[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 53 (Monday, March 27, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1985-S1987]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               ObamaCare

  Mr. President, last week, a lot of attention was focused on the House 
of Representatives and their efforts to fix our Nation's healthcare 
system.
  We have said for a long time that ObamaCare needs to be repealed and 
replaced. I stand by that comment, and I know many of our colleagues do 
as well. But I want to make something else clear. The failure of 
ObamaCare isn't a problem for Democrats or Republicans alone. It is a 
problem for the entire country, and particularly those who find their 
premiums going up by double digits every year, their deductibles 
unaffordable, or even choices drying up because insurance companies 
simply have withdrawn from the individual market. Our colleagues on the 
Democratic side have repeatedly recognized the problems with ObamaCare, 
even though they pushed it through on a partisan vote 7 years ago.
  The fact of the matter is that the President promised: If you like 
your healthcare policy, you can keep it; if you like your doctor, you 
can keep your doctor; and, premiums for a family of four will go down 
by an average of $2,500. None of that has proven to be true. People 
were misled into believing that ObamaCare would somehow be the gold 
standard for healthcare in the country, and people are being hurt now 
by high premiums, high deductibles, and fewer choices. Indeed, 30 
million people remain uninsured in this country because of the cost or 
the fact that they just decide that they don't want to buy government-
mandated healthcare. They either pay a penalty through the IRS or they 
simply get a hardship exemption. There are 30 million people currently 
uninsured, more or less, under ObamaCare.

  I want to remind our colleagues on the other side that they 
understand ObamaCare needs some work, and many of them have made 
repeated calls to fix it. Last year, for example, the junior Senator 
from Wisconsin said of ObamaCare:

       There were things obviously that need perfecting, need 
     revisiting. Even if it were perfect, over time we would have 
     to make adaptations, and so I think we would absolutely want 
     to strengthen it.

  Not even our colleague, the junior Senator from Wisconsin, is saying 
ObamaCare is delivering 100 percent on the promise. She is saying it 
needs some work.
  The senior Senator from Indiana has echoed this sentiment. He said:

       I supported the Affordable Care Act because I wanted to 
     help working- and middle-class families to have access to 
     healthcare. That doesn't mean the law is perfect, and it 
     doesn't mean that we don't still have work to do. That's why 
     I'm working with my colleagues to make this bill stronger.

  We haven't seen any proposals from our friends across the aisle on 
how to fix the law, which they concede is far from perfect. Instead, 
what we have seen is their standing back, watching Republicans trying 
to do this by ourselves and coming up short last week in the House of 
Representatives. To my mind, that is not commendable behavior on their 
part. I thought we all came here to the U.S. Senate to try to do things 
and fix problems for the constituents we represent. It is purely 
partisan to say: We know ObamaCare is falling apart, and it is not 
delivering as we promised. And, oh yes, you Republicans can try to fix 
it, but if you don't have the votes to do it, we are just going to sit 
back and applaud or react with glee from a partisan perspective because 
our political opponents somehow came up short when it came to the votes 
in the House.
  The truth is, ObamaCare didn't bring massive relief for working- and 
middle-class Americans. For many, it made life more difficult with 
skyrocketing premiums, losing their plans and the doctors they wanted, 
and having fewer options to choose from.
  I will quote one of our colleagues on the other side of the isle, the 
junior Senator from North Dakota. Her website says: ``With any major 
legislation, there are improvements that need to be made so that it 
works as well as possible, and that holds true for the

[[Page S1986]]

