[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 154 (Wednesday, October 21, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7369-S7370]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, barely a week goes by that we don't see 
another harmful consequence of ObamaCare, a poorly conceived and badly 
executed law. It has caused costs to millions of Americans. It has 
harmed the quality and availability of care. Now comes further evidence 
that ObamaCare is a mess of a law, filled with broken promises.
  We recently learned the Kentucky Health Cooperative, a nonprofit 
health insurer created by ObamaCare with Federal taxpayer funds, will 
cease operations and stop offering health care plans at the end of the 
year. For the second time in as little as 3 years, as many as 51,000 
Kentuckians will lose the health care coverage they currently have and 
will be forced to choose a new plan--all thanks to ObamaCare. This 
Kentucky co-op was a boondoggle from the start. It received nearly $150 
million in Federal loans, including a solvency loan this past November 
in a failed taxpayer bailout to try to keep it afloat. It had the 
largest recorded loss of all 23 co-ops in our whole country. The 
Kentucky co-op had the biggest loss of any co-op in the whole country--
more than $50 million in 2014.
  Things were hardly much better for the Kentuckians who actually 
enrolled in it. Over the past 2 years, the co-op saw double-digit 
premium increases on the individual market. If it had survived, it was 
planning on increasing premiums for its members by 25 percent in 2016. 
If this contraption had survived into next year, it was going to 
increase premiums by 25 percent.
  Here is what the Kentucky co-op's CEO said about this particular 
government-subsidized health care plan: ``In the plainest language, 
things have come up short of where they need to be.''
  That is for sure. If only we would have that kind of honesty from the 
Obama administration on the many failures of ObamaCare. The collapse of 
the Kentucky co-op is emblematic of the situation across the land. The 
Obama administration claimed their government-subsidized co-ops would 
provide affordable and sustainable alternatives to private insurance. 
The truth is anything but that. What is even more disappointing is that 
the Obama administration itself predicted a nearly 40-percent default 
rate on its taxpayer loans to co-ops.
  Now, 21 of 23 co-ops nationwide were losing money as of the end of 
last year. Enrollment in these co-ops fell below projections for the 
majority of plans. Kentucky's neighbor to the south, Tennessee, will 
shut down its co-op, leaving approximately 27,000 enrollees looking for 
new coverage at the end of the year. In Colorado, the State's biggest 
health insurer on their exchange--a nonprofit co-op--also announced its 
closure this month, forcing 83,000 Coloradans to find new insurance for 
next year. The same is true in Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, and 
Louisiana. From the bayous of Louisiana to the Pacific Northwest, from 
the Big Apple to the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, ObamaCare 
co-ops are failing all over America. In all, one-third of the 23 
ObamaCare health co-ops have failed, leaving about 400,000 
policyholders nationwide looking for new coverage for 2016.
  These failures of ObamaCare health co-ops come as absolutely no 
surprise to those of us who predicted that giving the government more 
control of our health care system would be detrimental to the health 
care coverage people rely on. I said so on the Senate floor as far back 
as 2009.
  The administration knew beforehand that this plan was not viable and 
that tens of thousands of people could lose their coverage. They chose 
to cling fast to a disastrous leftwing experiment with our health care 
system over choosing stability and affordable coverage for the many 
people caught up in ObamaCare and these failed health co-ops. What a 
colossal mess.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I would like to associate myself with 
the remarks of the majority leader and point out in today's New York 
Times, Wednesday, October 21, the big headline--``Insurance Out of 
Reach for Many, Despite Law.'' Despite this law, insurance is out of 
reach for many. I know my colleagues who were back home visiting with 
people around their home State last week, listening to what was on 
constituents' minds, heard exactly this--the problems of the health 
care law.
  I was at home in Wyoming, and I heard from a lot of people who are 
very concerned about President Obama's collapsing health care law. That 
is what this law is doing; it is collapsing. People in Wyoming learned 
that one insurance company--WINhealth--will no longer be selling 
insurance through the ObamaCare exchange in our State. The company said 
it had to stop selling ObamaCare plans because there was no way to make 
money without big taxpayer subsidies coming from Washington. This 
company was already planning to raise rates significantly next year, 
and it turns out that even that wasn't going to be enough money to make 
it worthwhile. In less than 2 weeks, ObamaCare exchanges across the 
country will start selling insurance for next year. The total number of 
companies left selling insurance in the exchange for the State of 
Wyoming will be exactly one--one. There will be no competition at all 
in the ObamaCare exchange. If your doctor doesn't take that insurance, 
you are out of luck. If you can't afford it, you are out of luck. Is 
that how ObamaCare was supposed to work? Is that what the President 
promised the American people?
  I got an email from one of my constituents yesterday--Al Harris, a 
great guy, in Green River, WY, and he wrote: ``HELP!!!!!!'' He said: 
``WINHealth has become the latest casualty of ObamaCare.'' Al says that 
at his business ``I have about 30 people that now will have no 
insurance . . . at least not this insurance. I am scrambling with few 
options and I'm convinced any option will be substantially more 
expensive.'' Al said: ``This train wreck needs to be stopped.''
  I agree. President Obama and Democrats in Congress made a mess of the 
health care system in our country, but they said they had a better way 
of doing things. They said they knew best how to create competition and 
how health care should operate in America. They created all these 
Washington mandates. They required people to buy expensive coverage 
that was more than most people wanted, needed or could afford. Then 
they created the exchanges where people could buy this new, expensive 
Washington-mandated insurance coverage. Now the people of Wyoming are 
left with one option on the ObamaCare exchange. Buy this insurance from 
this one company or the IRS will come knocking at your door to collect 
a big tax penalty. The penalty is going up next year.
  Because of the significant failures of the Obama administration, 
rural Americans now have fewer choices. It is not just in Wyoming. We 
learned last week that insurance co-ops in Colorado, Oregon, and 
Tennessee are all closing their doors. Why? Because they have lost so 
much money. Eight of the twenty-three health care co-ops in the country 
have collapsed, completely collapsed in the last couple of months. Co-
ops have closed in New York, Kentucky--as the majority leader said--in 
Louisiana, in Nevada, in Iowa, and Nebraska. Many are in rural areas 
where people already don't have a lot of choice.
  We are talking about one-half million people who are going to lose 
their coverage, losing their insurance. Remember that promise President 
Obama made: If you like your coverage, you can keep your coverage. 
Where is the President now? The President says the health care law is 
working better than he even thought. Amazing. ObamaCare created these 
co-ops claiming to provide low-cost insurance. Then it saddled each of 
them with so many mandates and so many restrictions that they needed 
massive taxpayer bailouts. All together, these failed co-ops collected 
nearly $900 million already in taxpayer loans to get the help they 
needed to get going. That is how President Obama put this together.

