[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 135 (Thursday, September 8, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5445-S5446]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I rise today to share some flashbacks for 
throwback Thursdays, if we want to call it that, with regard to 
ObamaCare.
  There have been a lot of speeches made about ObamaCare recently. 
Specifically, I want to look at the facts about ObamaCare, as we all 
know them now, more than 6 years after it was signed into law--6 long 
years--and remind the country what the President and my colleagues 
across the aisle promised all of us when they pushed this bill through 
the Congress. I say ``push'' because it passed without one single 
Republican vote and certainly not mine.
  First, the reality. All summer long, we have read the headlines about 
drastic premium increases being requested, insurers pulling out from 
different States, and patients being caught in the middle.
  My State of Kansas has not been immune. Last year, UnitedHealthcare 
announced it would leave our State. Aetna was going to start offering 
coverage next year and then announced a massive exit from exchange 
markets across the country, including Kansas. We were at risk of having 
just one insurer in many parts of the State, with no competition with 
regard to pricing.
  In June, the State insurance department announced a proposed rate 
increase for next year. The good news: A new insurer, Medica, was 
proposing to offer coverage in Kansas. However, there is bad news. The 
bad news is that premiums could be increased by nearly 50 percent next 
year for some individuals in our State and I know in many other States. 
Last year, the highest approved increase was 24.5 percent. Next year's 
rates are still being finalized, but they could be double that.
  Now let's throw it back. In 2013, President Obama said about the law 
that ``the result is more choice, more competition, real health care 
security.'' Today, however, we see less choice, less competition. And 
with insurers coming and going and rising premiums, I think Kansas 
families would agree they are not secure in their health care coverage. 
I don't know any State that is.
  These are not just headlines in the paper or on the Internet; real 
folks back home are hurting. A nurse in Miltonvale, KS, wrote to me 
about what she calls the devastating effect ObamaCare is having on her 
patients and her loved ones. She says: ``I am very concerned that 
continuing along these lines will further limit care and accelerate a 
decline in health care in our state, as well as our nation.''
  But, again, let's throw back to what we were initially promised. Way 
back on the campaign trail in 2008, then-Candidate Obama promised that 
he would enact health care reform which would lower a typical family's 
premium by $2,500 a year. I don't foresee any way those savings could 
be realized if a Kansan's premium is going to be up to over 40 percent, 
on top of about 25 percent last year.
  Looking back to 2013, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said the 
implementation of this law was ``fabulous.'' Fabulous, indeed. This 
was, of course, before open enrollment started and the failed launch of 
the healthcare.gov Web site, which crashed.
  More issues of concern to me have come from recent regulations that 
have been used to implement this law. This law has massive regulations. 
The law has 2,000 pages. We are now at over 10,000 pages of 
regulations.
  The administration has proposed changing how they verify individuals 
as being eligible to receive taxpayer assistance for their premiums 
under the

[[Page S5446]]

law. Discrepancies between what a person claims their income is and 
what is received from trusted data sources must now be off by 25 
percent. Previously, it was 10 percent in order for the administration 
to investigate a possible fraud. So I guess you can be fraudulent up to 
24.9 percent now. The administration should not be lowering the 
standard by which it verifies eligibility for folks to receive our 
scarce taxpayer dollars. It is unacceptable for implementation of this 
law to further burden taxpayers by failing to protect against fraud and 
abuse.
  Another recent regulation gets at one of my biggest fears from the 
law's passage: the ability of the government to ration care. There were 
four provisions of this law that I believed would decrease individual 
choice and open the door to rationing, one of which was the Centers for 
Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, CMMI. In March, this outfit passed a 
proposal to test, as the agency calls it, how we pay for prescription 
drugs for our seniors under Medicare Part B. Patient groups, doctors, 
and many of us in Congress are gravely concerned about how this test 
could affect the patient's quality of and access to care. As the Kansas 
Medical Society explained to me, this so-called demonstration ``will 
force Kansas Medicare beneficiaries with serious, sometimes life-
threatening conditions to participate, disrupt their treatment 
processes, and impede their access to needed medications with no 
evidence of improved health outcomes or financial gains for the 
Medicare system.'' Such a so-called test is now allowable because of 
the rationing provisions of ObamaCare.
  The law is simply not working for the large majority of Americans. 
Insurers are pulling out, citing large losses in covering the 
population of people who are seeking coverage on the exchanges. So 
Americans are left with fewer options in selecting their health care 
coverage, and, most concerning, they are paying more for it--a lot 
more.
  Looking back to December of 2015 when this body sent legislation to 
the President's desk to repeal ObamaCare, the President's Statement of 
Administration Policy stated simply, ``The Affordable Care Act is 
Working.'' Yet, last month the President wrote in the Journal of the 
American Medical Association that ``too many Americans still strain to 
pay for their physician visits and prescriptions, cover their 
deductibles, or pay their monthly insurance bills.'' That is a true 
statement. I thank the President for waking up to this nightmare.
  Despite his new revelation that the Affordable Care Act is, in fact, 
the unaffordable care act for most, the President and his party's 
candidate to succeed him say the answer is greater government control--
a public option. Folks, that is government health care. That is what we 
are talking about. The failings of ObamaCare cannot be corrected with 
more government intervention, more restrictions, and more regulations.
  We must triage the pain this law is inflicting on hard-working 
Americans. We must repeal and we must replace this law. I know that 
many colleagues will join me in continuing to work to provide freedom 
from its mandates and increased taxes to all and enact reforms to our 
health care system that will actually lower the cost of coverage and 
increase access to care for individuals.
  Simply put, this law is failing. It is our job to correct it, and we 
will continue fighting to do so.
  I was talking about this matter in the cloakroom just moments ago. 
Several of our Members have been very active in this whole endeavor to 
try to not only repeal but to replace this law, and they pause a little 
bit and say: You know, maybe this law was designed to fail. Maybe this 
law is so bad in terms of falling apart that people could not help but 
know that and then come in and say that the only thing we can now move 
to is national health care, government-run health insurance. If that is 
true, that is a 6-year effort with a lot of pain and suffering and in 
terms of political deceit, probably ranks right at the top.
  We have to repeal this law. We have to replace it. We have to get to 
work. And we have to prevent further steps toward national health 
insurance.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.

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