healthcare reform law,'' speaking of ObamaCare.
  She goes on to say that she is committed to ``correcting the parts of 
the healthcare reform law that do not make sense, improve on others, 
and implement new ideas to improve on healthcare costs and improve 
quality.''
  I am grateful to our colleague from North Dakota for her honesty and 
open take on where things stand with respect to ObamaCare, but that is 
just a start. What we need to do now is work together to try to address 
the failings of ObamaCare where it is not delivering as promised and 
where even our colleagues across the aisle have said that it needs to 
be fixed in order to make sure that people have access to affordable, 
accessible quality healthcare. They don't have that now.
  My point is that ObamaCare was a bill sold to the American people 
under false pretenses by the previous administration, and it has proved 
to be a disaster for many people. I was reading an article--I think it 
was either in the Washington Post or the New York Times today--about a 
woman in Texas who runs a hair care salon and who has intentionally 
kept her number of employees under the threshold under which 
ObamaCare's employer mandate would be invoked. So rather than spending 
time focusing on growing her business and improving her business, she 
has consciously kept it smaller, with fewer employees, because she 
knows that the burden of complying with the ObamaCare employer mandate 
will ultimately make her business less profitable. And when her 
business is less profitable, it means she can hire fewer people and 
perhaps can't pay the wages or the benefits she would like to pay her 
employees.
  So I would just say to our colleagues across the aisle that I 
understand you think you had a pretty good day last week when the 
Republicans couldn't pass the healthcare plan on their own in the 
House, but I don't think this is a time for people to enjoy other 
people's failed efforts to try to improve the status quo. It is a 
mandate, I believe, for all of us to work together to address the flaws 
that we know exist--that they admitted exist--to try to do better when 
it comes to affordable, accessible healthcare for the American people.
  This law will fail. Insurance companies will withdraw from the 
market, and the individual market serving roughly 18 million people 
will literally dry up and go away. Imagine how those families are going 
to be impacted.
  I wouldn't want to be somebody who said: Well, I had an opportunity 
to fix it; yes, I had an opportunity to address your concerns when it 
came to affordable healthcare, but for partisan political reasons, I 
simply stood down and did nothing and literally washed my hands of it.
  So before this law collapses--and it will--I hope our colleagues 
across the aisle will start offering their ideas and their solutions to 
bring better healthcare to families across the country. That is what I 
think our constituents expect of us. That is in the finest tradition of 
the U.S. Senate, and our constituents deserve no less.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I am pleased that in the Senate we are 
about to take a vote on ratifying the protocol of the accession of 
Montenegro to NATO.
  What I wanted to do was to take a few moments to explain to people 
why I think this is an important vote and an important moment for our 
security as a nation but also to protect our interests abroad and that 
of our allies.
  We all know that NATO--the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--was 
started right after World War II. It was primarily designed in the Cold 
War to confront the threats posed by the Soviet Union and its allies in 
the Warsaw Pact. Of course those threats have changed since the end of 
that Cold War.
  Here is what hasn't changed. What hasn't changed is the need for 
America and her allies in a strong way to remain engaged in the world. 
That need has not changed. What has not changed is the need for 
democracies to be able to come together and collectively defend not 
just their interests but the interests of all people around the world 
where freedom is threatened. The difficult, painful lesson of history 
is that dictators and tyrants are never pleased with what they have. 
They always want more. They always need more. That is why it is so 
important that those nations on Earth--luckily and in a blessed way, 
more people than ever before find themselves living in societies where 
the people get to choose their leaders.
  These alliances we have around the world--NATO being chief among 
them--help advance our strategic and economic interests, but most 
importantly, they help to keep our country safe.
  There is a lot of talk about how much countries are paying into NATO, 
and it is true that the United States is by far the largest contributor 
to NATO. I think that is a combination of two things: one, decisions 
that were made by some of our allies in Europe on how they want to 
spend their government's money, and the other is just the reality that 
we are the United States of America, and as the United States of 
America, we will always find that we are always making a 
disproportionate share and contribution on everything, from global aid 
to fight off hunger and disease, to collective security.
  While we can urge our allies, encourage our allies, and ask our 
allies to make a greater contribution to their own defense, we should 
not fall into the trap of diminishing what they are doing and what they 
have done.
  First of all, in Europe today, many of our NATO allies are increasing 
their defense spending. They are doing so in response to Russia's 
aggression in Ukraine and its increased aggression elsewhere in the 
region. Their soldiers are joining ours in deploying to Central and 
Eastern Europe to reassure our allies who are facing aggression and 
potential aggression from Vladimir Putin.
  With all this talk about NATO and money and how much everyone is 
giving, I think it is important to take a moment to also understand 
that our NATO allies have fought beside us and have died beside 
Americans in Afghanistan, where more than 1,100 soldiers of the NATO-
led coalition paid the ultimate price with their lives. It is important 
to note this because on September 11, 2001, Paris was not attacked, 
Berlin was not attacked, and London was not attacked on that horrible 
day; yet these nations and others, our partners, invoked a shared 
commitment that led them to stand beside us on the other side of the 
world in an effort to prevent another attack like September 11 from 
taking place again on American soil or anywhere in the world.
  Montenegro is not even a member of NATO yet. Yet it sent hundreds of 
servicemembers to join the American-led coalition in Afghanistan.
  I have always argued that when our alliances, such as NATO, are under 
pressure from our potential adversaries and foes, we need to continue 
to expand and allow countries that meet the standards set by the 
alliance to join. That has never been more important than it is now, 
given the uncertainty and security challenges we face in Europe, 
especially as Vladimir Putin continues his aggression and continues to 
threaten stability in the region.
  To be frank, Putin would love nothing more than to destroy NATO. In 
fact, you can see him trying to do that on a regular basis. He has 
tried to divide these countries, turn them against each other. He 
supports candidates throughout Europe who would take their countries 
out of NATO, constantly calling into question its viability. Vladimir 
Putin wants countries like Montenegro to remain in his sphere of 
influence and what I would call his sphere of threat, as his recent 
attempts to deploy his asymmetrical tools to influence Montenegrin 
politics have shown. That is why it is so important that we are moving 
to ratify Montenegro's access to NATO and to strengthen our 
relationship with Montenegro through NATO.
  As the Senate and as a country, we are sending a clear message to 
Vladimir Putin that we will not accept the establishment of a Russian 
sphere of influence over countries that desire to

[[Page S1987]]

ally themselves with the free and democratic community of nations.
  Today, I have tried to refrain from using the term ``Russian'' sphere 
of influence or ``Russia'' because the fact is, as I said to someone 
earlier today or yesterday, there is a difference between Russia and 
Vladimir Putin, and the events of the last 48 hours remind us of that. 
We are watching as many Russians who also desire to join the community 
of nations have turned out in cities and in places across Moscow and in 
other places in the thousands. They have turned out to protest the 
rampant corruption that fuels the Putin regime. And the Putin regime, 
as all totalitarian regimes do, has cracked down. They have arrested 
and detained hundreds of peaceful protesters. I ask you to compare that 
to Montenegro, whose membership in NATO will help the United States and 
Montenegro deepen our already strong bilateral relationship.
  The stakes here are extraordinarily high for the United States and 
for our European allies. The Senate needs to send a strong message of 
solidarity with those in Europe who are standing up to the anti-
democratic tactics of Vladimir Putin and his cronies.
  That is why today I will be proud to cast my vote in support of 
Montenegro's accession into NATO, and I hope my colleagues here in the 
Senate will do the same and join me in doing so as well.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.