[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 3 (Thursday, January 5, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S73-S74]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, ObamaCare was sold to the American 
people with a lot of promises and a lot of fanfare--speech after 
speech, promise after promise, splashy PR campaigns, quirky YouTube 
videos.
  But the American people never bought it, and the law never worked out 
the way it was promised. It opened up big problems and crashed 
computers on day one. Millions lost their health care plans and the 
doctors they were promised they could keep. Things only got worse from 
there. We have all gotten the calls and the letters. We have all seen 
the pain in our constituents' eyes. We all know how harmful this failed 
partisan experiment has been for those we represent.
  We also understand our united mandate to do something about it.
  The American people have hardly been subtle--hardly subtle--in their 
negative view of ObamaCare. That is borne out in the polling we have 
seen since the passage of this law 7 years ago. This past November, 
they again called out to Washington. Please help us, they said. Please 
get rid of this law that is hurting my family.
  About eight in 10 favor changing ObamaCare significantly or replacing 
it altogether.
  My message to the American people is this: We hear you. We hear you. 
We will act.
  It is my sincere hope that Democrats will include themselves in that 
``we.''
  I hope they will help us bring relief to the American people today 
and better health care solutions going forward. We want their ideas. We 
want their input. We value their contributions in the construction of 
durable, lasting, and effective reforms.
  While I am not the kind of guy who believes history takes sides, I 
know some of our Democratic friends are, and by now, they must surely 
have concluded that the ObamaCare-or-nothing crowd cannot be anywhere 
but on the wrong side of history. There is no future with that crowd.
  These are the guys who say ObamaCare's innumerable, well documented, 
clearly apparent problems are just a case of bad PR. They tried to 
laugh them off, literally. They tried to blame Republicans, blame the 
media, blame the American people themselves. They have even taken to 
denying reality altogether.
  They say that ObamaCare has been ``wonderful for America.'' They call 
its implementation ``fabulous.'' Just before the election, President 
Obama actually said this: ``The parade of horribles the Republicans 
have talked about haven't happened.'' He really said that. He went 
further: ``None of what they've said has happened.''
  Really? So costs haven't gone up, then? Premiums just skyrocketed by 
double-digit increases--as high as 50 percent in some places. 
Deductibles have risen 10 times faster than inflation and nearly 6 
times faster than paychecks.
  So choice hasn't gone down then? Insurers are fleeing the exchanges, 
with more than half the country poised to soon have no more than one or 
two insurers to pick from. Americans are continuing to lose access to 
doctors and hospitals and health plans they like and were promised. Oh, 
they were promised they could keep those health care plans.
  ObamaCare supporters may not like it, but these are simply the 
realities of this partisan law.
  Now, you will notice they hardly talk about ObamaCare lowering costs 
or expanding choice anymore. They are down to just one or two talking 
points now, and even those are slipping away pretty fast. That is 
because, as Americans have unfortunately learned firsthand, having 
health insurance under ObamaCare is hardly the same thing as having 
health care. That is especially true for many who have been forced into 
Medicaid.
  Let's just look at my home State as an example. Kentucky was once 
held up as a shining jewel of ObamaCare--well, no longer. ObamaCare 
predictably

