[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 106 (Wednesday, June 21, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3672-S3675]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Healthcare Legislation

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, for the last several weeks, I have been 
hearing quite a bit about process here in the Senate, particularly as 
it relates to the ongoing debate over the future of ObamaCare.
  My friends on the other side of the aisle have, apparently, poll-
tested the strategy of decrying the supposed secrecy surrounding the 
healthcare bill and the lack of regular order in its development. They 
have come to the floor, given interviews, and even hijacked committee 
meetings and hearings to express their supposedly righteous indignation 
about how Republicans are proceeding with the healthcare bill.
  Of course, hearing Senate Democrats lecture about preserving the 
customs and traditions of the Senate is a bit ironic, but I will get 
back to that in a minute.
  Last week, the Senate Finance Committee, which I chair, held a 
routine nominations markup to consider a slate of relatively 
uncontroversial nominees. On that same day, several of our colleagues 
and congressional staffers had been viciously attacked by an armed 
assailant, and a Member of the House of Representatives, of course, was 
in critical condition in the hospital.
  I opened the meeting by respectfully asking my colleagues to allow 
the committee to use the markup as an opportunity to demonstrate unity 
in the face of a violent attack against Congress as an institution. 
Even then, my Democratic friends were, apparently, unable to pass up an 
opportunity to try to score partisan points and rack up video clips for 
social media by playing for the cameras as they lamented the 
committee's position in the healthcare debate.
  Once again, the situation is dripping with irony. As I said, I will 
get to that in a minute.
  If my Democratic colleagues are going to continue grandstanding over 
the healthcare debate, I have a few numbers I would like to cite for 
them.
  Under ObamaCare, health insurance premiums in the State of Oregon 
have gone up by an average of 110 percent. In Michigan, they have gone 
up by 90 percent. In Florida, they have gone up by 84 percent. In 
Delaware, they have gone up by 108 percent. In Ohio, they have gone up 
by 86 percent. In Pennsylvania, they have gone up by 120 percent. In

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Virginia, they have gone up by 77 percent. In Missouri, they have gone 
up by 145 percent.
  I have not picked those States at random. Each of these States is 
currently represented by a Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. Of 
course, those trends extend well beyond the committee.
  In Illinois, where the Senate minority whip resides, premiums have 
gone up by 108 percent.
  In West Virginia and Wisconsin, both of which are also represented by 
Democratic Senators, premiums have gone up by 169 percent and 93 
percent, respectively.
  Montana is in a similar situation with premiums rising by 133 percent 
under ObamaCare.
  Now, just so people do not go thinking that I am picking on the 
Democrats, I will note that, in Utah, health insurance premiums have 
gone up by an average of 101 percent.
  In Wyoming, they have gone up by 107 percent, and, in Nebraska, they 
have gone up by 153 percent.
  I can go on, but I think my point is clear: Health insurance premiums 
have skyrocketed all over the country by an average of 105 percent. I 
will repeat that. Under ObamaCare, the average health insurance 
premiums in the United States have seen triple-digit increases.
  These are the fruits of the so-called Affordable Care Act. This is 
the burden that ObamaCare has placed on patients and families 
throughout our country, and people are feeling that burden whether they 
vote for Democrats or Republicans.
  The only difference is that, for 7\1/2\ years, my Republican 
colleagues and I have been talking about the failures of ObamaCare, and 
for 7\1/2\ years, Senate Democrats have done virtually nothing to 
address these problems.
  For 7\1/2\ years, Republicans like myself have pleaded with our 
Democratic colleagues and with the previous administration to work with 
us to address the failures of ObamaCare, and for 7\1/2\ years, it has 
been virtually impossible to get any Democrat in Washington to even 
acknowledge that there have been any problems with ObamaCare to begin 
with.
  As the cost of healthcare in this country has skyrocketed out of 
control and the system created by the so-called Affordable Care Act has 
been collapsing under its own weight, Democrats in the Senate have been 
cherry-picking what few positive data points they can find and telling 
the American people that everything is fine and that ObamaCare is 
working.
  Give me a break.
  By no honest or reasonable measure is ObamaCare living up to the 
promises that were made at the time it was passed. As a result, the 
American people are saddled with a healthcare system that has been 
poorly designed and recklessly implemented.
  Sure, it has made for partisan political theater for my colleagues to 
express shock and dismay at the current state of the healthcare 
debate. I am quite certain the strategy has poll-tested very well among 
the Democratic base, and the Senate minority leader clearly has an 
elaborate media campaign in mind.

