[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 31 (Tuesday, February 25, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1014-S1016]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HEALTH CARE
Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, last Friday we heard that the health care
law is scheduled to deliver yet another blow to Americans. The
administration released a proposal that would significantly cut
Medicare Advantage.
Medicare Advantage is a very well-received program. It offers private
plan options for seniors on Medicare. Nearly 30 percent of Medicare
beneficiaries voluntarily choose to enroll in Medicare Advantage
because it offers extra benefits, it offers lower costs, more
flexibility, and better care coordination than the traditional Medicare
program.
This program, Medicare Advantage, has been very well received in the
State of Nebraska. About 35,000 Nebraskans are enrolled in Medicare
Advantage.
An analysis notes that further cuts to Medicare Advantage would
``disproportionately affect beneficiaries with low incomes, including
the 41 percent of enrollees with incomes below $20,000.''
This announcement is absolutely no surprise; the health care law has
siphoned over $700 billion from Medicare--not to strengthen the program
but to pay for ObamaCare; $308 billion of those cuts come from Medicare
Advantage, again disproportionately affecting beneficiaries with low
incomes, including 41 percent who are trying to live on incomes below
$20,000.
The reality is these cuts will likely mean fewer benefits and higher
out-of-pocket costs for seniors who can't afford that. Plans could drop
out of the market all together or seniors could find out that their
trusted doctor will no longer be covered by their plan. We have already
started to see the consequences.
Since the passage of ObamaCare, the number of Medicare Advantage
plans available to seniors has not been strengthened. In fact, they
have been reduced from 48 in 2009 to now 20.
In rural areas, seniors have fewer choices. The plans available have
dropped from 36 to 13, according to a Kaiser analysis.
Another study estimates about 526,000 of current 2013 Medicare
Advantage enrollees will have to make some changes because their plan
is not available in 2014.
How do these consequences match up with the President's promises?
Well, they don't. The President spoke about Medicare, and he said:
``Don't worry; I am not going to touch it''--or his promise: If you
like your plan, you can keep it, which an independent fact checker has
called the lie of the year.
The Medicare Advantage issues unraveling today are symbolic of the
broader problems with the law. The math doesn't add up, and the
promises aren't kept. Nearly every week it seems the authors and
supporters of this law are trying to bury their past. They are trying
to create hollow promises. They are trying to get around misleading
statements and hide behind a new position, at least until the November
elections are over.
It is remarkable that they are perfectly willing to evade the key
pillars of this law. The law's employer mandate has been ignored and
delayed. Mandated plan benefits aren't required for another year, and
deadlines are conveniently rescheduled--to when? Until after the
election.
This time around 19 Democratic Senators have joined a number of
Republicans in writing the Medicare administrator saying the
administration's Medicare Advantage cuts ``create disruption and
confusion'' and ``inhibit plans from driving the innovation that has
resulted in better care and improved outcomes for Medicare
beneficiaries.''
What is so contradictory is that these same individuals voted against
amendments offered by Senator Hatch, twice, during the health care law
debate that would have struck ObamaCare's Medicare Advantage cuts. They
twice voted against that.
Understanding the consequences of these Medicare Advantage cuts
before the law was passed would seem like the responsible course of
action. But rejecting these amendments, voting for a bill that cuts
over $300 billion for Medicare Advantage, then backpedaling when the
politics get tough, and when the cuts become real to everyday
folks, apparently, they were for the cuts before they were against the
cuts.
It is even more frustrating when you consider that recent efforts to
dodge these cuts are only part of the story. For the past few years,
the Obama administration has been pumping money back into Medicare
Advantage under the guise of a so-called demonstration program that the
Government Accountability Office says they probably don't even have the
authority to run. GAO asserted that HHS should terminate the
demonstration program, but the administration flat-out ignored that.
The real purpose of the $8 billion program was to effectively mask
the health care law's significant cuts to Medicare Advantage until
when? After the November election. It is just another example of the
administration's hiding their poor decisions and then rewriting the law
as they see fit. But as this new Medicare notice clearly shows, this
phony demonstration project is about to run out and our senior citizens
are truly caught.
Our taxpayers deserve a government that is held accountable for its
actions. Americans are tired of temporary fixes and lip service. They
are rightfully demanding the truth. It is time for my friends across
the aisle to own up to the devastating consequences of this law and
acknowledge it is time to repeal it.
During the debate, Republicans also supported an amendment to ensure
Medicare savings were invested back into Medicare, not used to back
ObamaCare. Remarkably, nearly everyone on the Democratic side of the
aisle rejected that idea. Republicans are still committed to that
principle, and we stand ready to work on ensuring the Medicare Program
is accessible, that it is flexible, and that it is cost-efficient for
seniors today and for our grandchildren in the decades to come.
