit of 
DOD no later than March 31, 2019. It will take a long time to do this. 
It has never been done before. This bill will call for the beginning of 
this process.

[[Page S8742]]

  We all know about the nuclear triad. The nuclear triad gives us that 
nuclear capability in our bombers, ICBMs and our submarine-launched 
ballistic missiles. This bill prohibits the elimination of one of those 
three legs. We have seen a lot of programs. You could save so much 
money if you eliminate the submarine element of that.
  But in order to adequately protect America, it is important that we 
have all three legs. So that nuclear triad--and remember that phrase. 
That is the one where one leg would be eliminated in the absence of 
this bill.
  The prohibition on tech transfers with Russia. This would prohibit 
the transfer of some missile defense technology to Russia and 
strengthen the Congressional oversight of the administration's efforts 
with regard to the United States and Russia's missile defense 
cooperation.
  You know, if we do not do it, the President is going to do it. I 
would hope that anyone who would be voting in this Chamber knows that 
is a key issue, and it should be a key issue. We recognize, if we do 
not continue to take control of that in the Congress, then that would 
automatically go to the President. I do not think we want that to 
happen. We all saw what happened in the first budget that the President 
had. I would never forget that, because I went over--I knew that he was 
going to be antimilitary, antidefense. So I went over to Afghanistan to 
respond to it, knowing full well that we were going to have to do 
something to let the American people know how bad that budget was on 
the military.
  In that first budget of President Obama's, it was 4\1/2\ years ago, 
almost 5 years ago, he did away with our only 5th generation fighter, 
the F-22; did away with our new lift capacity, the C-17; did away with 
the Future Combat System, which is the only advancement we have had in 
about 30 years in our ground capability.
  He did away with the ground-based interceptor in Poland. Now, let's 
keep in mind, the ground-based interceptor in Poland is one that we 
were putting there because we have currently 33 ground-based 
interceptors here in America, but they are on the west coast. That is 
where the threat was at that time. Now things have changed. We found 
out in the year 2007--it was not even classified. Our intelligence said 
that Iran is going to have the nuclear capability and a delivery system 
by 2015, and 2015 is just a little over a year away from right now.
  So we knew that way back in 2007. We started building a ground-based 
interceptor in Poland, with a radar in the Czech Republic. I thought we 
were doing very well. We had to give them the assurance that we would 
not pull the rug out from under them if they would cooperate. Then that 
went out. That was withdrawn in the President's first budget 4\1/2\ 
years ago.
  Now we are faced with that threat. Because if something comes into 
this country from Iran, it is going to come from the East. If there is 
a lucky shot from the west coast, that is fine. But I do not have that 
confidence that could happen. So I say that because it fits in with the 
missile defense. It directs the administration in this bill to make 
improvements and modernize the ground-based midcourse defense system. 
That is what we are talking about here.
  Without this, that could probably--not probably, possibly--be the 
most significant thing that we have been talking about here, because 
now we are talking about an incoming missile to the United States.
  The BRAC process, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. We 
have had five of them since 1987. Whether you are for a base closure or 
not, that is not as significant as it is that we are at a time in 
history where we have the greatest need to put back some of the money 
that has been taken out by this administration into our defense system. 
As good as a lot of BRAC systems are, the fact is that the first 3 to 5 
years of the BRAC, it costs money, it does not save money. That is what 
we cannot let happen. So we restrict the use of funds to conduct a 
round of base realignment and closures for the coming year, because 
people are talking about that.
  Here is a big one too that means a lot. It means a lot to my son, 
Jimmy, who is real big time into Second Amendment rights. We are from 
Oklahoma. We actually believe that stuff. We believe in the Second 
Amendment to the Constitution, I say to my friend in the chair.
  There is a treaty called the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty that the U.N. 
has. I am the wrong one to talk about this, because I have never seen 
anything good come out of the United Nations. But in this case it is 
worse than usual. The UN Arms Trade Treaty is one that our Secretary of 
State has already signed onto. But it has to be ratified by the Senate.
  Well, in this bill, it restricts the funding to implement the U.N. 
Arms Trade Treaty without the Senate's advise and consent on the 
treaty. Well, that is important. In fact, it reminds me a little bit of 
what happened when we had the budget vote a few months ago. At that 
time, I am trying to remember now, but I think it was 5 o'clock in the 
morning. You would be surprised the kind of amendments you can get 
passed at 5 o'clock in the morning.
  So at 5 o'clock in the morning, I had an amendment that said that we 
would not allow the United States to join--to be a part of the U.N. 
Arms Trade Treaty. That was good. But this reinforces that and says 
that--it restricts it. So if we were to do it, even if the Senate were 
to do it, it would restrict the funding so it cannot happen.
  So I would say to all of my friends out there who believe in Second 
Amendment rights, who have been concerned that through a U.N. treaty 
you could lose the Second Amendment rights, do not worry about it 
because we would have it. If we pass this bill, you are going to be 
well taken care of.
  So I feel very good about the provisions in this bill, I really 
believe that, when you stop and think about the fact that we actually 
had 79 amendments that were agreed to in this bill that we tried to 
pass before.
  The Senate Armed Services Committee adopted its version of the NDAA 
by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in June, and yet we know what 
has happened. We know why it is necessary because this is the last shot 
we actually have at a bill.
  The House, at 11 o'clock Friday morning, will go out of session. They 
will be adjourned for this year. The week after that the Senate will. 
That shows the time we have to get all of this done. That is why there 
are those individuals who say: You don't have to adopt a bill that the 
four of you put together. Even though it may be good, we want to have a 
lot of amendments and go through that process. Unfortunately, there is 
not time because if we did that it would have to go over to the House. 
They are already adjourned as of 11 o'clock Friday morning.
  We are out of time and the only choice we have now is either to adopt 
this or not have a bill at all. As frustrated as I am about the 
process, we have a commitment to provide our military men and women the 
support that they require, and we have a bill that will do that. If we 
fail to pass the NDAA, it would send a terrible signal to all of our 
troops over there.
  I have a card of some of the things that we would lose that I 
mentioned on that rather lengthy list may not happen until next year, 
may not happen until the first part of the year. Some of them would 
take place in February and some in March. What would happen is a 
question that was asked by our fine Senator Fischer from Nebraska.
  She said: What would happen at the end of this year on December 31. 
What provisions would we lose if we don't pass this bill?
  The answer is there are several of them, and I will highlight a few 
of them. One would be the bonus for new officers in critical skills, 
the incentive bonus for conversion to military occupational specialty 
to ease personnel shortages. For those of us who have been in the 
military, that is called the MOSs.
  The incentive bonuses for transfer between armed forces. Someone who 
is transferred from one area to the other, we have the obligation to 
pay his expenses and without those bonuses, we wouldn't be able to do 
it.
  Aviator officer retention. I mentioned a minute ago that one-third of 
the combat squadrons were deactivated, they were grounded and the 
pilots with them. I talked about that and how General Welch gave us a 
good documentation. That endured for 3 months. At the end of the 3 
months the

