[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 48 (Monday, March 23, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H1842-H1845]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
OBAMACARE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. McSally). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, well, here we are, the fifth anniversary
of--well, at least this weekend--what many affectionately or
disaffectionately call ObamaCare.
It is kind of hard to call it the Affordable Care Act because we--
many of us--know exactly how much jeopardy it has put finances for
people all over the country. There are some people that are getting
back enough in subsidies that they like it.
It is important, I think, as a great followup to my friend from
Georgia talking about the budget, to follow up and look at the
predictions that were made 5 years ago about the bill that passed
without a single Republican
[[Page H1843]]
vote because we had done our homework.
I did read the bill before I voted against it. I didn't have time to
enmesh all of the references, the other bills that were referenced in
the changes that would be made in those bills, but I could certainly
tell from what was there, what I was reading in the about 2,500-page
bill, that it was going to be a disaster for health care.
{time} 2030
In any event, here is an article from Sam Baker, ``5 Years In, 5
Busted Predictions About Obamacare,'' March 22, 2015:
When President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into
law 5 years ago, many Republicans essentially predicted it
would grow up to be a serial killer--that seniors, Medicare,
private insurance companies, jobs, and the American Dream
would die by its hand.
It has turned out to be far more well adjusted.
On the other hand, many Democrats thought the law would
quickly make it through its awkward phase and turn into the
most popular kid in school--liked by most, respected by all,
a sophisticated winner, possessed of all the latest
technology but also with unassailable principles.
It has turned out to be a much bigger screwup.
I might add parenthetically here--into the article--that, actually,
there were Republicans like me that knew that it was not going to die.
We knew that it was going to shrivel up the number of insurance
companies, as it has.
We knew that Medicare was going to take a hit because ObamaCare cut
$716 billion from seniors' health care, and even though the President
and all the king's horses and all the king's men were promising that,
Gee, that $716 billion in cuts to Medicare, it is not going to affect
you seniors, they were told. No, no, that is only going to affect the
health care providers.
Well, I don't know about the rest of the country, but the seniors I
talked to around Texas figured out, Wait a minute, if you are not going
to reimburse the people that provide us health care, we are going to
have a hard time getting health care. They figured it out. That is
exactly what has happened.
Mr. Baker, talking about, I guess, the worst of the projection by
Republicans--were not what I projected, but there are people that have
not gotten the care they need. They have been put in dire physical
straits because of ObamaCare. Some have lost their insurance. I had
insurance before. I liked my insurance. I liked my doctors. ObamaCare
changed all of that.
This article, though, says, ``Say what you will about Obamacare, but
if nothing else, it's a survivor.'' That is the point, Madam Speaker,
that is important to note; any kind of socialized medicine is always a
survivor.
Some were saying, Oh, we don't have to worry about ObamaCare. It will
go broke. It will die of its own accord--no, that is what happens to
socialism.
But socialized health care, socialized medicine in any form--even in
this beginning stage, as the President has once said on video, that he
wanted a single payer--in other words, total socialized medicine, where
the government gets to tell everybody what they get and pay for it and
so people get rationed health care, is what it amounts to.
Socialism dies of its own accord. As Margaret Thatcher once said, it
eventually runs out of other people's money. Socialized medicine in any
form does not die of its own volition. It doesn't happen because what
happens when you are dealing with government-run health care, it
doesn't die of its own accord, no.
What happens is people have more and more health care rationed. More
and more people have health care they don't get because they are put in
line, like the young man from Canada in my district that said his
father died of a heart attack because he had been on the list in Canada
for 2 years and he never got the bypass he needed.
Until ObamaCare came along, basically, if you needed bypass surgery--
whether it was in east Texas or elsewhere--if you needed it now, you
were going to get it now; but over time, as the government takes over
health care, now, you get on a list, like my constituent's father was
put on a list.
I said: 2 years, that is incredible.
He said: Well, yes, people kept getting moved in front of him.
I said: Well, my understanding was that it was a crime to do anything
to get yourself moved up the list.
He said: Well, that is true, but there is a board, a group that
decides who gets moved up the list in priority.
They kept moving people in front of his father until he died.
Anyway, some critics of this article said they didn't even think they
would need to kill it, just that they could help it along. The law's
opponents argued for years that the law would never work, predictions
that reached new intensity when www.healthcare.gov launched in 2013.
That is not true of all of us. Some of us knew it would not die of
its own accord. We knew that it is like any government-run health care.
You just ration it, and people get less of it.
There is a board--whether anybody wants to acknowledge that Sarah
Palin had a great point, she did. Whether you want to call it a death
panel or not, it is a panel that will get to decide the parameters for
people getting, you know, pacemakers.
One of my staff had a parent who was told the year before ObamaCare
kicked in that he could get a pacemaker; after it kicked in, he
couldn't get a pacemaker. Well, that is the power of the government to
tell you who lives, who dies.