Taking money out of Medicare to finance ObamaCare was wrong and it
needs to stop. That is a promise worth delivering on.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schatz). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss the
pain ObamaCare continues to inflict on Americans. It seems like every
week brings more ObamaCare bad news for somebody--families, businesses,
middle-income Americans, lower income Americans. This past week the bad
news was for seniors.
On Friday the Obama administration announced its planned 2015 cuts to
Medicare Advantage--cuts that were dictated by ObamaCare and will
result in higher prices and fewer choices for millions of American
seniors. More than 15 million seniors--close to 30 percent of all
Medicare recipients--are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans. The Wall
Street Journal reports that approximately one out of every two new
Medicare enrollees chooses Medicare Advantage.
Medicare Advantage offers seniors a chance to pick a plan that is
right for them instead of a one-size-fits-all approach. Advantage plans
also frequently offer important health supplements, such as dental,
vision, hearing, and wellness benefits, as well as smaller copays or
deductibles. Studies also show that Medicare Advantage Program
enrollees receive better care and experience better health outcomes
than seniors enrolled in traditional fee-for-service Medicare.
Despite the benefits these plans offer to seniors, Democrats and the
President supported Medicare Advantage cuts in the President's health
care law. In 2010, the President and Democrats paid--or I should say
tried to pay--for ObamaCare by, among other things, cutting more than
$700 billion from Medicare--already, I might add, on its way to
bankruptcy--to pay for yet a new entitlement for nonseniors. More than
$300 billion of those cuts were targeted specifically at the Medicare
Advantage Program.
[[Page S1015]]
Those cuts are kicking in this year, hitting Medicare Advantage
beneficiaries with cost increases and benefit cuts of up to $70 per
month--no small amount for a senior on a fixed income. Friday's
announcement of further steep cuts for 2015 could mean up to an
additional $75 per month in increased cost next year.
But that is not all. Cost hikes are bad enough, but this year's cuts
and the 2015 cuts announced Friday will result in a host of other
problems for seniors who participate in Medicare Advantage. First and
foremost, some seniors will lose their plans entirely as a result of
ObamaCare's cuts, breaking the President's promise that if you like
your plan you can keep it.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that more than one-half
million seniors will lose their current plans in 2014. If the 2015 cuts
go into effect, even more seniors will lose their plans next year.
Seniors will also have fewer plan choices as a result of ObamaCare's
raiding Medicare Advantage to pay for a new health care entitlement
program. If next year's cuts go into effect, we can expect to see even
more reductions.
These higher costs and reductions in available Medicare Advantage
plans will disproportionately impact low-income seniors in rural areas,
areas such as those I represent in South Dakota. Forty-one percent of
those seniors in Medicare Advantage plans have annual incomes of less
than $20,000 and are least able to bear the higher costs forced on them
by ObamaCare. Yet it is precisely those seniors who are bearing the
greatest burden when it comes to paying for ObamaCare.
On top of that, reports indicate that plans are responding to the
cuts by reducing their footprint in rural markets, giving these seniors
fewer options when it comes to choosing a health care plan.
Finally, similar to so many other Americans suffering under
ObamaCare, seniors on a Medicare Advantage plan may no longer be able
to keep the doctors they have and like thanks to these cuts. Between
Medicare cuts and the new ObamaCare tax insurance companies are facing
this year, companies are scrambling for ways to be able to afford to
continue their plans. Frequently their only option is to narrow their
networks of doctors and hospitals or raise their copayments and
deductibles, thus reducing seniors' choices and increasing their health
care costs.
Republicans have long touted the quality care and patient choice
offered by Medicare Advantage plans. When the health care bill was
being considered in 2010, we warned at the time that Medicare cuts
being proposed in the bill would hurt seniors, damage Medicare
Advantage, and weaken a program already hastening toward bankruptcy.
Despite this, Democrats not only supported the health care bill, they
also voted twice against measures to repeal the law's cuts to Medicare
Advantage.
Now it seems many Democrats have changed their minds. Earlier this
month, 19 Democratic Senators, most of whom voted for ObamaCare in
2010, joined a number of Republicans in sending a letter to Marilyn
Tavenner, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services, urging her not to cut Medicare Advantage. Let's hope it is
not too little too late.
Democrats' support for the Medicare Advantage letter to the CMS
Administrator reflects their increasing unease with their support for
ObamaCare. Once they planned to tout ObamaCare to voters as a
legislative triumph, but Democrats up for reelection now can't run away
from the law fast enough.
