[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 102 (Thursday, June 15, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3542-S3543]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Healthcare Legislation

  Mr. President, with the events this week, I would hope our body could 
find a way to lower the vitriol, to lower the hysteria when we have a 
difference of opinion and to find a way to look at what we might agree 
on, on an issue, as well as what we might disagree on. Yet, as I stand 
here today listening to some of the speeches, just today I am shocked 
because it is business as usual in this body. The vitriol is at a very 
high level. The misinformation is at an extremely high level.
  Remember when then-President Obama said: If you like your insurance 
you can keep your insurance; if you like your doctor you can keep your 
doctor; premiums will go down under ObamaCare; deductibles will go 
down; everybody will have insurance. The CBO overestimated by 20 
million the number of people who would sign up for ObamaCare, and, oh, 
by the way, we are going to institute a 30-hour workweek limitation to 
define ``full-time work'' and we are going to limit it so anybody with 
over 51 employees has to comply.
  We now know--both sides even agree--that it is failing. What they are 
saying now, though, is that they are relying back on the argument: 
Let's move to regular order now; let's make sure we all get this done 
together. Where was that conversation in 2008 and 2009, when behind 
closed doors a supermajority crammed down the throat of the minority 
this thing called ObamaCare? Remember that in the House of 
Representatives then-Speaker Pelosi said: If you want to find out what 
is in the bill, you have to vote for the bill. I think it was a matter 
of hours that day before when the Senate got the bill. They had to look 
at the bill before they had to vote on it that night.
  But let's look at the reality. ObamaCare is collapsing under its own 
weight. We know rates are up over 105 percent nationally. In my State 
alone, they have more than doubled in the last 3 years. Deductibles are 
up even more than that. Forty-five percent of the counties in the 
United States are down to one carrier. In my State alone, Georgia, we 
have 159 counties and 96 are down to one carrier. States like Ohio, 
Virginia, Iowa, Tennessee, and Missouri are told now that they are 
losing their last carrier in the individual market.
  But let me highlight the reality here. Before the Affordable Care 
Act, 48 million people in the United States did not have insurance. 
That was a catastrophe. We all agree with that. Today, however, what 
nobody on the other side talks about is that 28 million people today in 
America--the richest country in the history of the world--still do not 
have healthcare coverage. I can't see how that is a success by any 
measure. Of the 20 million who got insurance over the last 6 years, 16 
million of them did not got get it through ObamaCare. It came through 
the Medicaid expansion. Of the remaining 4 million, 2 million are like 
me and my wife, who were canceled and then had to come back into the 
Affordable Care Act unwillingly. That was our only choice. Oh, by the 
way, we had to have a program that had so many other features in it 
that our rates doubled over that period of time.
  It just seems to me that what we have before us today is an 
opportunity to clean up this mess and provide for the things that were 
broken in 2008. We know we have to cover preexisting conditions. We 
don't want people to have their insurance canceled just because they 
get sick. That is not the American way. That had to be fixed, and we 
are going to continue that.
  People have to have access, though, and right now, with the cost, 
many people are coming off of healthcare in the individual market 
because they simply can't make the financial equation work. The 
premiums are too much. In my own family, one of my sons can't 
understand the deductibles. So the financial equation for the very 
people who need it doesn't make any sense.
  We can do things to get premiums down by allowing the free market to 
provide the types of services inside insurance products that people 
actually want and not ask them to pay for products they don't need.
  We have to make sure Medicaid can be sustained long term.
  Lastly, I think we have to make sure that, as we deal with the 
preexisting conditions, we make sure that everybody in America has 
access to healthcare. Nobody is talking about taking away access from 
the American people in terms of healthcare.
  Whether it is healthcare, the military, the VA, or any of our 
domestic programs, we have a serious funding problem. Our mechanism 
that funds the programs is broken. It has never worked since 1974, 
except for four times, and that was prior to 1980, and we have to fix 
it. But right now, in 43 days--between now and September 30--we have to 
fund this government, or all the other rhetoric will be idle chatter.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized 
for such time as I may consume as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, let me say that I am really 
glad the junior Senator from Georgia has taken this on. This is 
something that some of us who have been around a little bit longer have 
gone through before.
  I think everyone realizes that what was attempted to be done by 
President Obama was a single-payer system. Ultimately, that is what 
liberals want. I remember back in the 1990s what was referred to at 
that time as Hillary healthcare during the Clinton administration. I 
remember so well the efforts that were taking place.
  Sometimes I go back to my State of Oklahoma just to be around logical 
people, and they will ask the question: If this system is not working 
in Canada, is not working in Sweden, and is not working in Great 
Britain, why do they think it will work here? Liberal individuals will 
never tell you this, but what they are really thinking is this: It 
would work if I were running the show.
  So we are going through a similar thing again, and I am so happy we 
have leaders, as the occupier of the Chair,

[[Page S3543]]

and we have more doctors right now in the Senate. This is the time to 
make these changes and really accomplish things. But that is not why I 
am here.