  Before they begin berating Republicans, I hope my Democratic 
colleagues were able to come up with something to tell their 
constituents whose healthcare costs have exploded as a result of 
ObamaCare. I have just mentioned a few things.
  I hope they have answers for their voters for wondering why they only 
have one insurance option available to them, if they even have that, 
and, most importantly, I hope they have an explanation as to why they 
have been more or less silent while the law they supported--and still 
support--has wreaked havoc on our Nation's healthcare system.
  Until they can answer those questions and provide those explanations, 
my good friends should spare anyone within earshot their lectures about 
what is currently happening in the Senate.
  Finally, let me address the irony of my Democratic colleagues' 
process complaints. Some of them have selective memories when it comes 
to the history of ObamaCare. We have heard our colleagues talk about 
the number of committee hearings held in advance of ObamaCare's 
passing. What we don't hear is that there was not a single hearing held 
in the Senate on the ObamaCare reconciliation bill, which was an 
essential element that ensured passage of the Affordable Care Act in 
the House.
  We have heard our colleagues talk about the markup process in 
committee and the number of amendments that were filed and accepted. 
What we don't hear about is the fact that the bills reported by the 
Finance and HELP Committees were tossed aside so the healthcare bill 
could be rewritten behind closed doors in Senator Reid's office, who 
was then the majority leader. The final product was only made public a 
few days before the Senate voted on it.
  The truth is this: Senate committees--including the Finance 
Committee--have had literally dozens of hearings wherein the failings 
of ObamaCare--both the structure of the law and its implementation--
have been thoroughly examined. Between all the relevant committees, 
there have been at least 66 healthcare hearings in the Senate since 
ObamaCare became the healthcare law of the land. More than half of 
those were in the Finance Committee.
  Committees have conducted countless oversight investigations and 
inquiries into these matters over the years. Few matters in the history 
of our country have received as much of the Senate's attention as 
ObamaCare has received. Very few laws have been examined as extensively 
as the so-called Affordable Care Act, which is anything but affordable. 
ObamaCare is the very definition of well-covered territory.
  The majority leader has made clear that Members will have an 
opportunity to examine the forthcoming healthcare bill, and I expect 
that to be the case. He has always made assurances that when the bill 
is debated on the floor, we will have a fair and open amendment 
process, as required under the rules. There is really no reason for 
anyone to expect otherwise.
  Let's recall that when ObamaCare was passed, the Democratic Speaker 
of the House, with a plain face, stated that Congress had to pass the 
bill in order for people to see what was in it.
  Let's also recall that a couple of years later, one of the chief 
architects of the so-called Affordable Care Act bragged about the lack 
of transparency that surrounded its passage and said it was necessary 
to, in his words, take advantage of the ``stupidity of the American 
voter.''
  Any argument that the process that resulted in ObamaCare was a 
picture of transparency and deliberation is so off base that it would 
almost be humorous if the issue was something less important.
  As I said in committee last week, I want to welcome my Democratic 
colleagues to the healthcare debate. Ever since ObamaCare was signed 
into law, Democrats have more or less assumed that the debate was over 
and that all they had to do was keep telling the American people that 
everything was just fine, as if repetition alone would make it come 
true.
  Everyone is going to see the bill, and everyone is going to get their 
chance to say their piece about it.
  For now, I simply hope my Democratic colleagues will spare us their 
lectures and maybe look in the mirror when they are ranting about the 
degradation of the process and traditions of the Senate.
  I have been around healthcare for most of my 41 years in the Senate. 
A lot of the healthcare bills that work in this country have my name on 
them. This is one of the worst bills I have ever seen in all my time in 
the U.S. Senate. If I were a Democrat, I would not be claiming success 
because of that bill. It is a pathetic piece of legislation that is 
going to put this country down and make healthcare not available for 
everybody but make everybody have the worst healthcare system they 
could possibly have.
  Now, it is one thing to cherry-pick a few things that the healthcare 
bill can help with, but it would be a totally stupid bill if it didn't 
have something in it that was good. If you look at the overall bill and 
you look at the overall cost to America and you look at what it is 
doing to America and you look at how the medical profession is starting 
to really wonder if they want to be in the profession anymore--you 
can't do all of this and look at all of these things

