[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 133 (Tuesday, September 6, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5292-S5294]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     OBAMACARE AND MILITARY FUNDING

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I am proud to join my colleague from 
Arizona on several issues that are very important to our constituents. 
And I believe by working together we have been able to make some 
significant progress in a number of areas, but we also are facing an 
enormous challenge.
  Our State of Arizona has the unique category of having a county 
without a single health care provider--not one. Our largest county, 
Maricopa County, is now down to one from six. So if there is ever an 
object lesson in the failure of ObamaCare, it is right there in our 
home State of Arizona, where we have a very large aging population, we 
have a very large young population, and we are asking young people to 
pay for the health care of seniors when the fact is, it was a flawed 
idea from the beginning.
  The fact is, I stood on this floor until Christmas Eve morning 
fighting against ObamaCare, when it was rammed through on a strictly 
partisan basis: 60 votes they had, 60 votes they used. For the first 
time in history, we had a major entitlement reform that was done on a 
totally partisan basis, and we said at the time it would fail. It is 
unravelling as we speak.
  I would ask my colleague from Arizona, what is entertaining is now 
our friends from the other sides of the aisle and in the administration 
are saying: Well, we would like to sit down with the Republicans and 
fix it, and we could make some much needed changes. The same people who 
didn't even allow us a single amendment on one of the most massive 
entitlement reforms in history, and now our citizenry--our citizenry--
are paying the price, as are citizens all over the country.
  As I mentioned, we now have one county in Arizona--Pinal County--
which has the unique distinction of being the only county in America 
without a single provider. Maricopa County, where the majority of our 
constituents live--guess what--one provider, increases of 65 percent, 
100 percent, 200 percent. It is amazing. It is amazing. By the way, 
Maricopa County--where there is one health insurance option in the 
ObamaCare exchanges--about 128,000 people.
  And don't ever forget the immortal words of the President of the 
United States: If you like your health care policy, you can keep your 
policy, period. Wasn't that clever the way he said ``period'' at the 
end of that? Because he was sure that if you liked your health care 
policy, you could keep your health care policy. And he also said, by 
the way: If you like your physician, you can keep your physician. How 
has that turned out? How has that worked?
  I thank my colleague from Arizona for his work on the NDAA. We have 
protected the A-10, we have protected our bases, we have protected the 
Goldwater ranges. There has been no stronger proponent for those 
wonderful Apache helicopters that are made in Mesa, AZ, and the 
Raytheon missiles that are down in Tucson, AZ.
  I ask my colleague this: What do you think this impact is in our 
State--in our beautiful State--of 10,000 people being without a health 
care option and 180,000 who are going to now be presented with one? Is 
that what this administration called choice?
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for having this 
colloquy.
  First, on the NDAA, I thank him for the work he has done this year 
and every year to make sure we get the NDAA passed. It is one of the 
single pieces of authorizing legislation we routinely pass and the 
President signs. It is important to our military to have that 
guidance--to know not just that we will appropriate the money, but we 
authorize the money and tell them how it needs to be spent. That 
provides a much better opportunity for oversight.
  I thank my colleague for the reforms he got in this year with regard 
to procurement and to root out waste, as he always does, in the 
military. So I appreciate that. It is important to Arizona.
  As he mentioned, we have five major Active-Duty military 
installations in the State: Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Luke Air 
Force Base, Army Fort Huachuca, Army Yuma Proving

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Ground, and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma. There also are several 
National Guard and Air National Guard facilities around the State. So 
the NDAA is extremely important to them. Arizona is fortunate to have 
the chairman of the Armed Services Committee representing the State and 
understanding the importance of these installations and our national 
defense.
  With regard to ObamaCare, Senator McCain and I both traveled around a 
lot of Arizona during this break. One thing I know he has heard and I 
have heard from constituents around the State but in particular in 
Pinal County--as he mentioned, Pinal County is just south of Maricopa 
County and just out of the metropolitan area, some of it within the 
metropolitan area. These individuals now have no option. There are 13 
counties in Arizona--13 of 15--that have 1 option. Those in Maricopa 
County last year had eight options. Now it is down to one. So 128,000 
individuals, as mentioned, have no competition. Premiums continue to go 
up. That insurer can do whatever they want to do, and we are hearing it 
wherever we go. After spending a day in Pinal County traveling around, 
hearing from the Chamber of Commerce, from Rotary Clubs, from 
Republican organizations, from townhalls--you name it--people are 
concerned. There is no option. Yet despite there being no option and no 
exchange, the penalties still exist.
