[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 103 (Thursday, June 25, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S4628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, when I have constituents come to 
Washington, DC, I typically will describe this as being a little bit 
like Disneyland. It is a lot of fun to visit, with a lot of excitement. 
A lot of things happening here, but it is not real. It is not real.
  What I mean by that is that what is real are the lives that are lived 
by the average American families all across this country, whether it is 
Nebraska, Texas or elsewhere and the struggles they have trying to 
raise their children, trying to get a good education, trying to keep a 
job--to keep a job that has good wages and one that hopefully grows 
over time. But in Washington, the focus is typically on winners and 
losers--winners and losers. If you look at almost any newspaper each 
week in Washington, they will talk about the winners and the losers. 
Usually, they are talking about political figures such as the President 
of the United States.
  So I just happened to catch one headline that talked about the 
President being the biggest winner of the week in Washington, DC.
  Why? Well, one is because of the trade promotion authority 
legislation that we passed that we worked with the President on. That 
happened to be a subject that I agreed with the President on--the 
importance of opening new markets to the things that we grow, the 
livestock we raise, and the manufactured goods we make. Hopefully, we 
will be able to enter into a good deal on the Trans-Pacific 
Partnership, opening up 40 percent of the world's economy in Asia to 
the new markets for the things that we make, grow, and the livestock we 
raise.
  So that happened to be a subject on which I agreed with the 
President. He had more problems with his own party. We got 13 Senate 
Democrats to join us in passing this legislation, but we got it done. I 
think in that instance--maybe you could call the President a winner if 
you want--you could say that the American people were the winner, and I 
think that would be accurate too.
  But on the loser's side of the ledger, we had a disappointing 
decision by the U.S. Supreme Court today, where they ignored the clear 
language that Congress wrote when the Affordable Care Act was passed in 
March of 2010. Even worse, while the press may consider that this 
represents a win for the President, there is no question in my mind 
that the vast majority of the American people are the losers as a 
result of this decision. The fact is that ObamaCare has been a disaster 
for millions of hard-working families, and it was really sold under 
false pretenses.
  The President said: If you like your doctor, you can keep your 
doctor.
  Well, that ended up not being true.
  If you like your policy, you can keep your policy.
  Well, that ended up not being true for roughly 5 million people who 
lost their insurance coverage that they liked because the law said they 
couldn't keep it anymore.
  Then there was the fact that the President said this: Prices of 
health coverage for an average family will come down $2,500.
  None of those proved to be true.
  So despite the Supreme Court's disappointing decision, I will not 
stand down in my opposition to this bad law, because I know we can do 
better. I look forward to working with our colleagues to eventually 
protect the American people from the harmful effects of ObamaCare and 
get the American people what they thought they were going to get out of 
health care reform in the first place--coverage they wanted at a price 
they could afford, neither one of which is delivered under ObamaCare.

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