[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 9, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2561-S2563]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Healthcare

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, this week people in Virginia and Maryland 
are waking up to the first rate filings by private insurance companies 
in 2018. The numbers are simply stunning.
  I am coming to the floor today to talk about what is going to be a 
very unhappy spring and summer for healthcare consumers all across the 
country, as health insurance companies--having now dealt with a full 
year and a half of President Trump's sabotage of the American 
healthcare system--are going to be looking at gigantic, unaffordable 
premium hikes for private healthcare insurance.
  I wanted to come down today, as we are starting to get into these 
rate filings, as our constituents are starting to ask why they are 
facing premium increases of, in some cases, up to 90 percent--think 
about that. Think about getting a notice from your insurance company 
telling you that in 1 year, your premium is going to double. The cost 
of getting health insurance is going to double. I feel it is time to 
come down and talk about why this is happening, why you are seeing 
these radical rate hikes being proposed from insurance companies.
  I want to walk through, for my colleagues, this very deliberate 
campaign of sabotage that this administration and congressional 
Republicans have waged against the Affordable Care Act and the American 
healthcare system writ large.
  It starts on January 20. Within hours of being inaugurated, President 
Trump issues an Executive order in which he directs all of his Federal 
agencies to use their administrative powers to begin dismantling the 
Affordable Care

[[Page S2562]]

Act ``to the maximum extent permitted by law.''
  This is before there is any proposal for what should substitute for a 
piece of legislation that insured 20 million people who didn't have 
insurance before the Affordable Care Act. It was before we knew that 
replacement would, in fact, uninsure, not 20 million people but 30 
million people and drive up rates by double digits.
  On the first day, President Trump tells his agencies to start 
dismantling and attacking the Affordable Care Act. At this point, the 
Affordable Care Act is so wrapped into the healthcare system of this 
country that when attacking the Affordable Care Act, you are attacking 
the entirety of the healthcare system.
  On January 26, 2017, the administration announces that it will stop 
advertising the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act. The 
administration says: We are no longer going to tell Americans that they 
have an option to become insured or to get less expensive coverage 
through the healthcare exchanges set up around the country or through 
the national exchange, leaving millions of Americans in the dark.
  Next, the President starts to threaten insurance companies--
threatening to pull the subsidies that Congress approved allowing for 
premiums to be reduced for lower income beneficiaries. The Trump 
administration starts threatening to pull those cost-sharing reduction 
payments in April of 2017. Eventually, in October of last year, the 
administration follows through on that threat and ends payments to 
insurance companies to help reduce cost-sharing for beneficiaries, 
driving up the cost of insurance all across the country.
  If you listen to health insurance executives talk to you about why 
they are passing on these big premium increases, they will tell you 
that one of the biggest reasons is the end of this program to help 
defray the costs for lower income individuals. Also, in 2017, about the 
same time he starts threatening to reduce these payments, the President 
cuts in half the open enrollment period. There is no reason to cut in 
half the open enrollment period other than you just don't want people 
to get insurance. It is a deliberate sabotage.