ObamaCare is not going to die of its own accord. People may die
because of the new healthcare laws and the decisions of the death
panel--or whatever you want to call the IPAB--but they will make
decisions that will affect people's ability to live.
Anyway, the article further down talks about the prediction that it
would get popular:
``I think as people learn about the bill and now that the
bill is enacted, it's going to become more and more
popular,'' Senator Chuck Schumer said in 2010, just a few
days after Obama signed the law. ``I predict...by November,
those who voted for health care will find it an asset; those
who voted against it will find it a liability.''
Schumer was hardly the only one expressing this optimism.
The process of getting ObamaCare passed was brutal for
Democrats, but many in the party truly thought the heat would
die down between 2010 and 2014 when the law's central
provisions kicked in.
The debate got to a point where there was no way to win the
rhetorical wars over health care, so Democrats' plan was
largely to get it done, wait it out, and hope people warmed
up to the law once it transitioned from a political
abstraction to a set of real-world policies, most of which
are pretty boring.
It didn't work.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has been measuring public
approval of the healthcare law every month since it was
signed, and the bottom line has stayed the same: people are
closely divided over the law and lean against it.
This month, Kaiser's poll found 43 percent disapproval for
the law, compared to 41 percent approval, which is within a
few points of most months. There have been a few blips, where
approval topped disapproval or where one side cleared 50
percent, but they never lasted.
Anyway, the article goes on. I will skip down to the part, ``If you
like your plan, you can keep it.'' It says:
Obama made some predictions he probably shouldn't have,
including his promise that people wouldn't lose their
coverage because of ObamaCare. For starters, policies sold
in the individual insurance market were largely 1-year
contracts before the Affordable Care Act. In other words,
there was never a guarantee that consumers could keep
their same policies.
Moreover, though, ObamaCare did cause insurers to cancel
millions of individual policies, and it wasn't an accident or
a side effect. The law set new standards for policies in the
individual market. They have to cover a set of ``essential''
benefits, for example, and can't impose an annual or lifetime
caps on benefits.
A lot of plans that existed before ObamaCare didn't meet
those criteria, hence, passing a law to make them. Those
policies could technically seek ``grandfathered'' status, but
it was hard to get. They could barely make any changes in
their plan designs without losing that status. And it was
hard for a reason: the law set new standards for insurance,
and it wanted to shift people into plans that met those
standards.
All of this was entirely foreseeable in 2010 and was even
spelled out in subsequent regulations. The political uproar
might not have been as bad if www.healthcare.gov had been
working when people started to receive their cancelation
notices.
Well, I would submit that it would have been as bad because there
were a lot of lies about ObamaCare. Yes, there were some dire
predictions, but I knew that ObamaCare was not going to die of its own
volition because, when government controls health care, it doesn't.
[[Page H1844]]
As an exchange student in the Soviet Union, when I saw their poor,
pitiful health care system in the Soviet Union, I was literally
thanking God that we had the health system we did in America.
My family didn't even have anything like insurance at the time
growing up in east Texas. It was just that we knew that we had good
doctors. We had a good system. If you got in a bind, you hoped and
prayed neighbors would help out.
Then that is where insurance came along, that you could pay a very
small monthly, quarterly, semiannually, annual premium to insure
against something unforeseeable so that you could take care of the
small things; but once the government gets into something, it doesn't
work so well. The more government gets into it, the worse it is.
If we don't turn this thing around and get some free market
competition back in place in health care, allow people to have their
own relationship with their own doctor of their own choosing, where
people can actually compare the prices and decide if this doctor or
this hospital is worth it--one may cost more, one may cost less, but
you compare the pros and cons. That is what competition is about. We
haven't had it in health care in many, many years. Why? Because the
government got involved.
Now, we do need a safety net, and that is a good thing. That is what
caring people do, but when the government takes over everything, as
ObamaCare will undoubtedly eventually do--why? Because if they get to
dictate health care, then they are going to get to dictate your life.
An article from John Nolte today points out, number one, ``Premiums
are 24.4 percent higher than they would have been without ObamaCare.''
I guess this comes from the New York Daily News: ``'In the Obama
administration,' candidate Obama boasted in 2008, 'we'll lower premiums
by up to $2,500 for a typical family in a year.'''
This article says, ``Not quite. A recent report from the National
Bureau of Economic Research examined the nongroup marketplace, where
families and individuals who don't get coverage through work shop for
insurance. The report concluded that 2014 premiums were 24.4 percent
higher than they would have been without ObamaCare.''
Completely wrong--ObamaCare sent the price of insurance dramatically
up.