In fact, the President has repeatedly delayed parts of the health
care law to give Democrats political cover. Each delay is a tacit
admission that, yes, this law will hurt jobs and the economy because,
after all, if this law is not going to hurt jobs and the economy, why
do we have to continually delay it? The latest number is somewhere in
the twenties. I have heard 24, 27, and 28 different delays of the
harmful effects and impacts of ObamaCare.
If the health care law is the panacea the American people were
promised, Democrats and the President would be working to implement the
law faster, not slow it down.
The only possible reason to delay the law is because its
implementation is going to hurt. It is a little awkward when your
signature legislation has to be repeatedly delayed to give the folks
who voted for it a better chance of keeping their jobs.
Unfortunately, the President doesn't seem to have learned his lesson.
Not content with the damage his health care law is doing to an already
struggling economy--a recent CBO report warned that the health care law
may result in up to 2.5 million fewer full-time workers--he continues
to push policies that will further weaken an already sluggish economy,
such as a minimum wage bill that CBO reports would result in up to 1
million fewer jobs.
At a time when our labor force participation rate is at Jimmy Carter-
era lows, a law that would further reduce the number of full-time
workers is one of the worst possible things we could do for our
economy. People working produces economic growth. The fewer people
working, the less likely we are to produce the kind of growth we need
to pull our economy out of the slump it has been in throughout the
President's administration. What we need right now are policies that
will create jobs and encourage businesses to expand and invest in our
economy and in our workers.
If the President were really serious about reversing the economic
stagnation of the past 5 years, he wouldn't be pushing his health care
bill or a minimum wage hike. Instead, he would be calling the Senate
majority leader and urging him to take up and pass trade promotion
authority, which will create thousands of jobs for American workers. He
would sign off on the Keystone Pipeline and the 42,000-plus jobs it
would support. He would join bipartisan majorities in both Houses of
Congress to support a repeal of the job-destroying medical device tax
in his health care law, a tax that has already cost more than 33,000
jobs.
American families and workers are hurting. They have been hit hard by
ObamaCare and the Obama economy. It is time for the President to give
them some help.
I would argue there are bipartisan issues out there. The trade
promotion authority, repealing the medical device tax, and the Keystone
Pipeline have broad bipartisan majorities here in the Senate. We had a
vote a year ago on the budget on repealing the medical device tax, and
79 Senators, including 30 Democrats, voted for that. The last time we
had a vote here on the Keystone Pipeline, 62 voted in support of it,
again representing broad bipartisan support for that initiative. We
know the trade promotion authority is something that enjoys support
from both Republicans and Democrats. All of these initiatives enjoy
broad bipartisan support and are known job creators. Those are the
types of things we ought to be focused on, not things that, according
to the Congressional Budget Office, are going to cost more jobs.
Implementation of ObamaCare, according to the CBO report a couple
weeks ago, will reduce the number of workers in this country by 2.5
million over the next decade. It also said it would reduce overall
wages by about 1 percent. So that is fewer jobs and lower take-home
pay.
Last week we had the report come out from the Congressional Budget
Office that raising the minimum wage could cost up to 1 million jobs at
the same time it is raising prices. So the very people we are trying to
help are going to have fewer jobs and higher costs. How does that solve
the problems our economy faces? How does that get people in this
country back to work? How does that grow and expand our economy in a
way that creates greater opportunity for middle-class families?
There are things we can do on which there is broad bipartisan support
that are known job creators, that are known to expand and grow our
economy. I would add to that list as well reforming our Tax Code. We
have lost so much in terms of economic growth in the past few years
since the recession and coming out of that recession because we have
had subpar growth. We haven't seen the type of growth rates we normally
see and experience coming out of a recession during a recovery. As a
consequence, we have much larger deficits because when the economy is
growing at a sluggish, anemic, slow rate, it means there are fewer
people working, fewer people investing, fewer
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people making money, and therefore fewer people paying taxes. We need
the opposite. We need a growing, expanding, vibrant, dynamic economy
fueled by policies in Washington, DC, that make it less expensive and
less difficult to create jobs rather than more expensive and more
difficult, which is what we see coming out of the Obama administration
and the Democratic majority here in the Senate.
We can do better. We must do better for the American people, for
middle-class families who have been hit hard by the effects and the
impacts of this economy with fewer jobs, lower take-home pay, higher
premiums, higher deductibles, and fewer choices of doctors and
hospitals under ObamaCare. These policies are hurting the American
people. We need to put policies in place that will help the American
people by growing our economy and creating more jobs for middle-class
Americans.
I yield the floor.
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