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without asking, What in the heck have we done here? Are we so stupid 
that we believe the Federal Government is the last answer to 
everything?
  Well, we will see, because I think some people are that stupid and, 
frankly--I don't want to name anybody, and I hope I am wrong, but I 
have been here 41 years and I have seen a lot of stupidity around this 
place and you have to really go a long way to find anything worse than 
the so-called ``affordable'' healthcare bill.
  This is a pathetic piece of legislation that is going to wreck our 
country if we don't, as Democrats and Republicans, get together and 
reform it. This is an opportunity for my friends on the Democratic side 
as well as the Republican side to see what we can do about this and to 
get this thing straightened out.

  This is the greatest country in the world. There is nobody in this 
country who should go without basic healthcare. When we have terrible 
cases like my distinguished friend and colleague from Connecticut has 
mentioned, yes, we want to make sure people who suffer like that are 
taken care of, and there are some on our side who could be a little 
more humane and compassionate, but there are some on the other side, 
too, who could be a little more humane and compassionate and maybe a 
little more honest when they talk about this bill.
  We are a long way from solving the healthcare problems in this 
country, and if we go down this road any further, we will be an even 
longer way from solving these problems, and we may very well bankrupt 
the American economy, which will then really show us how bad we are 
with regard to healthcare in this country.
  My friends on the other side never ask, Where is the money going to 
come from? Who is going to pay for this? Who is going to help us to get 
through this? We are just going to throw money at it, and we are $100 
trillion in unfunded liability in this country and $20 trillion in 
national debt. It is astounding. Who is going to pay for it, especially 
when it doesn't work any better than that.
  I spent some of my prior life in medical malpractice work defending 
doctors and hospitals and healthcare providers, and some of that was 
really astounding to me because some of those cases were brought just 
to get the defense costs, which were always pretty high because those 
cases were very expensive to defend. Most of them were not good cases, 
but once they got in court, if they had any kind of basis at all--but 
even if they were dismissed, it still cost a lot of money.
  All I can say is, there is a lot wrong with our healthcare system in 
this country, but it is still the best healthcare system in the world, 
and it is about to go down if we don't get together as Republicans and 
Democrats and straighten this mess out. We can make our political 
points all we want to. Both sides have been right in some cases and 
both sides have been wrong on some things, but we are wrong if we think 
that the current system is going to work, and we ought to be working 
together as Republicans and Democrats or Democrats and Republicans to 
straighten it out.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I rise with the understanding that the 
Senate will be voting on a Republican healthcare bill next week, a bill 
that has been written entirely behind closed doors.
  The bill has been hidden from the American people, the press, and, as 
far as I can tell, almost every Senator. I have not been allowed to see 
it and neither have any of my Democratic colleagues.
  I was elected to the Senate in 2014 during the same election that 
Republicans regained the majority, and I remember a pledge by their 
leadership that the Senate would return to regular order. Well, regular 
order means public hearings on legislation. Regular order means 
committees have a chance to gather input from expert witnesses, 
consider a policy's potential impact, and amend bills before they come 
to the floor.
  Prior to enacting ObamaCare, the Senate Finance and HELP Committees 
held nearly 100 hearings, roundtables, and walkthroughs on healthcare 
reform. In the House, where I served at the time, there were over 79 
bipartisan hearings and markups that included an opportunity for our 
Republican colleagues to offer input and amendments in the bill. Dozens 
of Republican amendments were adopted during the House committee 
markups of the Affordable Care Act. That is an open process.
  What we are seeing now is a bill drafted entirely in secrecy and 
hidden behind closed doors. But why? Is it because Republicans know 
that this bill is not a good deal for the American people? You could 
call the recent process a lot of things, but you can't call it open, 
and you can't call it regular order.
  Supposedly, the bill has been assembled by a working group of 13 of 
my Republican colleagues, but just yesterday--just yesterday--one of 
these Members complained that he had not yet seen a draft. In fact, he 
went on to say--this is a Republican colleague of mine in this working 
group:

       It has become increasingly apparent in the last few days 
     that even though we thought we were going to be in charge of 
     writing a bill within this working group, it's not being 
     written by us. It's apparently being written by a small 
     handful of staffers for members of the Republican leadership 
     in the Senate.