Madam Speaker, I have people ask regularly: Why is my health
insurance so much more? My deductible is so high. I will never have
enough money to pay my deductible, and I have got a copay on top of
that. I don't have as much covered as I did before with my other
policy. I don't get to choose my doctor--or the doctor I had before
that I liked, I didn't get to keep him. So why is it costing so much
more?
Well, the answer is very easily given. You are paying for lots more
IRS agents. We knew when ObamaCare passed that there would be 17,000,
18,000 new IRS agents that you would have to pay for.
{time} 2045
They are not going to ever help you with a head injury or a skinned
knee, nothing. No. No. They are going to come after you. They are going
to give you stomachaches and headaches. They are not going to help you
with health care. And what about all these navigators? They are never
going to help you with a knee injury or a backache. No. They are going
to give you backaches because they are going to make it harder and
harder to figure out what to do, even though they say, oh, they are
there to help you. When the government workers say they are there to
help you, you grab your wallet and run for the door.
But you are paying for so many more government workers who will end
up being government union workers, and you have to help pay the union
wages. We always apparently do that, paying for part of the costs of
the union. That is because Republicans are real good at allowing
Democrats to have laws that help fund their campaigns. They have done
it for years. Mallory Factor has a good book out called
``Shadowbosses'' that explains the concept.
Well, here is another point from John Nolte's article, number 2,
``Less Choice for Patients: From 1,232 Private Market Insurers to
310.'' Rather dramatic, but that was very foreseeable. Many of us
talked about it. We knew that this would eliminate many of the
insurance companies. It would eliminate so much choice. The same way
Dodd-Frank promises, gee, we are going to fix the banking industry. No,
you are going to make it hard for small banks to compete; and the big
banks chew them up, absorb them when they can't make it, and then you
have fewer choices. That is what ObamaCare is doing.
This article says: ``Prior to ObamaCare, the individual assurance
market (non-group, non-employer) offered a wealth of choices in health
care options. ObamaCare has devastated that market, and with it the
quality of health care. Keep in mind, the cost of premiums and
deductibles have increased as choice and competition collapsed.''
``Patients may also have fewer doctors to pick from. More than 60
percent of doctors plan to retire earlier than anticipated--by 2016 or
sooner, according to Deloitte. The Physicians Foundation reported in
the fall that nearly half of the 20,000 doctors who responded to their
survey--especially those with more experience--considered ObamaCare's
reforms a failure.''
Number 3, ``Deficit Exploded to $1.2 Trillion with a `T'.''
``Forget the original lies that ObamaCare would be a deficit neutral,
or even cut the deficit. The ObamaCare deficit is now in the
trillions.''
``This month, CBO estimated the law's 10-year costs will reach $1.2
trillion--a far cry from the President's initial promise of $940
billion.''
Well, I have to point out, actually, in fairness to CBO, the
Congressional Budget Office originally predicted it would be over $1
trillion; but since the President promised it would be less than $1
trillion, the Director of CBO was called to the White House and,
magically, after he went back, he reformulated things. I know this
offends him, but it is still the truth. It is what happened. He went
back, recalculated, and it was less than $1 trillion. The President
said: See, there, I told you it would be less than $1 trillion. Then it
passes, and then we found out, oh, do you know what? It really is more
than $1 trillion. How about that?
That is why I think CBO needs competition, and the best thing that
could happen is if we started encouraging and even gave rewards to any
entity, whether it is universities or private groups that begin scoring
bills, if they get within a certain margin. If a bill passes, if they
get within a certain margin, it would sure beat the heck out of CBO,
and then you pay them. We need competition scoring bills so that we
don't have the disasters we had had in the predictions of the cost of
ObamaCare.
Number 4, ``Media and Government Lying About ObamaCare Expanding
Coverage to Millions.''
``You keep hearing about how ObamaCare is covering millions, when it
really isn't. A huge majority of those in the White House and its media
throne-sniffers are advertising as `newly-insured' are in fact victims
of canceled policies who were forced into the ObamaCare exchanges. They
already had insurance and are therefore not `newly insured.'
``Even some of those `newly insured' under ObamaCare's expansion of
Medicaid were once paying for their own insurance. Now they are on the
government dole.''
``Further, as many as 89 percent of the Americans who signed up for
ObamaCare when the exchanges opened in 2013 already had insurance. In
other words, many exchange enrollees simply switched from one plan to
another.''
So we were told, gee, there are 30 or 40 million people without
insurance. We have to insure them. That is why we have got to force so
many tens of millions of Americans into losing their insurance because
we have 30, 40 million we have to take care of. And what happened? We
are told, well, maybe 7 million or so, 8 million, they got insurance
when all these millions lost theirs. That was worth the damage that
this administration has done and is doing to the best health care
system in the world?
Number 5, ``ObamaCare's Deductibles Are Killing Families.''
``One of the great untold stories about ObamaCare is that while
ObamaCare has skyrocketed premium costs in the individual market,
deductibles have also increased.