[[Page S7370]]

  Now these co-ops have sunk, others are sinking, and they are taking 
the taxpayer loans with them. The ones that are trying to survive have 
been saying we are going to have to hike our rates. The co-op in Utah 
plans to raise its premiums by 58 percent starting in January just to 
be able to stay open. Is that what the President promised when he said 
rates would drop $2,500 per family?
  In Montana, the rates are set to go up 43 percent for some co-op 
plans. That is not what anyone in America needed, and it is certainly 
not what rural Americans need. President Obama said the American people 
were going to get more choices--more choices--because of his law 
instead of getting fewer choices. Yet he stands up and boldly says it 
is working better than he expected.
  ObamaCare created the illusion of coverage. Now even the illusion is 
disappearing. What is even worse for rural Americans is that it is not 
just the coverage that is turning out to be an illusion under 
ObamaCare. The care is actually disappearing. Earlier this month, we 
learned that Mercy Hospital in Independence, KY, will be closing soon. 
This is the 56th rural hospital to close in the United States since 
2010 when ObamaCare became law. Another 238 hospitals are in danger of 
closing. The added expense, the regulations, and the other destructive 
side effects of ObamaCare are a big reason for this. The patients who 
rely on these hospitals will have to find some other place to go to get 
their medical care--somewhere further away from home.
  Democrats in Congress--many who live in big cities--may take for 
granted they can get to a hospital quickly. It is not the case in rural 
America. As a doctor who has practiced medicine for 25 years, I can 
tell you that the extra time people spend traveling to a hospital can 
make all the difference in the world between life and death. For 
someone who has had a heart attack or has been in a traffic accident or 
for a woman with a high-risk pregnancy, every minute counts. Only 20 
percent of the U.S. population lives in rural areas, and these areas 
account for 60 percent of all trauma deaths. Americans living in these 
rural areas don't and didn't need President Obama making it tougher for 
their rural local hospital to stay open. Mercy Hospital was the center 
of medical care in the community for 100 years. It has provided jobs 
for nearly 200 people.

  In many parts of the country, such as in Independence, KS, and in 
much of my home State of Wyoming, the local hospital can be the biggest 
employer in the community. If the hospital closes, these people lose 
their jobs and the tax base for the community goes down, which means 
fewer services, such as schools, firefighters, and public safety, and 
maybe the local restaurant or florist won't have enough business to 
stay open. Nurses, teachers, and other workers may move away looking 
for a better opportunity somewhere else. It would also make it harder 
for the town to attract new businesses, new doctors, and more teachers, 
and the town suffers.
  That is what these communities across America are facing. Is that 
what President Obama promised the American people? Is that how 
ObamaCare was supposed to work?
  Ezekiel Emanuel is one of the President's architects of the health 
care law. He says that shutting down 56 hospitals is not enough. He has 
actually written a book about this. It is astonishing. The architect of 
the President's health care law has written a book, and he says that 
over the next few years--between now and 2020--more than 1,000 
hospitals will close. There will be 1,000 American communities where 
people will be farther away from medical care. We will have 1,000 
American towns in danger because of the lost jobs and lost health care.
  There is no dispute that we needed health care reform in this 
country. We did not need this destructive, disruptive, and dangerous 
ObamaCare law. It has been bad for patients, it has been bad for the 
providers--the nurses and doctors who take care of those patients--and 
it has been terrible for the American taxpayers. It has been especially 
hard on rural communities.
  We have to do something to stop this corrosive condition that causes 
hospitals to close, insurance co-ops to collapse, and health care 
choices to disappear.
  Democrats in Congress need to sit down with Republicans and start 
talking about the kind of health care reforms that the American people 
need, want, and deserve.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from Indiana.

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