[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 111 (Wednesday, June 28, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S3823]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1201

  We have a very simple solution to the bare counties, and I hope 
people will think this through before they just object. I am going to 
have 25 bare counties, mostly as a result of the sabotaging of the 
exchanges by this administration. People in those counties are looking 
to me for an answer, and I do not blame them for being worried. How can 
we solve that problem today? S. 1201, the Health Care Options for All 
Act, which I have introduced, will solve that problem today.
  All we have to do is say to anyone who is in a county in America--and 
I know my colleague from Ohio, Senator Brown, has some counties, and I 
know my colleague from Indiana has some counties--if you do not have an 
insurer in your county, you can come with your subsidy and buy 
insurance from the same places our staffs buy it and most Members of 
Congress buy it. Those are national plans. They are in every State in 
the Union because Members of Congress have staff members in every State 
in the Union. There is no need to attract more plans. There is no need 
to do anything complicated. You just take the subsidies that you are 
entitled to and you buy insurance at the same place Congress buys it.
  We can do that today. If we do not do it today, do you know what we 
are saying to the people who live in Ohio and Indiana and Missouri? We 
are saying that we are entitled to something better than they have and 
that they should not be allowed to buy what we can buy. Now, that takes 
some nerve. If we are not willing to take this simple, basic step, 
people in these counties should be angry and take up pitchforks--
metaphorically, of course.
  The national plans that are out there that my staff uses that are in 
Springfield, Cape Girardeau, Columbia--and I am sure my colleagues 
could talk about their staffs using these plans all over the country--I 
would like to make those available to regular folks in my State who 
want to be able to lay their heads on their pillows tonight and not 
worry about whether they are going to have insurance next year.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance 
be discharged from further consideration of S. 1201, the Health Care 
Options for All Act; that the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and 
passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid 
upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, reserving my right to object, before 
coming to the Senate, I practiced medicine in Wyoming for over 20 
years. That is why I am passionate about improving the quality of care 
and lowering the cost of healthcare. Unfortunately, we know healthcare 
is in a crisis. Premiums and deductibles are skyrocketing, and 
insurance is unaffordable.
  It is interesting to hear the comments when we are talking about the 
sabotaging of the marketplace. It is ObamaCare that has sabotaged the 
marketplace. The Presiding Officer knows fully well, as do I, that when 
you look at the co-ops that were set up all around the country under 
ObamaCare, one after another went bankrupt--belly-up, shut down--and 
left people uncovered. That was before we even knew who the Republican 
nominee for President was going to be in 2016. That is ObamaCare. That 
was at a time when all there was out there was the Obama healthcare 
law. One co-op after another failed, and it cost the taxpayers billions 
of dollars--guaranteed loans that will never be paid back.
  Just like the bill we just discussed, this proposal is an important 
acknowledgment by the Senator from Missouri. It is the acknowledgment 
that ObamaCare's collapsing insurance markets are affecting people all 
around the country. In Missouri, 18,000 people in 25 counties will have 
zero options on the ObamaCare exchanges--zero. They have been promised 
that their preexisting conditions will be covered, and no one is 
selling insurance in those counties in that State. They have basically 
been misled by ObamaCare that they will be covered for preexisting 
conditions. In the Republican plan, what we are doing is covering 
people who have preexisting conditions.
  Let me say again that next year thousands of people in Missouri will 
have no insurance company that will be willing to sell insurance in the 
ObamaCare exchange. It is clear that insurance markets in Missouri are 
collapsing, as they are all around the country.
  This bill is not the solution. Instead of giving people more choices 
in Missouri, what does the bill do? It sends people to Washington, DC, 
to buy their health insurance--a typical solution from the other side 
of the aisle. Instead of empowering States with more flexibility and 
the authority at the State level, they think once again that Washington 
knows best. They think that the people they represent would rather call 
a bureaucrat who is hundreds of miles away than talk with local people 
who live and work in their communities.
  The simple fact is that ObamaCare is not providing patients with the 
increased choices they were promised. We need to rescue people in 
Missouri and across the country from ObamaCare. This bill is the wrong 
approach.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming does not have the 
floor.
  The Senator from Missouri.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, the next time I will know, when he is 
giving a speech, before he objects, to start then.
  I am pretty sure that his staff in Wyoming is not coming up to 
Washington to buy their insurance. I am pretty sure that all of our 
staffs--I am pretty sure the Presiding Officer's staff, those who work 
for him in Utah--are not coming to Washington to buy their insurance. I 
am pretty sure Senator Manchin's staff and Senator Patty Murray's staff 
and all of our staffs who live all over this great country are not 
coming to Washington to buy their insurance. They are getting good 
health insurance plans.
  I just think it takes incredible nerve to lecture me about people in 
Missouri having no insurance while the Senator from Wyoming is 
objecting to letting them get the same insurance he has. Really? That 
is what this has come to, this partisan exercise?
  We don't have to fix this permanently this way, but we could do it 
just temporarily to give people peace of mind until we figure out the 
right way forward. But how dare Members of this Chamber tell people in 
my State they are not entitled to buy what we have, when they have no 
other options at this moment.
  Let's move forward together and fix it--all of it. But to get a 
lecture that people in my State don't deserve what my staff has or what 
Senator Barrasso's staff has--no wonder people are upset with 
Washington.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.