[[Page S8743]]

amount of that money that was saved by grounding that equipment was far 
offset by the amount to get people back up to the correct 
qualifications.
  One of the things that would happen is the aviation officer retention 
bonus. This is to keep these pilots in the service, because it costs 
much less to retain a pilot than it does to retrain one and start from 
scratch. I know that. We have a couple of the Rangers in my State of 
Oklahoma in Vance Air Force Base where I will be tomorrow. That is one 
of the largest centers that we have training pilots.
  Our problem is a pilot shortage. One of the reasons is because, as I 
just said, if they are grounding these airplanes these pilots finally 
say: If I can't fly, I am getting out of here.
  There have been a lot of them who have left. The only thing that 
would hold them would be the existing aviation officer retention bonus. 
This gives a bonus for someone to re-up.
  If anyone has been in the services, they will remember--as I do from 
the U.S. Army--that when they are trying to get people, to encourage 
people to re-up, it is a lot cheaper to retain someone than it is to 
retrain them. We give them bonuses. We did that when I was in the 
service. That is a bonus they would not get.
  With already a serious problem with a shortage of pilots, we have to 
do something about that. That would abruptly stop December 31. That 
means the pilots making this decision may not even know this. They may 
decide they are going to do it and then they find out they don't have a 
retention bonus.
  The assignment pay or special duty pay, this would be for transfers. 
This would be something you would not be able to do, as well as the 
hardship that would have to be borne by the military.
  Healthcare professionals bonus. This is important. If we go out to 
Walter Reed and see the great job that is done by the professionals 
with our wounded warriors, it does impress people to see what is going 
on. I am very excited to see that program has been good. But these 
health care professionals operate on a bonus or special pay. That would 
stop December 31.
  I know they are committed, they would stay as long as they could, but 
some of them couldn't afford to do that. This would stop on the January 
31.
  Reenlistment bonus for active members, that would stop also.
  What I am saying is we are going to have to do this bill. It is 
absolutely necessary. I am not the only one who says that.
  If we look at General Dempsey--talk about the deteriorating condition 
of our military now--keeping in mind that with this President over 4\1/
2\ years ago, over this 10-year budget, he has taken over $487 billion 
out of the military, if we have Obama sequestration as it is designed 
now, that will be another $500 billion. That is a total of $1 trillion.
  General Dempsey is the top military person in the military. He is the 
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
  He said:

       But I will tell you personally, if ever the force is so 
     degraded and so unready, and then we're asked to use it, it 
     would be immoral to use the force unless it's well-trained, 
     well-led and well-equipped.

  Admiral Winnefeld, the second in charge, the vice-chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: ``There could be for the first time in my 
career instances where we may be asked to respond to a crisis and we 
will have to say that we cannot.''
  Secretary Hagel, I opposed his confirmation when he was in. Actually, 
I think he has improved so much more than I thought he would since that 
time. He is not afraid to talk about these things. He said: ``If these 
abrupt cuts remain, we risk fielding a force that over the next few 
years is unprepared due to a lack of training, maintenance, and the 
latest equipment.''
  It is America he is talking about. This is the Secretary of Defense.
  Another thing General Dempsey said--in fact, I carry a card around 
with me because a lot of people don't believe this. General Dempsey at 
one time in February 2013, this year, told the Senate Armed Services 
Committee that: We are putting our military on a path where the force 
is so degraded and so unready that it would be immoral to use force.
  General Odierno, the Commander of the Army, said: Additionally, it is 
unlikely that the Army would be able to defeat an adversary quickly and 
decisively should they be called upon to engage in a single, sustained 
major combat operation.
  When we talk about a major combat operation, we are talking about one 
they used to call the combat operations where major contingencies are 
on a regional basis.
  Our policy, since World War II, has been able to do this to defend 
America on two regional fronts. That has gone out the window and we are 
not able to do that anymore.
  Secretary Hagel also said: ``If sequester-level cuts persist''--which 
is what we are talking about, the second half trillion that Obama would 
be taking out of the military--``we risk fielding a force that is 
unprepared.''
  I can't imagine hearing that from our own Secretary of Defense, but 
it is there.
  I wish to show us why our choices are down to only one choice.
  On this chart if we look at December, today is the 12th. The House 
leaves at 11 o'clock Friday morning. They are gone, they are gone for 
the rest of the year. Anything we do that has to go to the House, they 
won't be there. It can't be done. We work for 1 more week starting the 
December 16, this coming Monday, and we go all the way through the week 
where we will be in session. Anything we would do or pass or amend 
could not go to the House, and that means we would go into December 31 
without any kind of advance authorization. On that basis it is 
significant and that shows we actually have to do it.
  I think I mentioned this. I have a chart, but I don't have it in 
front of me--show since 1970 we always have had our Defense 
authorization done before January. The only two exceptions to that were 
when they were vetoed by the President on two occasions and we had to 
override the veto. Nonetheless, that is why this month is the last 
chance we have to do it.
  I would mention that there is such popular support for this around 
the country that we have extremes--not really extremes--but 
publications generally considered to be on the progressive or moderate 
side and some conservative.
  This is one where both the Heritage Foundation and the Washington 
Post say let's pass the defense deal. It has to pass.
  The Heritage Foundation has an extra paper that if there is time 
later on I may make some quotes from that.
  The Washington Post says:

       With the end of 2013 rapidly approaching, Congress has an 
     opportunity to rise above a year of massive dysfunction and 
     prevent major disruptions in U.S. defense operations. The 
     leaders of the Senate and the House armed services committees 
     have managed to fashion a bipartisan version.

  That is what we are talking about when I say the big four, so this is 
what we are talking about.
  Continuing:

       It's a decent compromise that the leaders of both chambers 
     ought to embrace and bring to a vote in the coming days.
       A failure to do so would be a new political low for this 
     Congress. The NDAA has been passed 51 consecutive years, even 
     when much of the rest of government had to make do with 
     temporary authorities. But much more than political symbolism 
     is at issue. Though defense funding ultimately must be 
     provided by appropriators, the authorization bill extends 
     vital Pentagon authorities and ultimately sanctions new 
     operations.
       If no bill is approved by Jan. 1, combat pay and bonuses 
     for U.S. troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere would be 
     suspended; work on major weapons systems, including a new 
     aircraft carrier, would be halted at considerable cost; and 
     support for the Afghan army and the disposal of Syria's 
     chemical weapons would be interrupted at a critical moment.
       The bill also contains important measures to combat sexual 
     crimes in the military.

  We talked about that, but this is being editorialized, not by me on 
the floor of the Senate, but by the Washington Post.
  They talk about Guantanamo Bay and they say:

       . . . advance the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison--

  It could take place in the absence of this legislation.
  Continuing:

       Though a proposal was favored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand 
     (D-N.Y.), providing for the prosecution of sex crimes outside 
     the military chain of command, it was not included--did not 
     receive a Senate vote--some three dozen other reforms in 
     legislation would make the punishment of these crimes

[[Page S8744]]

     more likely while providing more protections to victims.

  Let me conclude this editorial by reading the next-to-the-last 
paragraph.
  It says:

       Other measures in the bill ought to attract broad 
     bipartisan support. The effects on defense of the so-called 
     sequester would be eased by transferring money to operations 
     and training from less essential accounts, such as 
     construction and staffing in office headquarters. The 
     Pentagon is still vulnerable to a $50 billion sequester cut 
     in January unless a separate budget deal can head it off. But 
     passage of the authorization act would prevent the worst 
     disruptions of ongoing operations.