  Imagine, you have no exchange to purchase. If you buy on another 
exchange, there is no Federal subsidy attached to it. So it is 
completely unaffordable for many of our constituents. Yet, if they 
can't buy the insurance and don't buy the insurance, penalties still 
come. The penalties still come.
  I am pleased my colleague is introducing legislation. I am glad to 
join him on this to make sure that in counties where there is no 
competition, those penalties simply shouldn't apply. That is the first 
thing we ought to do.
  I have legislation as well that will say the hardship exemptions that 
currently exist ought to be expanded, particularly for those who have 
no option at all. It is not getting better. It is getting worse. So we 
have to sit down and say let's do some of these reforms now because 
people are hurting.
  I thank my colleague.
  Mr. McCAIN. Could I just say to my colleague, I think he put it very 
well. First of all, we are going to have people who have no option but 
under the present law are going to be paying a fine. How does that 
work? Then, of course, those with only one option are seeing projected 
premium increases that are as high, in one case, as 65 percent. Then, 
of course, we also have a situation where, if you only have one option 
and the premium increases, then obviously they have no choice. The 
deductibles are now, in some cases, in the thousands of dollars--
deductibles.
  So why do you want to buy an insurance policy that you are going to 
pay a couple thousand bucks before you are part of the plan that gives 
you the health care you need?
  The fact is, and I would ask my colleague, ObamaCare is unravelling. 
It has now proven to be a colossal failure because it was based on the 
false premise that young people would willingly pay huge amounts of 
money to care for the health of older, sicker people. Of course, our 
great Congressional Budget Office had predicted there would be 21 
million people who would have taken advantage of it, and I believe the 
actual number is 11 million. So this is a failure.
  In the short term, Senator Flake and I want to make sure no one would 
ever pay a fine when there is not any option available or only one 
option available.
  Then, I say to my colleagues, we had better start in either the later 
session of this Congress or the beginning of next year and repeal and 
replace ObamaCare. It needs to be replaced. If we don't replace it, 
then we are going to see these horror stories like in Pinal County, AZ, 
all over America. That is unfair to average American citizens who right 
now have seen--thanks to the massive regulations issued by the Obama 
administration--very little improvement in their incomes and their 
lives. In fact, the actual number of the middle class has been 
shrinking.
  So I thank my colleague for all his hard work on behalf of the men 
and women who are serving in the military and at our wonderful bases 
throughout Arizona and also for his leadership in this whole effort of 
trying to make sure all Americans have affordable and available health 
care.
  By the way, the answer is not the European-type health care system.
  Mr. FLAKE. I thank my colleague. I would just add by saying I wish 
that officials from the administration could travel around with Senator 
McCain and myself as we travel around Arizona and go to Pinal County 
where people have no option--not even one. No option. No marketplace. 
Yet they are still being told you are going to pay a fine if you don't 
purchase insurance. Subsidies don't apply to you because there is no 
exchange here, but you are still going to get fined.
  Try to tell somebody that, and tell them in this system that the 
administration is making no effort to reform this. They are still 
defending it, saying it will get better somehow or maybe someone will 
come just before the deadline and enter the marketplace. I think it is 
pretty clear they are not. And in those counties that have one insurer, 
they are looking and saying: Well, hey, where will we be next year? 
Will we be Pinal County with no options at all?
  I wish the administration would travel around with us to Arizona and 
see what people are suffering with, see what they are trying to get, 
and it is not just a problem of getting coverage. It is one thing to 
have coverage, but when you get to the hospital and find out that you 
have to get care and your deductibles are through the roof, your copays 
are through the roof--putting aside the premiums you are paying. This 
competition that is supposedly there isn't in Arizona. Premiums have 
skyrocketed as have copays and deductibles.
  I thank my colleague for what he is doing. I look forward to working 
with him on this legislation to give people who have no options or only 
one choice an option where they pay no penalties. At least let's start 
there.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCAIN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I begin by commending my colleagues from 
Arizona. I couldn't agree more with them and what they were just 
talking about with regard to ObamaCare.