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has become a mess in Kentucky, just as it has across the Nation. That 
has proved a bit confounding to some of our friends over on the left.
  The technical rate of the insured ticked up, they say. So why are so 
many Kentuckians upset? Why are they upset? Well, when you force 
Kentuckians into ObamaCare plans that many of their doctors won't 
accept, what did you think would happen? When you shoehorn folks with 
modest incomes into a plan with ever-growing premiums and deductibles 
so high they are afraid to get sick, what do you expect?
  In fact, across the Nation, about 4 in 10 adults in ObamaCare aren't 
even sure they will be able to afford care if they really need it.
  ObamaCare isn't truly solving problems or making our country 
healthier. It is a box-checking regime devoid of true compassion or 
empathy, a green-eyeshade exercise that misses something important--the 
lives of real people.
  So ObamaCare is making things worse, and we now have a moral 
imperative to repeal and replace it--to bring relief to families now.
  I hope every Member of this body will consider their role in that 
process because the pain Americans are experiencing is deeply personal. 
The betrayal middle-class families are feeling is clearly palpable, 
and, unless we do something soon, Americans will continue to lose their 
health plans. They will continue to get stuck with insurance that costs 
more and offers less. Costs will continue to rise unsustainably. 
Choices will continue to shrink uncontrollably. No amount of ObamaCare 
happy talk--no amount of it--or reality denial is going to change that.
  Some will just never accept the facts, though. They will say we need 
only to tinker around the edges of ObamaCare. Everything will be fine. 
Others will try to claim that the failure of ObamaCare is a mandate for 
even more ObamaCare. They will claim that the solution is actually to 
move to the kind of fully government-run single-payer system that 
already collapsed in one of the most leftwing States in the Nation--the 
same system that 80 percent of voters just rejected in Colorado. Others 
will say we need only to install a massive new ObamaCare 2.0 system--
ObamaCare 2.0--one that is mostly government-run.
  We heard a lot of this so-called ``public option'' talk when 
Democrats thought they were on track to take the Senate and the White 
House. It was never a serious solution--just another admission of 
ObamaCare's failure. In the words of one of our Democratic colleagues, 
it was a distraction as well. Of course, you can't fix ObamaCare by 
piling on more ObamaCare.
  Now, I am sure that won't stop some from trying to convince us 
otherwise, but even amid the din, traces of reality continue to break 
through.
  Consider what the Clintons said during the election. Former President 
Clinton called ObamaCare ``the craziest thing in the world.'' That is 
Bill Clinton.
  Secretary Clinton said ``lots of Americans'' have insurance ``too 
expensive for them to actually use.'' That was the Democratic candidate 
for President of the United States.
  The Democratic Governor of Minnesota said that ``the Affordable Care 
Act is no longer affordable for increasing numbers of people.''
  So reality is beginning to break through. Despite his ObamaCare pep 
rally yesterday, even the law's namesake hasn't been immune to sporadic 
admissions of the obvious. President Obama recently admitted that 
ObamaCare has ``real problems,'' he has bemoaned the human impact of 
his law as ``premium increases'' and ``lack of competition and 
choice,'' and admitted that, 7 years after ObamaCare's passage--this is 
President Barack Obama of ObamaCare--``too many Americans still strain 
to pay for their physician visits and prescriptions, cover their 
deductibles, or pay their monthly insurance bills; struggle to navigate 
a complex, sometimes bewildering system, and remain uninsured.''
  That pretty well sums it up. It is an indictment as damning as 
anything any Republican has said. It is something to keep in mind when 
you hear the predictable attacks from the far left.
  Now, look, we already know their central contention is that 
Republicans somehow want to go back to the way things were before 
ObamaCare, which everyone, of course, knows is not true. It is an 
argument that conveniently leaves out the fact that things are now 
worse for many than they were before ObamaCare. That is not all we can 
expect to hear either. We will hear that repeal will cause insurers to 
flee the exchanges, which, by the way, news flash, is already 
happening. We will hear that repeal will plunge ObamaCare into a death 
spiral, which, they might have missed, is here already and fast 
approaching terminal velocity--the death spiral--right now.

  We long warned that ObamaCare would eventually collapse under its own 
weight. That is exactly what is happening. Democrats chose to rip apart 
our health care system 7 years ago and give us the chaos we are seeing, 
and things will only continue to get worse unless we act now.
  It is time to finally bring relief. The status quo is simply 
unsustainable. The reality is, that by any measure, ObamaCare has 
failed. It didn't deliver on its core promises. It hurt more than it 
helped. Many are finding they can't even use the insurance they now 
have.
  History will record ObamaCare as a failed partisan experiment, an 
attack on the American middle class, a lesson to future generations 
about how not to legislate. Let's be clear. ObamaCare's failure is the 
fault of ObamaCare and those who forced it on our country, not the 
American people, not the Republicans. We didn't cause this problem, but 
we are now determined to provide relief. We are determined to live up 
to our promise to the American people and repeal this failed law.
  Starting today, we will begin repairing the damage by passing the 
legislative tools necessary to repeal ObamaCare and begin to transition 
to more sensible health care solutions. We just laid down the ObamaCare 
repeal budget resolution this week. We will take it up soon, but repeal 
is only the first step. It clears the path for a replacement that costs 
less and works better than what we have now. Once repeal is enacted, 
there will be a stable transition period to a patient-centered health 
care system that gives Americans access to quality, affordable care.
  We plan to take on this challenge in manageable pieces, not with 
another 2,700-page bill. That was one of ObamaCare's initial mistakes 
and one we do not intend to repeat. Some of our friends across the 
aisle have mused publicly about their role in this process. I hope they 
will work with us. We hardly need another tired slogan from Democratic 
colleagues--after all, how does that move us ahead--but we do want 
their ideas, and we do want to work together to improve our health care 
system. That is the best way forward. That is certainly the way I 
prefer.
  I hope our Democratic colleagues will join us in taking an important 
step forward soon by confirming Tom Price as HHS Secretary and Seema 
Verma as CMS Administrator. Some of you may remember the ``redtape 
tower'' we used to wheel around here. It represented the fact that 
while the ObamaCare bill may have run about 2,700 pages, its 
regulations run to tens of thousands of pages. That is what Price and 
Verma can get to work on once confirmed, stabilizing the health care 
market and bringing relief.
  It isn't going to be easy. It is going to take time. There will be 
bumps along the way, but we are going to do everything we can to heal 
the wounds of ObamaCare and move forward toward real care. We are going 
to move step-by-step. We want the widest possible coalition working to 
achieve real solutions for the people who are hurting and calling for 
our help.
  Let's give them that help. Let's give them some hope. Let's leave 
ObamaCare in the past and work together instead on reforms and outcomes 
we can all be proud of.

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