  It goes on to say that this is in the House and the House, very 
likely, is going to pass it, and send it over to the Senate, and they 
strongly support it.
  We have letters from all of the Armed Services to us and to the 
leader, Senator Harry Reid. This one is from Martin Dempsey. He is 
urging us to pass this. It is not only me and a handful of Senators, 
this is the military speaking. He is the top military personnel.
  He said:

       I write to urge you to complete the National Defense 
     Authorization Act this year. The authorities contained 
     therein are critical to the Nation's defense and urgently 
     needed to ensure we all keep faith with the men and women, 
     military and civilian, selflessly serving in our Armed 
     Forces.

  He goes on to say, ``This is the most significant concern we have 
right now,'' that we may not be able to pass this bill.
  We have a letter from General Welsh. General Welsh, if you remember, 
is the chief of the Air Force. He is the one who is so upset with the 
fact we had grounded some of our combat squadrons. He says:

       The FY14 NDAA contains critical authorities that enable us 
     to protect the American people while keeping promises to our 
     active duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian Airmen. If this 
     important legislation is not enacted I worry about 
     significant impacts to Air Force operations that could 
     jeopardize the missions we are tasked to perform.

  He goes on to say how important that is; that it is a matter of life 
and death to many of the airmen who are out there.
  We have the same thing from General Amos of the Marine Corps, who 
says:

       . . . our hard-won gains on the Twenty-nine Palms land 
     expansion will be threatened, and the construction of the 
     next generation aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, 
     will stop. Passage of the this vital legislation will prove 
     to our Marines and Sailors our unwavering support.

  That is what we are talking about because those are the guys who are 
out there.
  I see my good friend from Arizona Senator McCain, and I would say I 
have been talking about the degraded condition of our military right 
now and how much worse it is going to be if we are not able to do this 
bill that I have outlined in some detail. Hopefully, we will be 
successful in doing that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with my 
friend from Oklahoma.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. First, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his 
leadership and his dedication to getting this authorization bill 
passed. I think my friend from Oklahoma would agree with me there is no 
reason we are where we are today.
  Is it not true this bill was passed out of the Armed Services 
Committee in May and here we are now in December just now contemplating 
bringing it to the floor of the Senate?
  Mr. INHOFE. I would say to my friend that is true, but also, over in 
the House they did it the way it should be done. They passed it out of 
committee, they got it to the floor and passed it. Ours was passed by a 
huge bipartisan margin. We only had three or four vote against it, and 
that was way back in--I think it was the last of May or 1st of June. It 
should have been done back then instead of waiting until 1 week before 
we are out of here.
  Mr. McCAIN. With all due respect, one has to wonder about the 
priorities of the group and the leader who sets the agenda for the 
Senate. One of the real advantages of being in the majority is you set 
the agenda. So rather than take the bill to the floor, as we have for 
51 years--for 51 years the Congress of the United States has taken up 
and passed a Defense authorization bill--we are now here in December, 
with the House of Representatives going out of session tomorrow, and we 
are faced with an unsavory parliamentary situation where we are having 
to maneuver in a way that a ``message''--and my friend from Oklahoma 
can correct me if I am wrong--a message that cannot be amended, 
otherwise it would have to go back to the other body, which is going 
out of session, which would then take us into January.
  I ask my friend from Oklahoma: Isn't that where we are, and isn't 
that a commentary on the concern my friends on the other side of the 
aisle, the majority leader, has about the men and women who are serving 
in the military?
  We will talk a little about what a failure to pass a Defense 
authorization bill is. But we are now in a situation which is a 
disservice not only to the men and women who are serving but to all of 
us--to every one of the 100 Senators--because every one of these 
Senators would want to have an amendment to make this bill better and 
that will impart to the rest of the body their knowledge, their 
expertise, and their priorities. So what are we doing? We are asking 
Members on this side of the aisle and the other side of the aisle to 
accept a piece of legislation without a single amendment to it. That, 
my friends, when we are talking about the defense of this Nation, is 
absolutely outrageous.
  Would my friend from Oklahoma agree?
  Mr. INHOFE. It is right up here. It shows the House, on Friday, at 11 
o'clock, is out of here. They are gone. They are adjourned. If 
something should happen--we were to amend something--they are not 
there. So it can't be done. This is where we are now. We only have 
these 5 days that are left.
  A lot of people have said--and I would ask my friend from Arizona if 
he agrees with this--well, we can come back in January and do this. But 
then look at this. We come back on the 6th of January, and the CR--the 
continuing resolution--is here. I can assure you, from past experience, 
that will dominate the floor. They are certainly not going to have time 
to do it. So the only shot we have is up here.
  But also important, I read a list of things before my good friend 
came in, that expire on December 31, and those are things that are 
happening right now to all of our pilots. My colleague certainly knows 
about that. They have bailed out. They are gone now. They are so upset 
with what is happening with the grounding of our squadrons. If we take 
away their reenlistment incentive, are we going to have any pilots 
left?
  Mr. McCAIN. So we have established, by the calendar and by what has 
happened since May, that, obviously, the majority and the majority 
leader had a higher priority for whatever the hell it is we did rather 
than the defense of this Nation. That is a fact. I would challenge 
anyone on the other side of the aisle to come and argue differently. It 
is outrageous.
  Now that we have established that, could I ask my friend what 
happens--and I know he has gone through it--what happens to the men and 
women in our military if we do wait until January, if we do wait until 
February or March or don't act at all?
  For example, one of the best examples I have seen is that right now a 
married sergeant in the U.S. military who is serving as a helicopter 
crew chief in Afghanistan, beginning on the 1st of January--
please correct me if I am wrong--will lose $890 a month; is that 
correct?

  Mr. INHOFE. That is correct.
  Mr. McCAIN. So we send people into combat, and while we dither around 
here we are going to keep the men and women who are serving in harm's 
way from getting the benefits they have earned and deserve and are 
theirs by law. But we are not going to act, at least until January, 
perhaps.
  I know the Senator from Oklahoma has gone on with a very long list 
about the completion of ships, about the health programs, and about a 
number of other issues, but I wish to focus for 1 minute on one area 
with my friend from Oklahoma.
  I think all my colleagues are aware, and the American people are 
aware, there is a serious issue in the U.S. military. It is a very 
serious issue and it is the issue of sexual assaults. It is the