  This quote makes it clear that this working group is--well, it is not 
working.
  When Senators in the majority party are unable to tell you who is 
writing the bill, let alone what is in the bill, we have a 
problem. While we clearly have a problem with the secretive, rushed 
process, this process is a symptom, not the disease. The underlying 
disease is that this bill, which we reportedly will see tomorrow, is 
almost certainly terrible for the American people.

  There are two explanations for keeping a product under wraps: Either 
you want to build excitement for it or you are worried about the 
weaknesses that would be exposed by the daylight. I don't believe for a 
moment that Republicans are trying to build excitement by hiding this 
bill. This bill is not next year's model of the Ford Mustang or Chevy 
Camaro waiting to be unveiled at the Detroit auto show to great 
fanfare. This bill is like a disaster that will negatively impact 
millions of Americans. This bill is the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, 
and Republican leadership has turned off the ship's radio and are 
furiously shoveling coal into the engines.
  While the Senate moves full steam ahead to vote next week on a bill 
we haven't even seen yet, I am worried that my colleagues across the 
aisle, along with too many political commentators and pundits, are 
simply asking the wrong questions. They are asking: Will moderate 
Republicans vote for it? Will the tea party wing support it? Will it 
take sweetheart deals to get to 51 votes?
  Well, folks, this is not a game. This is not about if and how the 
majority can count to 51 votes and solve their political problems with 
the far-rightwing base of their party. This is about people's lives.
  There are serious policy questions we need to ask, and the American 
people deserve to have answers. There are questions like these: What 
are your policy goals here? How do you think this will help people 
afford quality insurance coverage? What will the bill do for tens of 
millions of Americans who have gained healthcare coverage in recent 
years? What will the bill do for patients with preexisting conditions? 
What will the bill do for the hundreds of thousands of Michiganders 
covered under the successful Healthy Michigan Program? What will the 
bill do for small business owners and employees? What will the bill do 
for seniors who need affordable, long-term care options? What will the 
bill do for individuals battling opioid addiction? These are questions 
I am asking, along with all of my Democratic colleagues.
  I serve on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and just a 
few weeks ago we held a hearing on opioid abuse and how the epidemic is 
simply ravaging our Nation.
  I had the opportunity to speak with a police chief from our southern 
border State of Ohio. He was very clear that if Medicaid expansion were 
to go away--as we saw in the House bill and expect to see in the Senate 
bill--it will make it much more difficult for local police departments 
to tackle this crisis because of dramatically scaled-back

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availability of addiction treatment. I spoke with a coroner, a medical 
doctor, and an addiction expert on the panel as well.
  These are professionals dealing with a public health crisis each and 
every day--not people with political agendas. They all agreed that 
Medicaid expansion is critical to combating addiction, improving public 
health, and helping individuals suffering from addiction have an 
opportunity to be productive citizens and have a second chance at life.
  The bottom line is that this bill--this secretive, rushed bill that 
we will supposedly see tomorrow--will move us backward and rip 
healthcare away from millions of Americans. When you take health 
coverage away from people, people will die.
  As a Member of the House, I voted for the Affordable Care Act because 
I knew that, at the end of the day, it would save people's lives. As 
elected officials and public servants, there are only a handful of 
votes we cast that are literally about life and death. Next week, we 
will see one of those votes.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to read the bill, 
whenever we get it, and then talk to doctors, patients, families, 
clinics, and hospitals in their State. I also urge my colleagues to 
vote no next week and to start a truly bipartisan process that keeps 
what works, fixes what doesn't, but, most importantly, helps all 
Americans afford quality healthcare in their communities.
  I stand here ready and willing to be a partner in a bipartisan 
process and to work with my Republican colleagues to improve our 
healthcare system. Show us and the American people you are serious 
about health reform. Let's have an open and honest process and pass a 
bill that is genuinely in the best interest of the American people.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.