  Similar to Arizona, Alaska is going through the same thing. We are 
now down to one health insurance provider in the entire State. It 
started with five, and we are now down to one for the entire State of 
Alaska. Similar to Arizona, our premiums and deductibles are going 
through the roof. I certainly want to work with my colleagues from 
Arizona on ways to address States and counties in Arizona or places 
like Alaska, where we have seen essentially no competition. So we 
certainly want to focus on that as well.
  I also commend the Senator from Arizona, the chairman of the Armed 
Services Committee, on what he has done for our military and how he has 
been a leader, really, in the country on national security and foreign 
policy issues. His leadership, particularly as the chairman of the 
Armed Services Committee, is absolutely critical for the national 
security and foreign policy of the entire country.
  We are coming back from our work session. Most of us were home for 
the last 6 weeks. I had an amazing trip back home in Alaska and heard 
the concerns, hopes, dreams of my constituents across the State. I also 
saw a lot of pride. One reason I saw a lot of pride is that we have 
pride in our military forces that serve in the great State of Alaska, 
thousands and thousands of Active-Duty and Reserve Forces, more 
veterans per capita than in any other State in the country. I had the 
opportunity to visit with a lot of our veterans, a lot of our military 
Active-Duty and Reserve Forces. I also had the opportunity to bring a 
number of our U.S. military and civilian leaders up to Alaska to show 
them our troops, show them the great training. This was the Commandant 
of the Marine Corps, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, the Secretary 
of the Army, the head of Missile Defense, the new combatant commander 
in charge of NORTHCOM. So we had a number of military officers visiting 
Alaska, and

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they got to see a lot of our troops, not only Alaska but Iowa National 
Guard, Hawaii troops, all training in the great State of Alaska.
  You know that our troops are doing amazing work, not just the 
training in different bases throughout the country but keeping us safe 
throughout the world and risking their lives in combat throughout the 
world. I certainly don't have to mention to this body the number of 
troops we have deployed all over the world keeping us safe--in combat 
and risking their lives.
  I mentioned the pride that Americans have in their military because 
it is really important to understand what just happened on the Senate 
floor about 20 minutes ago. What just happened? Sometimes it is hard to 
figure out the process. What did we just vote on? Let me put it 
bluntly. The minority leader of the Senate once again encouraged the 
Members of the other side of the aisle, of his party, to filibuster the 
funding for our troops. That just happened. The press will not report 
on it, but it is pretty remarkable given what we have going on in the 
world and one of the most sacred responsibilities of what we should be 
doing in this body. We just saw another filibuster of spending for the 
men and women who serve in the U.S. military. What a disappointment it 
is and what a disconnect between what is going on in the rest of 
America and here in DC.
  I want to remind my colleagues of this. If you went back home, 
regardless of where you live, regardless of what party you are in, and 
you asked your constituents: Should we be funding our military right 
now, should we be funding the men and women who are overseas risking 
their lives, keeping this Nation safe, the answer, probably, of 
virtually every American in the United States of America would be yes.
  I want to remind my colleagues that what just happened on the Senate 
floor--another filibuster of spending for our troops--wasn't the first 
time. Indeed, this is the bill that the minority leader of the Senate 
decided he wants to filibuster more than any other bill that we have 
brought up in the last year and a half.
  This evening's vote was the sixth time that the minority leader of 
the Senate has led a filibuster against funding for our troops. He 
wasn't satisfied to do it one time or two times or three times or four 
times or five times--six times.
  You and I and many other Members of the Senate were on the floor in 
July making the case that we shouldn't be doing this. We--I mean the 
Senate--should be focused on funding our troops. By the way, they read 
about this. For those who think the members of the military don't 
understand what is going on--that one party consistently denies them 
funding, that nobody understands that--that is not true. The troops 
know what is going on.
  We were down here, like many other Members of the Senate, encouraging 
our colleagues to support the troops, to stop the filibuster. This is 
what our troops want. This is what the American people want, and this 
is what the Senate of the United States of America should be doing--
supporting our troops, not denying them funding.
  I know my colleagues and I will continue to fight for this funding 
and fight these misguided attempts by the minority leader to undercut 
our troops, undercut our military, and undercut the funding that they 
desperately need and that should be a primary responsibility of this 
body.
  I yield the floor.

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