[[Page S8745]]

issue the Senator from Oklahoma has spent untold hours in discussions 
and debate and learning about this issue because it is a terrible thing 
that is going on in our military today.
  Under the leadership of the Senator from Oklahoma and the 
distinguished chairman of the committee, Senator Levin, we have--and 
with the participation of every member of the committee, under their 
leadership--come up with a way to, at least to a significant degree, 
address this problem in the military.
  There are still some controversial aspects of it that are not 
necessarily either side of the aisle but just a different viewpoint. 
But I would argue and ask my friend from Oklahoma, is it not true that 
we have made significant improvements in the Defense authorization bill 
on the issue of sexual assaults?
  These changes, after hearings, after debate, after discussion were 
put into law and they were agreed to as being very necessary measures 
to try to bring this terrible situation of sexual assaults in the 
military under control. I ask my colleague from Oklahoma if this isn't, 
among many others, an issue that needs to be addressed.
  Mr. INHOFE. I respond to my friend that it was addressed in the House 
bill and in the Senate bill, but the Senate bill didn't pass, so this 
is all that is left. Specifically, 10 days ago, we were meeting and 
putting this together--the big four, as they call it. It had 27 
specific reforms in this area to support victims, to encourage sexual 
assault reporting, and, in addition, nine enhancements to the military 
justice system.
  I mentioned our good friend from South Carolina, who is probably the 
expert in this area, and we consulted him, along with a lot of the 
other people, both Senator Gillibrand and Senator McCaskill had 
amendments and we have bits out of each one of those amendments they 
had. They are both better off than they were before. But without this, 
we got nothing--no changes at all.
  So we have made great progress in this bill in the sexual assaults, 
as well as I mentioned Gitmo too which is a very controversial issue.
  Mr. McCAIN. Would the Senator agree that even though there is 
significant difference between Senator Gillibrand and Senator 
McCaskill, they were in agreement with the many provisions my colleague 
just pointed out, which, whether we address their disagreements or not, 
they were both agreed these are very important measures they both agree 
on, that the entire committee agreed on in addressing this issue of 
sexual assaults in the military.
  Mr. INHOFE. That is exactly right. As you point out, they were apart 
on a lot of issues, but what we did was to take those areas that will 
improve the situation and adopted them, and they are a part of this 
bill. So the whole issue of sexual harassment will not be addressed at 
all in the absence of this legislation. Of two of the very significant 
provisions that are here, certainly that is one of them.
  I mentioned a minute ago the other one. I know we have had 
differences of opinion between us on the whole Gitmo thing. Yet we have 
a provision in there now that I think satisfies us both until we all 
have time to sit down and work these things out.
  The bottom line is this: We have things where it would cost huge 
amounts of money. If you just take the CVN-78, they would have to stop 
construction, after we have already spent $12 billion, and after it is 
75 percent done. That cost would be tremendous, especially when we all 
know we will go back and reinstate it. But this wouldn't be just 
millions, it would be hundreds of millions of dollars. That is what is 
going to happen if we don't pass this bill.
  Mr. McCAIN. I know long ago both the Senator from Oklahoma and I 
served in the military, which is not too relevant anymore, but both of 
us keep track of the military. We visit our military installations, and 
we spend time with the men and women who are serving both here and 
overseas. We are in communication with them. It is part of our 
privileges as their representatives, whether they happen to be in our 
home State or serving overseas in harm's way. When you talk to these 
young people--and they are the bravest of the brave and we all know the 
best of America--they do not understand why, when they are serving in 
combat and they are entitled to some additional pay because of being in 
danger, that will not happen. They do not understand why the bonus of 
special duty and incentive pay will lapse. They don't understand why 
that should happen. They do not understand why we are not addressing 
the issue of sexual assaults in the military. Many of them are deeply 
concerned about that.
  By the way, I would also add--and I think my friend from Oklahoma 
will agree--this issue impacts on recruiting the most highly qualified 
young Americans.
  So here we are on December 12 and we have still not completed our 
duty, our obligation to the men and women who are serving. They rely on 
us. They rely on us to take care of them. They rely on us to provide 
them with the weapons and the capabilities and the pay and benefits and 
to take care of their families. They rely on us. I am getting feedback 
from them that they are now beginning to believe we don't care that 
much. Frankly, I can't argue with that because why are we here in 
December? Why are we here in December? The fiscal year ended on 1 
October. They ask: Why is it that you in Congress can't act to provide 
us with the tools we need to carry out our mission of defending the 
Nation?
  Frankly, I don't have a very good answer, but maybe the Senator from 
Oklahoma does.
  Mr. INHOFE. My colleague is fully aware, because no one has spent 
more time over in these areas of hostility than my good friend from 
Arizona, that when you talk to these guys, and you sit in the mess hall 
with them, one of the things--and we know this is true because we have 
both had experience in the military--they are talking about is their 
careers.
  They are talking about their careers. Right now our retention is as 
good as it has ever been. What is going to happen to our retention if 
all of a sudden we renege on the reenlistment bonuses that they all 
depend upon? They all talk to each other. About the time that stops on 
December 31, I have great fear over what is going to happen to our 
retention rate.
  I talked about in the very beginning about what has happened in the 
military in the last 4\1/2\ years, and I read all of the statements 
from our commanders, from Dempsey, and actually even the Secretary of 
Defense, talking about what a crisis it is. They all said it is much 
more of a crisis if we don't pass this bill. This isn't going to help 
us like it should. We should be in much better shape than this even if 
we pass it. But we have to pass this or all those things we talked 
about which are going to be affecting our troops directly are going to 
take place.
  Mr. McCAIN. I finally say to my friend, I thank him for his 
leadership. I thank him for his willingness to really short circuit 
what should have been a 2- or 3-week exercise, where every Member of 
the Senate would have had the opportunity to propose amendments, to 
debate those amendments.
  My colleague just mentioned the issue of detainees which is still 
something that deserves great scrutiny by this body. The issue of 
surveillance is clearly one that needs debate and discussion on the 
floor of the Senate. There are so many issues that we are not 
discussing in the slightest because we are now entrapped by a process 
which doesn't allow us to pass a single amendment to this absolutely 
vital piece of legislation.
  I thank my friend from Oklahoma for understanding that even though we 
are placed in this incredibly unsavory situation where we are not able, 
every Member of the Senate who chooses to--and as the Senator from 
Oklahoma knows well, when we consider the Defense authorization bill, 
there are literally hundreds of amendments that we consider because of 
the interest and the commitment that all of our colleagues have. We are 
not going to be able to do that this time. But it seems to me too, at 
least we ought to get the bill passed so we can get our Defense 
Department and the men and women who are serving in it in the kind of 
condition they deserve.
  Mr. INHOFE. I thank my friend from Arizona for coming down and 
showing what a traumatic situation we have right now. I hope two things 
come from this. First of all, that we go ahead and

[[Page S8746]]

pass the NDA bill and then make sure that next year we are there to 
make sure this doesn't happen again in the same way it has happened.
  I ask unanimous consent to have some testimonials printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  Oklahomans Are Hit Hard by ObamaCare

