[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 174 (Wednesday, December 2, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8319-S8321]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, promises, promises, promises. Day in and

[[Page S8320]]

day out, I hear stories of the broken promises of the President's 
failed health care law in Iowa and across the country.
  President Obama promised health insurance premiums would go down by 
$2,500. They haven't. In fact, the President's own administration 
admits that nationwide, premiums in the exchange for the next year have 
increased by more than 7 percent. The outlook for my State is even 
worse, with Iowans facing more than a 12-percent increase in premiums.
  President Obama's promises don't pay these bills. Real folks in Iowa 
and across the country do.
  Mark from Urbandale shared with me that the double-digit premium 
increases his family faces for 2016 are unsustainable and that it may 
be more cost effective to pay the individual mandate penalty instead.
  Similarly, Angela from Centerville said that the plan she had hoped 
to purchase for 2016 increased by nearly $200, and that was the 
cheapest option for her. If she keeps her current coverage, her family 
will be strapped with a nearly $1,000-per-month bill for health 
insurance. She asks: ``How is it possible that the Affordable Care Act 
has made health care so unaffordable?''
  Let me say that again: How is it possible that the Affordable Care 
Act has made health care so unaffordable?
  It is a question I get when traveling all across the State of Iowa. 
The answer is pretty simple. ObamaCare is wrongly rooted in a 
Washington-knows-best mentality. Instead of empowering families and 
individuals to determine what they want and need in their health care 
plans, Washington has replaced choice with new one-size-fits-all 
mandates and taxes. It is another costly example of the Washington way 
failing everyday Americans.
  The sad reality is that the consequences of this failed law go far 
beyond these unaffordable premium increases. Americans were promised 
job creation and economic growth, but instead we have seen employers 
reduce employee hours in an effort to avoid ObamaCare's employer 
mandate.
  Small businesses, such as employers at a marina in Okoboji, have 
halted their plans to expand and create new jobs because of the 
mandate. They have even quit hiring folks to fill open jobs and had to 
cut back on hours for their existing employees to bring them to part 
time.
  As employers brace themselves for the impending Cadillac tax, 
employees are already feeling the effects: rapidly increasing out-of-
pocket costs. In fact, Ryan, from Newton, recently learned that his 
deductible will be doubling next year in anticipation of the tax going 
into effect.

  ObamaCare is not helping these folks; it is hurting them. At a time 
when we want to see job growth and rising wages, this is simply the 
wrong approach. Broken promises don't cut it.
  Today we have the opportunity to roll back some of ObamaCare's most 
harmful provisions. Today we can provide much needed relief from the 
individual and employer mandates and stop the law's trillion dollars in 
tax hikes--like the health insurance tax, the medical device tax, and 
the Cadillac tax--from being passed on to the American people. Today we 
can put patients and doctors back in the driver's seat when it comes to 
their health care decisionmaking.
  Today I will stand up for Iowans and people all across America to 
fulfill our promise to them. I am committed to stopping this failed law 
and paving the way to implement patient-centered options that ensure 
folks have affordable coverage and access to needed health care 
services.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, last year the Presiding Officer and I and 
a number of us went out to the folks in our great States and we 
promised that if we were elected into a majority, we would do 
everything we could to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The process the 
American people are going to witness over the next 24 hours is our 
fulfillment of that promise.
  It will take 51 votes to send a bill to the President's desk that 
repeals the most egregious provisions of ObamaCare. Once we do that, we 
can begin to start the process of addressing the legitimate health care 
problems instead of an option that has made the problems worse. It is a 
system that will control costs and put patients first. It is a system 
that puts choice first. It is a system that puts quality ahead of 
partisan politics.
  This will be an open process that we will go through tomorrow, and 
that is the way it should be. That means it will require some tough 
votes. Many of my friends on the right may not particularly like or 
enjoy the amendments that will be offered and then voted on, but I, for 
one, when confronted with a vote I may otherwise like to support--if I 
feel it prevents us from moving forward and being successful in sending 
this bill to the President's desk, then I am prepared to make those 
tough votes to be absolutely certain we fulfill that fundamental 
promise of repealing ObamaCare.
  However, in the end, this is about doing everything we can to keep 
our promise to the American people. While we in Congress will put our 
conscience over politics--if we do--the President seems to put politics 
over what I believe he and many of my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle know is a failed policy. This is exactly the underlying 
failure of ObamaCare. It was a never-ending list of promises and 
assurances that have not and never will be realized.
  We all remember the same promise we heard over and over again from 
the President: If you like your health care, you can keep it. If you 
like your doctors, you can keep them. That has absolutely not happened 
in my great State of North Carolina, and I would daresay it hasn't 
happened across the Nation. Millions of Americans were kicked off their 
plans and given a set of alternatives that were drastically more 
expensive. They were told they could no longer see the doctors they had 
visited and trusted for years.
  In North Carolina alone, we had over 470,000 cancellation notices. 
When they promised that if you liked your health care plan, you could 
keep it, there was a little asterisk there, and the asterisk was, you 
can keep it if the Federal Government determines that a policy you are 
satisfied with, they are satisfied with. That is how they say they kept 
their promise, but it was an empty promise and they haven't kept it.
  We also remember the President's promises to make health care more 
affordable, boasting that ObamaCare would reduce premiums by $2,500. 
That hasn't happened either. In North Carolina, during the first full 
year of the exchange rollout, premium prices increased and outpaced the 
increases in wages and inflation. The average home is spending more on 
health care and getting less in their paycheck.
  The premium prices in the individual insurance market increased by 
147 percent--147 percent. This leads to the problem of people having 
insurance they can't afford to use because they can't afford their 
deductible or their copay. It has created real-life horror stories of 
families struggling to make the choice between paying for their health 
care and paying to keep food on their table.
  Last month I received a letter from a North Carolina couple nearing 
retirement who are lifelong small business owners. These are their 
words:

       Last year, our premiums for a bare bones policy was nearly 
     $1,000 a month. It is a terrible policy, but nothing else was 
     available within our budget. I received the 2016 rate late 
     last Friday. The premium is going up 40 percent.

  So now that $1,000-a-month policy will cost them $1,400 a month with 
a higher deductible.
  The letter continues:

       For the first time in my adult life we may have to forgo 
     having health insurance and take our chances.

  I received another letter from another North Carolinian. He wrote:

       I'm a self-employed person barely making ends meet. My wife 
     works 60 hours a week. We might take home close to $40,000 a 
     year. We have done our best to make it on our own with no 
     government assistance. Back in 2008, the company I worked for 
     shut down. Since then, we have gone through all our life 
     savings to make ends meet. When I first started buying our 
     health insurance in 2008, our premiums were around $600 for 
     me and my two daughters. Just received our letter and found 
     out our new premium will jump to $1,700 a month.

  These stories are heartbreaking, and they are not unique to North 
Carolina.

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I know each and every Senator, whether they support ObamaCare or want 
to repeal it, has received similar stories from constituents 
chronicling how ObamaCare has caused them immeasurable financial and 
emotional hardship and no better access to affordable health care.
  I can tell you that with nearly every one of these letters and calls 
to my office I receive, my constituents also express their desire for 
Congress to vote for repeal of the ObamaCare law. It has caused so much 
pain, and it hasn't solved any problems. That is exactly what the 
Senate is going to do tomorrow. We are going to keep our word--
something I think sometimes citizens feel we just don't do enough of up 
here in this Chamber. We are going to send a bill to the President's 
desk that repeals the most egregious portions of ObamaCare.
  Keep in mind that many of the bad things that will occur with 
ObamaCare are not even in place today. If you don't like it now, I 
guarantee you will not like it next year even more so.
  Again, I want to get back to the process for a minute. This process 
we are going through is one of the unique instances where we can pass a 
bill and send it to the President's desk with 51 votes. Normally it 
takes 60. In order for us to be able to pass it with 51 votes, it is 
going to require us to be very strict in terms of what this bill may or 
may not have in it. There are going to be games played tomorrow. There 
will be amendments put out there that Members know would prevent us 
from being able to send this bill to the President's desk.
  I, for one, am going to stand with the leadership, who I appreciate 
having the courage to bring this bill forward and make sure that we 
take votes and send this bill--a fulfillment of my promise to the 
citizens of North Carolina--to the President's desk. And to those who 
vote against it, Americans, take notice because they are not listening 
to you. They are not reading the letters and hearing the stories I hear 
every single day, and they should be held accountable when they are 
next up for reelection.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair for his time today, and I yield the 
floor.

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