[[Page H1845]]
ObamaCare is really nothing more than catastrophic insurance priced
like regular insurance.
``This year, ObamaCare's lower priced bronze plans have a $5,181
individual deductible and $10,545 dollars family deductible. The more
expensive silver plan has a $2,927 individual deductible and $6,010
family deductible.
``On top of your monthly premiums, the deductible is the amount you
have to pay out of pocket before your insurance kicks in. The last time
I looked, if I enrolled in ObamaCare, my out-of-pocket expenses
(premiums plus deductible) would exceed $8,000 before insurance started
paying anything.
``One result of this has been an increase over the last 5 years of
the percentage of people who put off treatment due to cost.
``Unless something catastrophic happens to you, in most cases, you
are still paying out of pocket for all of your health care. On top of
that, you are paying for premiums that are doing you absolutely no
good. It is just free money for the insurance companies.
``Also, when you are insured, your out-of-pocket expenses are usually
higher. Most health care outlets offer steep discounts for the
uninsured.
``Basically, ObamaCare is nothing more than a massive tax increase
disguised as insurance; a massive financial boon to the same big
insurance companies Democrats have demonized for years; a massive
redistribution of wealth that primarily soaks the middle class while
diminishing their quality of health care.
``In summation: The ObamaCare victims vastly outweigh the
beneficiaries. It is not even close.''
John Nolte, for the Record.
Then from the Weekly Standard, the Feds say that the cost of
healthcare.gov is estimated at $1.7 billion.
Of course, when the disastrous rollout of this government Web site
happened, we heard from people who really knew what they were doing
that said: Gosh, we could have done this for just $6 million or so.
Well, not if you are close friends with the occupants of the White
House. If you are close friends with the occupants of the White House,
you are going to run up a billion-dollar bill for a $6 million, $7
million Web site that doesn't have the security that is required.
So we are in big trouble here. Health care has not been helped, and
we have more and more government workers who are telling people who
know how to provide health care what they can or can't do all to the
detriment of the patient.
I think about one of my constituents. He is no longer practicing
medicine. He was there to help my wife when she first went into labor 8
to 10 weeks prematurely. He was telling me that he had done a surgery,
one of the best he had ever done. Because of all his training and his
many years of experience, he was good at what he was doing. A couple of
days after the surgery, he got a call from somebody, I think he said in
Pennsylvania. The guy had no kind of medical degree at all. He is a
government worker.
He said: I was looking at your records of your surgery--it was one of
the best he had ever done of this type. He said: Well, the average is
over 3 hours, and you only took 59 minutes; and normally you lose over
3 to 4 pints of blood, and you only lost 10 CCs, so you are going to
either have to change the records or we can't reimburse you.
As this honest, experienced, and excellent physician said: I am not
going to change my records for anybody. He said: Well, then we can only
reimburse you about one-quarter of what you should have gotten
otherwise.
He said: I am not practicing medicine like this. Some idiot doesn't
even know what he is doing is going to tell me, one of the best
surgeries I have ever done, that I can't be reimbursed--and he is
retired. He gave it up. He said: I planned to practice a lot longer,
but I am not practicing medicine like this.
So who is hurt? His patients.
So what happens when you socialize medicine, as we are moving into
here, well, you have fewer doctors that are as well trained. The best
and brightest don't apply. We have already seen a drop in the quality
of people and the numbers of people, I am told, for medical school.
Good people are still applying, but eventually, as I saw in the Soviet
Union when I was there, you have people who are physicians. Some are
like Florence Nightingale, they do it out of a sense of service and
dedication; but some just because, you know, hey, it is a job.
As people are finding out, if you are not going to get reimbursed,
then you are not going to be able to pay back a quarter-million dollars
of loans for college, medical school, and getting you through the
internship and residency until you are actually out making good money
because you are not going to make it as good; therefore, you can't
afford to go through as many years. So you end up, over the years you
see the college, the medical school, all these years of training and
experience squished together.
What is the result? Well, you don't have as good physicians. But you
also have wonderful nurse practitioners. You have physician assistants
that start taking up the jobs that people went through college and
medical school, internship, and residency, they start picking up the
slack that you used to have quality, well-trained doctors to do. And
they are doing a good job, but it lowers further and further the
quality of care any time the government gets involved to the extent
that it is now.
It is not too late. It is 5 years in. It has been a disaster. One
broken promise after another, after another, after another. I hope and
pray that people don't have to continue to suffer the indignity of much
too high health insurance and not near the quality they were getting
until we get a new President and can finally get a new health care
system and have true reform. I hope and pray that this President does
not end up being so stubborn that he will not hear the cries of the
people across America who are saying: Please, let us have back our
cheaper health care, our own doctors, and our better policies. That
should be the conclusion after 5 years of this disaster.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________