       It took me three days to sign up for ObamaCare due to 
     website glitches. When I finally got through, I saw my own 
     premium rise 20% and my out of pocket costs go up. But this 
     is nothing compared to what Oklahomans are experiencing. In 
     just a week's time, I received more than 400 stories from my 
     constituents impacted by ObamaCare.
       Julia in Broken Arrow said that to keep her family's 
     current plan, they will pay an additional $1,400 in premiums 
     and another $4,000 out-of-pocket.
       Lloyd, from Tecumseh, says he is dropping his current 
     insurance and choosing to pay the penalty after learning his 
     monthly premium will jump from $592 to $1,952.
       Stacy, a mother of three in Oklahoma City, shared with me 
     that her family's health insurance premiums will increase 
     20%, with an additional $6,000 in out of pocket costs per 
     person, up to $18,000.
       Joy of Oklahoma City said her family's deductible is 
     increasing by $2,000 and they will have to pay out of pocket 
     for prescriptions. This will create significant financial 
     difficulties for them as her husband is battling cancer.
       Greg and his family, who live in Oklahoma City, are worried 
     about having to choose between making a monthly mortgage 
     payment of $1,100 or an insurance payment of $1,197.
       Jim, with employer coverage in Choctaw, is facing a 
     deductible increase of $4,000.
       Janice is currently on a COBRA plan in Sapulpa. On a new 
     exchange plan, she will be paying $240 more each month.
       Paul, who says he is in good health and rarely requires a 
     visit to the doctor's office, will be paying $70 per month.
       Ralph, who has employer-based insurance in Durant, will pay 
     $80 more each month.
       David from Owasso let me know his family's premium and 
     deductible will increase by $318 a month and $500, 
     respectively.
       Linda in Pryor says ObamaCare has doubled her deductible 
     and increased her out of pocket costs by 30%.
       Darrell, who has a group plan in Cashion, is expecting his 
     premiums to go up 40% and his deductible to double.
       Ed, a widow in Oklahoma City, will be paying $250 more in 
     premiums every month.
       Linda, from Chelsea, says her family's deductible has 
     increased $700.
       Roger, who is on a fixed income in Comanche, says his 
     premiums have doubled.
       Peggy in Boise City said her deductible has increased 250%.
       An employer in Tulsa says he must choose between a 128% 
     premium increase or a 500% increase in deductible for his 
     staff.
       A small business owner in Oklahoma City reports that the 
     cost of the insurance he provides to his employees has gone 
     up 41% and will cost him $1,000 per month more. Because of 
     the mandate to have insurance, more of his employees are now 
     electing coverage, which will drive his costs up even more.
       A family of four in Shawnee is facing a 20% increase in 
     premiums and a $1,500 increase in deductible.
       A single father of two and small business owner in Lawton 
     says he will be paying 24% more in monthly premiums.
       A family of three in Miami is choosing to go without 
     insurance and pay the penalty rather than see their premium 
     double and deductible increase by $3,200.
       Nancy from Oklahoma City said she probably should be one to 
     support Obamacare due to her income, but can't because ``it 
     is not the right answer''. She believes the government 
     doesn't have the right to tell her how to live or define what 
     is ``affordable'' for her.
       Sharon from Oklahoma City went onto the website. Despite 
     entering in her full name, social security number and 
     address, her identity was not able to be verified. She said 
     she spent 5 weeks trying to get someone to assist her and at 
     this rate she is ready to give up and pay the fine.
       Erin from Beggs is a wife and a mother of three. She was 
     dropped from her insurance company and instructed to enroll 
     in Obamacare. She has tried to access the website since it 
     was ``fixed'' and has not been able to get past the first 
     step. She is repeatedly kicked off and has to re-enter her 
     information every time she goes on the site.
       Janice from Sapulpa spent over 40 hours attempting 
     unsuccessfully to apply for insurance on Healthcare.gov. She 
     finally asked for them to send her a paper application and 
     when it arrived, it was in Spanish.
       The OKC Chamber of Commerce can no longer offer insurance 
     plans to its members since the plans don't meet mandated 
     requirements, impacting 1,400 businesses.
       A 50-year-old female from Chandler said she and her husband 
     were dropped from their insurance plan. The plan offered to 
     her now includes maternity care and pediatric dental care--
     neither of which she needs--and will cost over 200% more per 
     month.
       Cyndee of Suphur lost her family's insurance plan while she 
     was still in a critical time frame for treating her cancer. 
     She called this a ``scary'' experience. She had this plan for 
     10 years until ObamaCare deemed it unworthy. Cyndee wrote to 
     me about her new plan under ObamaCare and said: ``No one 
     wants affordable insurance more than me, but at $1,100 a 
     month, just for me--one person--it's certainly not 
     affordable.''
       A married father of two from Muskogee was also dropped from 
     his insurance plan. The plan offered to him as comparable in 
     coverage would cost him and his family 46% more than what 
     they used to pay.
       Another male, from Edmond, was dropped from his employer 
     sponsored health care. The plan he had through his employer 
     provided him with a 75% employer subsidy on his deductible 
     and covered 100% of his medical bills.
       Rockey from Enid said he and his wife's hours were cut at 
     work to 25 hours a week because of the employer mandate. Now 
     that they work part time, they are no longer eligible for 
     coverage through their employer and Obamacare is not 
     affordable for them.
       Jessie from Moore said her husband's employer is 
     considering dropping spouse and dependent coverage due to the 
     rising costs of health insurance.
       Debbie of Frederick said she is fortunate enough to still 
     have insurance through her employers, but because of mandates 
     in the Act, their family doctor of 30 years has had to 
     eliminate hospital visits from his services. Any time Debbie 
     is in the hospital, the doctor who knows her health the best 
     can no longer be on the front lines of helping make health 
     decisions with her in the most crucial circumstances.
       Donna from Elgin said not only have her insurance costs 
     gone up, but two of her doctors have left their practice. She 
     cannot afford the new health insurance, and is having 
     troubling finding new doctors.
       Roderick from Shawnee said within a three-month period, 
     three of his doctors have chosen to retire. He is worried 
     about finding new doctors his insurance will cover.
       This is devastating. We absolutely need to bring the cost 
     of healthcare down, but ObamaCare is clearly doing the 
     opposite. My colleagues and I have supported common-sense 
     ideas like purchasing insurances across state lines or 
     enacting tort reform. We could have started here, but 
     instead, President Obama forced America down a destructive 
     path that will likely end in a single-payer option. We must 
     repeal ObamaCare and put common sense healthcare reform in 
     its place. I'll continue this fight to ensure Oklahomans have 
     quality, affordable health care options.

  Mr. INHOFE. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, as we consider some of the nominations 
before us, we are reminded that one of the reasons we have all these 
problems around the country associated with ObamaCare and all our 
constituents are being impacted in such a negative way by higher 
premiums, higher deductibles, higher taxes, and fewer jobs is because 
of the overreach of government.
  This is a perfect opportunity for us to discuss the fact that 
overreaching government--in this case, government which has literally 
taken over one-sixth of our economy--is causing great harm to the 
American people and that there is a much better approach most of us 
here advocated when this was debated. Of course, at the time we didn't 
have the votes. This was passed in a party-line, partisan way and, as a 
consequence, we are seeing now the results and the impact on the 
American people, all of which are very harmful to their own economic 
circumstances.
  I have a personal example from the emails and letters coming into my 
office of the adverse impact of ObamaCare. This comes from a female 
constituent of mine in Wilmot, SD. She writes:

       My husband and I have four small children and purchase our 
     own health care.
       My husband runs his own business and I am privileged to 
     stay at home.
       We are very healthy, so we have always purchased a plan 
     with a large deductible, so we can afford a reasonable 
     premium.
       Today we received our letter from our health insurance 
     provider letting us know that next month our premium will be 
     jumping 232 percent! That's over $500 more a month--and we 
     barely use our health insurance.
       We currently live in an 1,800 square foot house and have 
     been trying to find something bigger. This jump in our 
     monthly health care premium could prevent us from being able 
     to afford any kind of monthly house payment.
       . . . ObamaCare is cutting into the carefully-planned 
     budgets of American families, holding them back from the 
     futures for which they have carefully budgeted.

