[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 175 (Thursday, December 3, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8324-S8325]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, middle-class Americans continue to call 
on Washington to build a bridge away from ObamaCare. They want better 
care. They want real health reform. For too long, Democrats did 
everything to prevent Congress from passing the type of legislation 
necessary to help these Americans who are hurting.
  Well, today, Mr. President, that ends. Today, a middle class that has 
suffered enough from a partisan law will see the Senate vote to build a 
bridge past ObamaCare and toward better care.
  The Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act we are 
debating deserves the support of every Member of this body because here 
is what we know. ObamaCare is a direct attack on the middle class. It 
is riddled with higher costs and broken promises. It is defined by 
failure. It is punctuated with hopelessness. And the scale of its many 
broken promises is matched only by the scale of its defenders' rigid 
and unfeeling responses to it.
  Let us consider just a few right now. Americans were promised they 
could keep their health plans if they liked them. It was a promise 
Democrats made to sell ObamaCare and it is a promise they broke. 
Americans could only keep their plans if the President liked them, not 
if they liked them. Americans could only keep their plans if the 
President liked them.
  Millions saw the coverage they liked ripped away as a result of a 
callous and partisan law.
  Democrats' response to their broken promise? They tried to dismiss 
stories about folks losing insurance by saying they had lousy plans 
anyway and that they should be grateful the government was taking them 
away. The American people took a different view.
  Here is a note I received from a constituent in Caldwell County when 
her family lost their plan. Here is what she said:

       I was lied to by the President and Congress when we were 
     told the ``Affordable'' Care Act would not require us to 
     switch from our current insurance provider. My husband and I 
     work hard, pay a lot of taxes and ask for little from our 
     government. Is it asking too much for government to stay out 
     of my health insurance?

  Americans were promised that ObamaCare would lower costs and even 
bring down premiums by $2,500 per family. It is a promise Democrats 
made to sell ObamaCare, and it is a promise they broke.
  Just last night, we learned from the government's own actuaries that 
ObamaCare is leading to higher health care costs. We also know that 
premiums continue to shoot up by double digits in many areas, including 
Kentucky.
  Democrats' response to their broken promise? President Obama said 
Americans who already had health insurance ``may not know that they've 
got a better deal now [under ObamaCare] than they did, but they do.'' 
Obviously, the President thinks he knows more about our health 
insurance than we do. Of course, the American people took a different 
view.
  One Kentuckian wrote me after being forced into an ObamaCare plan she 
called ``subpar'' with a nearly $5,000 deductible. ``I cried myself to 
sleep,'' she said. ``I work hard for every penny I earn,'' and this 
``is unacceptable.''
  Americans were promised ObamaCare would create millions of jobs. It 
is a promise Democrats made to sell ObamaCare, and it is a promise they 
broke. ObamaCare is leading to fewer jobs, not more of them. In 
Kentucky, our Democratic Governor once declared it an ``undisputed 
fact'' that ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion had added 12,000 jobs to 
Kentucky's economy. But as Kentuckians now know, he was undisputedly 
wrong. Not only did those jobs fail to materialize, but health care 
jobs have actually declined in Kentucky since the passage of ObamaCare.
  Democrats' response to their broken promise? I think this headline 
about the comments of a senior Democrat captures it perfectly: 
``ObamaCare allows workers to `escape' their jobs''--to escape their 
jobs. Well, the American people took a different view.
  A constituent from Somerset wrote to tell me that ObamaCare's 
mandates were causing her to lose up to 11 hours--up to 11 hours--per 
week at work, which meant about $440 less in her pocket every month. 
``ObamaCare,'' she said, ``[is] causing us to lose hours [and] lose 
wages, yet expecting us to spend more.''
  Now, Americans were promised ObamaCare wouldn't touch Medicare. 
Americans were promised that taxes

[[Page S8325]]

wouldn't increase. Americans were promised shopping for ObamaCare would 
be as simple as shopping for a TV on Amazon. Three more promises, three 
more betrayals, and on and on and on it has gone for more than 5 long 
years.
  Democrats need to understand it is time to face up to the pain and 
the failure their law has caused. They can keep trying to talk past the 
middle class. They can keep trying to deny reality. But they have to 
realize that no one is buying the spin but them.
  Americans are living with the consequences of this broken law and its 
broken promises every single day. Its negative effects are often felt 
in the most personal and visceral ways, and Americans are tired of 
being condescended to. They want change, and they want a bridge to 
better care, not ObamaCare, and this bill offers it.
  I think Democrats have a particular responsibility to the millions 
their law has hurt already to help pass the law we have before us. I 
think the President has a particular responsibility to the millions his 
law has hurt already to then sign it. That is the best way to build a 
bridge to a fresh start--to a better, healthier, and stronger 
beginning.

                          ____________________