  This is just one example of the harmful economic impact ObamaCare is 
having on countless Americans from my State of South Dakota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I realize Democrats want to deflect 
attention of the impact of ObamaCare from our constituents. That is one 
of

[[Page S8747]]

the reasons we are having these nominee votes. But our constituents 
have the right to be heard, so I wish to share some thoughts from a 
constituent of mine in Owensboro, Cheryl Russell. Here is what she 
wrote:

       We got a letter from our insurance company saying our 
     current policy will not meet the affordable care act, which 
     means it will go away.
       According to our insurance company, we will have to take 
     pediatric dental and vision insurance, [even though] we don't 
     have kids.
       They said it was because of ObamaCare. . . .

  She goes on:

       Another plan . . . will cost us over $150.00 more a month 
     plus our deductible goes up to $5700.
       Please keep taking a stand against Obama Care . . . not 
     only are we going to lose our insurance, but when we go to a 
     different policy we have to pay more. . . .
       We are 58 & 56 years old. We will have to work the rest of 
     our lives just to pay for our insurance. . . .
       This isn't fair and it isn't right.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I wish to share a couple letters I received 
just today.
  I was talking earlier in the day on some of these situations and 
again what happens when one side thinks they can do whatever they want 
to do and the consequences of that.
  This letter is from Paul from East Prairie, MO, in the Missouri 
bootheel:

       Upon hearing the potential changes coming January 1st, I 
     decided to investigate the stories I heard. I learned that in 
     2014 my family's premium would go from $597/mo with two $5000 
     deductibles to $1119/mo with two $4300 deductibles. My 
     cheapest option is $1,085.00/mo with a $12,700 deductible.
       Not only was this unaffordable, it was pointless to have 
     insurance.

  Certainly, I agree with that. If your deductible is $12,700 and you 
are paying over $1,000 every month to get insurance, what is that? It 
is certainly not affordable health care.
  Here is a letter from Tom in St. Louis, who said:

       My company is a great company to work for, but 
     unfortunately our health insurance policy went from $490 to 
     $690/month. That is $200/month that I can't put towards my 
     kids' education. That is a lot of money for a working guy to 
     come up with every month. My co-workers are struggling with 
     this increase too. I will look into all the options available 
     and hope we do not have doctor changes. We are familiar with 
     the plan we had and we liked it.

  A third one from Sherri in Holts Summit, MO. She had a preexisting 
condition and was in the high-risk pool. She said:

       I saw the price, the co-pays and the deductibles and I 
     can't afford it.
       So it looks like I will suffer on and have even less money 
     while having a policy I won't be able to afford to use.

  We are getting those letters every hour of every day. I think it is 
not what the American people thought they were going to get.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, there is more wrong with the Affordable 
Care Act than just the Web site not working. In fact, the Web site is 
just a symptom of bigger problems.
  Similar to my colleagues, I wish to share the problems Iowans have 
with the Affordable Care Act. So I come to the floor today to share 
just one of hundreds of emails, letters, and phone calls from my 
constituents in Iowa expressing sticker shock about the Affordable Care 
Act.
  A working mother in Decorah, IA, who lost her employer-sponsored 
coverage for her family because of rising costs, wrote to me and said 
the following:

       . . . comparable plans do not seem to exist on the 
     healthcare exchange. The closest we can come (and still see 
     our own doctors) cost almost $1050 per month. This represents 
     a 247% increase in cost over our prior employer provided 
     plan--and with much higher deductibles!
       My husband is a self-employed small business owner. We 
     covered our family of 4 on my group health plan, which 
     includes a 21 year old adult daughter in college, who is not 
     a legal tax dependent. If we receive any `subsidy', it will 
     be insignificant in relation to the total jump in our out of 
     pocket costs related to the so called ``Affordable Care 
     Act''.
       The general public seems to believe that anyone who does 
     not qualify for premium subsidies can easily afford a premium 
     increase--no matter how outrageous. Yet an increase of almost 
     250% in our personal cost of providing an inferior policy for 
     our family--which represents an increase in costs of roughly 
     20% of our gross income--can only be described as an absolute 
     disaster.

  I think this email from a real person who is really living this train 
wreck of a health care law speaks for itself.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, part of our job as Members of the U.S. 
Senate is to help people who have problems. This has been a very 
difficult time for many Americans and difficult for me as somebody who 
wants to be able to help people with a problem.
  As my colleagues have indicated, the letters, the phone calls, the 
conversations, the emails continue to come. The one I wish to highlight 
to my colleagues is from a person who describes herself as a 62-year-
old female retired teacher from Wichita. She says she considers herself 
a middle-class American.
  She indicates in her letter that her current health policy expires at 
the end of this year, less than a month away. Here is what she says in 
her letter:

       When I inquired why, I was told the policy no longer meets 
     the guidelines under ObamaCare.
       Yet, in the previous 2 years, my premiums have increased 
     25% and 28% respectively to which the answer from [my 
     insurer] was that it was to help pay for ObamaCare.
       Now I can't even have that plan any longer.
       It had a $500 deductible and $1,500 Max out of pocket 
     expense per year, with a $300 premium per month.
       After over 20 hours online, and multiple calls and online 
     chats, I finally was able to see some numbers for healthcare 
     costs from the Obamacare Marketplace, only to learn that the 
     premium is 1.5 times what I currently pay, and the deductible 
     is 4.5 times higher (and it's a different insurer).
       A plan [from my current insurer] was double the premium.
       I will not qualify for tax credits, as my projected income 
     for 2014, which includes some tax free interest income and 
     social security, places this middle class retired American, 
     over the threshold of any kind of subsidy.
       I'm sad that my well laid plan for retirement, now will 
     redirect my earnings to pay for healthcare, much of which I 
     will never use.
       At 62 and having had a hysterectomy, prenatal care is NOT 
     an issue I will face, nor will I ever need female 
     reproductive disorder treatment, as those parts are gone, but 
     I will have no discount for not needing those coverages.
       So I'm paying a higher premium for other women to have 
     them?
       I'm very frustrated at these changes.
       It's the middle class that will be hit the worst by this 
     mandate, and I fear that many will opt for the government 
     fine because now they truly won't be able to afford the cost 
     of healthcare.
       One more question, how will folks who can't even make the 
     premium payment, ever be able to pay the outrageous 
     deductible?
       Honestly, $6,500 out of pocket expenses per person per 
     year?
       That's crazy, who will be able to pay that? And then who 
     will end up paying it? This is NOT a solution for the Middle 
     Class Americans!

  Surely we can develop a policy, a program of caring for Americans 
without doing damage to people who already had insurance.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I am pleased to take the floor today and 
join my colleagues in opening the mailbag. All of us have received a 
lot of mail and email and faxes and texts from individuals who are 
being harmed by this law.
  For example, Steve from Peoria, AZ, is looking at the premium for his 
policy through his employer going up in response to ObamaCare nearly 20 
percent. In addition, his employers have told him to brace for more 
impacts like rising prices--all customers are going to get this--and 
falling salaries for new hires as well.
  Leanne from Eager, AZ, is facing what she calls ``sky high'' rates 
now thanks to ObamaCare. If this is not bad enough, it looks as if she 
and her husband will have to put off buying their parents out of their 
family business. It looks likely that Leanne's parents are going to 
have to keep working for a while.
  Cristian from Flagstaff, a young husband and father who has a young 
boy, says he might see his premiums actually decrease marginally. 
However, thanks to ObamaCare and thanks to changes his employer is 
making in response to ObamaCare, he is looking at higher copays, higher 
deductibles, and a decrease in the level of coverage. He is looking at 
``a large increase in my

[[Page S8748]]

responsible portion of my medical bills.''
  ObamaCare is far from ideal for those in the workplace, those looking 
to retire, and for new families.
  With story after story like these, we clearly see that the Affordable 
Care Act is a misnomer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of 
nearly 7,000 Nebraskans who have contacted my office with concerns 
about ObamaCare. The sticker shock has hit Nebraskans hard.
  A woman from Palmyra writes:

       This is the first time I have ever written my Senators. We 
     just received our insurance letter telling us that they no 
     longer would have our health insurance policy and the closest 
     policy under the ACA would up our monthly premium from 
     $590.14 to $932.24 for our family of 6. How is this 
     affordable?

  A constituent from Holdrege writes:

       I cannot believe the letter I got from Blue Cross today. It 
     informs me that I have to switch my coverage, and my new 
     selected plan will cost me $1,116.74, per month. That's a 
     $571.58 per month increase than what I have now. That's 
     almost double my mortgage payment.
       Also, why am I forced to carry coverage that I don't need 
     or want? At 58, my wife and I are not going to have any more 
     kids. I don't believe I'm going to qualify for any government 
     subsidies. Our planned budget includes our current health 
     care policy. There is no way we can afford the suggested new 
     policies.

  This law is anything but affordable.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I join my colleagues as one who has 
received tweets and hits on the Web site, emails, phone calls ringing 
the phone off the hook, written letters, responses that I hear as I 
talk to people back in Indiana. These are not Republicans, Democrats, 
liberals, conservatives; they are all of the above. They are not 
writing to say: Stand with the Republican Party. Stand with this. Stand 
with that. They are writing to say: Wait a minute. The President 
promised that we would not have an increase in our premiums. He 
promised that if we liked our doctor, we could keep our doctor. He 
promised this would be affordable.
  Tell that to Deborah from Logansport, who said that her increases in 
premiums will strain an already strained budget. I think she speaks for 
millions of Americans, tens of millions of Americans--a lot of 
Hoosiers, that is for sure.
  Doug, a small business owner from Bloomington, told me that he 
expects his company health insurance to increase over 30 percent next 
year and, he said, ``this will preclude me from providing wage raises 
to our employees and will make hiring additional employees much less 
attractive, if not impossible.''
  The President promised a lot. The worst thing you can do to your 
constituents, the people you represent, the people who put their trust 
in you, is overpromise and underperform. This could be the biggest gap 
between overpromising and underperforming of anything any President has 
said in the history of the United States. And he punctuated his 
statements with ``period,'' meaning ``take it to the bank. Count on it. 
Trust me. Your premiums won't increase.'' It is sad.
  It is sad, but it can be corrected. We can work. We can repeal this 
now. We can work together on a bipartisan basis. We can fashion a 
reasonable, affordable solution to providing Americans who are 
uninsured with insurance, creating the kinds of products through an 
open market system, a competitive system that will deal with this 
problem. We do not have to keep swallowing this so-called Affordable 
Care Act. It simply will not go down.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Mr. President, last night I read a number 
of emails we received of the hundreds we received from constituents in 
Wisconsin specifically talking about the problems they have had in 
losing their coverage and certainly finding this law not being 
affordable.
  They use words like ``scared,'' ``begging for help,'' feeling they 
were just collateral damage in this scheme that simply is not 
protecting patients or offering affordable care. They cannot fathom 
that this is actually happening to them because they knew it was not 
supposed to.
  Today I rise to read an email received from Steve Walrath from 
Beloit. Steve writes: I am 54 years old, in good health and no prior 
conditions. I just received my health insurance renewal bill. I used to 
have affordable and user-friendly health care that cost about $290 a 
month with no copay. According to my renewal letter from Dean health 
care, my choices are now $854 a month with a 10-percent copay, up to 
$1,315 a month with a zero-percent copay.
  Let me put that in perspective. He was paying $290 a month with no 
copay, so if he wants a similar plan he will now experience a 440-
percent increase, up to $1,315. If he wants to pay a 10-percent copay, 
it will be a 285-percent increase. This was not supposed to happen. 
This is not what President Obama promised the American people, the 
citizens of Wisconsin.
  Steve goes on to write:

       Where is the promise of reduced insurance rates under the 
     Affordable Care Act? What choices do you want me to make 
     after January 1? Dental care or health insurance? An 
     occasional night out or health care? Helping my kids get 
     settled into home ownership or health care? What choice do 
     you want me to make? This increase of over 300 percent is a 
     betrayal of the laws you passed and promises you made. 
     ``Can't be denied coverage'' doesn't mean we can afford it. 
     Not when it's more than my mortgage payment. Which of the 
     above choices do you want me to make after January 1?

  That is just the sad fact. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care 
Act is not protecting patients, it is not providing affordable care, 
and it is not about choice. It is about coercion, and I am asking the 
President of the United States and I am asking our Democratic 
colleagues here in the Senate and the House to work with Republicans to 
start limiting the damage, to start repairing the harm that is being 
caused to citizens of Wisconsin and America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, in Utah I have a program that I call the 
Mobile Office. It is a way for many of my constituents, many of whom 
live some distance from my two offices in the State, to meet with 
members of my staff in order to discuss various concerns they have with 
the Federal Government, concerns that arise from their interaction with 
any of various Federal programs and agencies. It allows us to help 
these constituents, and it provides vital information that I can use to 
better represent them back here in Washington.
  At one meeting in Davis County, a man attended who wanted to tell us 
about his experience with ObamaCare. He owns two small food stores and 
a 7-Eleven. He is also an immigrant, having come to the United States 
just 12 years ago to seek a better life for himself and for his family. 
He gives back to his community. He contributes to his economy and 
provides jobs for people who live in his town. Now ObamaCare is 
threatening all of that. His insurance premiums for his family are 
going to be rising by $200 a month. This cost will destabilize his 
personal finances and may well force him to make cutbacks or to let 
some of his employees go.
  These are the real human costs of ObamaCare. It is not what the 
President promised, and it is turning out to be an absolute, 
unmitigated disaster for families all across this country. It is time 
to start over and develop a health care system that works for everyone.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, the Affordable Care Act promised 
accessibility, affordability, and choice. As we heard from the stories 
told here tonight, it delivered on none of the above.
  I join Senator Lee, Senator Johnson, and the others to call on 
Congress to come together. Let's fix this flawed program before it is 
too late and before we destroy health care in the United States of 
America.
  I get constant communication from my State about the problems that 
are there. This one that I want to read from Beth Hatfield demonstrates 
the fear, confusion, and lack of accessibility the health care plan has 
at this time.

       I have tried many times over the past few weeks to purchase 
     a health insurance plan

[[Page S8749]]

     for myself on the healthcare Web site. I finally was able to 
     complete an application, but have not been able to choose a 
     plan yet. Twice I asked questions on the ``live chat'' 
     option, but they were not able to answer my questions, 
     instead they [told me to make a long distance call to the 
     help desk. I did, but I couldn't get an answer there either]. 
     I was disappointed to find out that in order to ``compare 
     plans'' you first needed to enroll. In what other shopping 
     experience do you have to sign up before you actually shop?
       Now I saw on the news that my personal information may be 
     compromised from the Web site. This makes me angry, 
     especially since it seems they knew all along [this problem 
     existed].
       Is anyone going to be able to do anything about protecting 
     my information? I need health insurance. I am not working and 
     my COBRA policy is expensive [and runs out soon].
       I need someone to help me, and I need them to help me now.
       Thank you for the opportunity to be heard.

  I yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I just found out PolitiFact, which is a 
group who takes a look at what politicians say each year, just came out 
with what they are describing as the ``Lie of the Year.'' PolitiFact, 
``Lie of the Year.'' It is none other than that of President Barack 
Obama, ``If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,'' called 
by PolitiFact the ``Lie of the Year.''
  It is not surprising that those of us from around the country are 
getting letters, emails, and calls from folks at home who are finding 
out they cannot keep it. They listened to the President, they believed 
the President, who has now had his statement listed as being the ``Lie 
of the Year.''
  I have a letter from Cody, WY, from a man who said:

       Just got a quote from my insurance agent on a Obama care 
     insurance. From $860 that I currently spend per month for my 
     family of 4, to $2,400 per month.

  He said:

       All with the low deductible of $10,000 per person per year. 
     I'm not sure what planet they think I live on, but there is 
     no way I can spend more than \1/2\ of my monthly income on 
     insurance. For the first time in my adult life I will soon be 
     without insurance. What does it matter if my two 18-year-old 
     children can stay on an insurance plan if I can't afford to 
     keep one? Also, all the airtime to preexisting conditions is 
     meaningless if I can't afford to keep a plan.
       I feel greatly blessed to have the good paying job that I 
     have. It puts me above the pay level that would allow me to 
     get any subsidies. By the way, with the system in place this 
     year I wouldn't have needed subsidies.

  Because he was paying something he could afford.

       I have never needed them in the past and would like to 
     continue to never get a hand out from my government.

  This is what I expect to hear from the people of Wyoming--not looking 
for a handout from the government and able to take care of themselves. 
They are rugged individuals.
  What this constituent has gotten from a Presidential promise turns 
out to be the lie of the year. He sees an increase in his health 
insurance from $860 a month to over $2,000 a month.
  He said:

       I employ 35 people with my company. When we first opened 
     about a year and \1/2\ ago we were talking about getting some 
     sort of coverage. It became very clear that we will not be 
     able to do this, and have stopped any of our plans to provide 
     this in the future. We also know for sure that we can not 
     afford to ever employ more than 50 people, so as we continue 
     to grow, there is an upward limit on how many people we will 
     hire.

  Here is an individual who has a business and has hired 35 people. He 
is not going to provide insurance because the costs are too high. He 
says that he is never going to have more than 50 employees. The 
opportunities may be there--wanting to put people back to work--but, 
no, there is a cap at 50. Why? Because of the health care law that has 
been forced down the throats of the American people. It was voted along 
party lines by Democrats in the House and in the Senate. So here we 
are, hurting the economy and hurting people's health.
  He goes on:

       Simple economics, Obamacare is a job killer in Wyoming.

  ObamaCare is a job killer not just in Wyoming but all across the 
country.
  He said:

       It has never been easy to be in business, that is part of 
     the fun of being successful. It is discouraging when our 
     federal government limits the American dream for everyone.
       I am thankful for your efforts, but from my chair in Cody, 
     it is already too late.

  A failed Web site is just the tip of the iceberg. Web sites can be 
fixed, but what can't be fixed is the destruction this health care law 
is doing to the health of America in terms of canceled policies. We now 
have over 5 million policies that have been canceled across the 
country. Five million people have letters saying: We are sorry, but 
your policy is canceled. Why? Maybe they didn't have the type of 
insurance the President deemed good enough for them.
  I received a letter from a lady who lives in Newcastle, WY. She is a 
rancher. I talked to her at our Farm Bureau meeting in Wyoming. She 
said: I lost my insurance because the President didn't deem my policy 
good enough because it didn't include maternity coverage. She knows me 
and knows I am a doctor. She said: Doc, I had a hysterectomy; I don't 
need maternity coverage. She knows whether she needs maternity 
coverage. The President of the United States doesn't have a clue. Yet 
he is the one who determines what kind of coverage she needs because it 
is the President who decided that he will be the one who will decide 
what the American people need, not them. She knew what worked for her 
and her family and what they could afford as far as a deductible.
  There are people across my State who have absolute levels of anger 
and anxiety, and it is reflected in the letters I continue to get.
  The front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal talked about the 
amount of deductibles. The deductibles in the bronze policy are the 
cheapest and average over $5,000 per person. A husband and wife will 
have a $10,000 deductible before they even get to the insurance. Yet 
they have to buy expensive insurance with these huge deductibles in 
order to comply with the individual mandate the Democrats have forced 
on the American people, that you have to buy it whether you call it a 
fee, a fine, or a charge. Call it what you will--a tax.
  So we have the fact that the costs are too high and, of course, the 
deductibles.
  I am going to continue to come back. I will be back later this 
evening with more letters, but I appreciate your attention.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I commend the Senate for confirming Judge 
Patricia M. Wald to be a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties 
Oversight Board, ``PCLOB''. The Senate previously confirmed Judge Wald 
to this post on August 2, 2012. The President renominated Judge Wald to 
this position in March, and the Judiciary Committee favorably reported 
the nomination without objection months ago. Like many other nominees, 
her confirmation has been held up on the floor for months by Senate 
Republicans.
  During her tenure on this important oversight board, Judge Wald has 
served with great professionalism and dedication. And last month, she 
received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor 
that the President can bestow.
  For the past several months, our Nation has been engaged in a 
national debate about the ever-growing need for limits on the 
government's surveillance powers. The House and the Senate are 
considering bipartisan legislation to rein in those expansive powers, 
in an effort to better protect Americans' privacy and to increase 
transparency and oversight. The PCLOB is also expected to issue an 
important report on the government's surveillance programs to the 
President and Congress.
  Today's confirmation vote will ensure that the Privacy and Civil 
Liberties Oversight Board remains at full strength as the board 
continues this work to safeguard our constitutional rights. Democrats, 
Independents, and Republicans alike have supported the work of this 
non-partisan board. I commend the Senate for confirming this well 
qualified nominee, so that the PCLOB can continue to carry out its 
important responsibilities.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All postcloture time has expired.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination 
of Patricia M. Wald, of the District of Columbia, to be a Member of the 
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board for a term expiring January 
29, 2019?

[[Page S8750]]

  On this question, the yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk 
will call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. 
Kirk).
  The result was announced--yeas 57, nays 41, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 264 Ex.]

                                YEAS--57

     Baldwin
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--41

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Enzi
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Paul
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Inhofe
     Kirk
       
  The nomination was confirmed.

                          ____________________