  Cutting in half the enrollment period is simply a mechanism to try to 
deny people the ability to get healthcare. There is no practical or 
logistical benefit to reducing the amount of time people have to buy 
healthcare, just as there is no practical benefit to cutting off all 
the advertising for the healthcare exchanges other than you don't want 
people to sign up.
  In July of 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services starts 
to unveil videos--23 of them in all--featuring individuals explaining 
how the Affordable Care Act has hurt the American healthcare system. 
They used their Twitter account to amplify these anti-ACA messages, and 
they removed any content promoting the exchanges from the website. Once 
again, it is just a spiteful attack on Americans who want to get health 
insurance and now will not know about it because of these attacks and 
removal of that content.
  Open enrollment outreach funding was reduced in August of 2017 by as 
much as 90 percent. So the helpful people you used to have trying to 
figure out whether you qualified for Medicaid or whether you qualified 
for a subsidy or a tax credit are no longer available because that 
money was taken away.
  Then there was the big legislative intervention, the repeal of the 
individual mandate. The individual mandate was repealed as part of the 
tax bill, even though CBO told Congress: If you do that, 13 million 
people will lose insurance. With full knowledge that the repeal of the 
mandate would result in 13 million Americans losing their health 
insurance, Congress went forward with it. CBO also said it will result 
in double-digit premium increases. Congress was told, if you take this 
step, 13 million will lose coverage, and premiums will go up. Congress 
still moved forward with it, and it was passed as part of the tax bill, 
with no Democratic votes.
  Finally, the President most recently unveiled what he called the 
short-term health insurance plan rule. These are more commonly referred 
to as junk plans. These are plans that last up to a year but don't need 
to comply with Federal regulations; for instance, regulations that 
require insurance companies to actually give you coverage for things 
like mental illness or maternity care or regulations that require 
insurance companies to protect people with preexisting conditions. All 
of those superpopular benefits in the Affordable Care Act--the ones the 
Republicans were so nervous to remove--are now no longer available to 
many Americans. Because of this short-term plan rule, these junk plans 
are going to be much more widely available.
  So you have this very coordinated, very deliberate attack on the 
American healthcare system: the Executive order in January of 2017, 
directing all Federal agencies to start undermining the American 
healthcare system; in April of 2017, the cut in the open enrollment 
period; in May, the votes start happening on the floor of the Senate to 
take insurance away from 23 million people--one of the bills took away 
insurance from 30 million people; in December, the repeal of the 
individual mandate, resulting in premiums going up by double digits; 
and now this junk plan rule, taking away protections from millions of 
Americans. The effect of that junk plan rule is also to move healthier 
patients out of the exchange pools into the junk plans because the junk 
plans don't have to cover anything, so healthy people will go to those 
plans, which drives up rates for the plans that people with any kind of 
preexisting condition would be able to access.
  You have this very deliberate plan to try to undermine the American 
healthcare system, and we are now seeing the consequences. As I 
mentioned, the period of rate filings is beginning across the country, 
where insurance companies have to announce what their rate increases 
are going to be.
  Healthcare inflation, on an annual basis, has been holding steady 
over the years. It certainly never gets above 10 percent, and for a 
number of years during the early rollout of the Affordable Care Act, 
that number was at or lower than 5 percent. So if you are just looking 
at the amount we are spending on an annual basis above last year on 
healthcare, that number has not recently been more than 5 percent. Yet 
one insurer in Virginia--a subsidiary of the big health insurance 
company, CareFirst--is proposing a 64-percent increase in Virginia. 
Other rate increase requests in Virginia are 26 percent and 15 percent. 
Nobody can afford a 64-percent increase in health insurance premiums in 
Virginia, but it is a consequence of this deliberate campaign of 
sabotage.
  Let's take a look at Maryland. There is one insurance company in 
Maryland that is asking for a 91-percent increase in premiums--again, 
this is a CareFirst plan--for its broad network PPO plan that currently 
has about 13,000 people in it. Thirteen thousand people in Maryland 
potentially are going to get a 91-percent increase in their health 
insurance premiums because of this deliberate campaign of sabotage.
  If you are in other CareFirst plans in Maryland, you are getting a 
19-percent increase. Your premiums are going up by one-fifth in one 
single year, in large part, because of this deliberate campaign to 
undermine the Affordable Care Act because of actions this Congress has 
taken that would knowingly increase rates for healthcare consumers.
  My colleagues and I are going to come down to the floor of the 
Senate, over the course of the spring and summer, to make sure everyone 
here and every one out there in America understands what the 
consequences of this American healthcare sabotage campaign is. It 
starts in Maryland with rate increases that get as big as 91 percent, 
and in Virginia, where health insurance increases get as big as 64 
percent. These numbers will continue to roll out all across the 
country, and Americans are going to be stunned--stunned--at how much 
this Republican campaign sabotage is costing them.
  I will just add one last note, which, to many of my constituents in 
Connecticut, feels like insult to injury. The tax bill did drive up 
rates by 10 percent, at least, in the first year. A big chunk of these 
increases, more than 10 percent, is a result of the repeal of the 
individual mandate, but the tax bill also gave a windfall to insurance 
companies and drug companies--some of the biggest players in the 
healthcare space.

[[Page S2563]]

  I just totaled up the projected 2018 tax savings to eight of the 
biggest insurance companies in the country, and it is over $4 billion. 
At the same time that these companies are passing along rate increases 
of 64 percent or 90 percent, they are getting billions of dollars in 
tax savings from this Congress. It appears none of the tax breaks this 
Congress bestowed on the insurance industry is going to consumers.
  When you look at the drug industry, where we have a little bit more 
mature information, you know why. One report, I believe released by the 
Finance Committee, showed that pharmaceutical companies already have 
announced $50--50--billion in stock buybacks and share buybacks as a 
result of the tax bill. These drug companies aren't announcing price 
cuts to insurance companies; these drug companies are not announcing 
price cuts for consumers; these drug companies are announcing massive 
share and stock buybacks that will largely benefit the millionaire and 
billionaire investors in those drug companies. This is insult to injury 
for the people in my State and people all across the country because 
they are watching their healthcare insurance premiums skyrocket, while 
the windfall of the tax bill accrues to the owners of the insurance 
companies and the drug companies.
  What a great time to be in the healthcare business today. You get a 
giant tax break, and you get to pass along gigantic premium increases 
to consumers all across this country.
  Think about it. Somebody in Maryland, making $30,000, $40,000 a year 
and being told the insurance company he does business with is going to 
get $1 billion in new tax relief from this Congress, and he is going to 
get a 91-percent increase in his premium. That is outrageous. That is 
outrageous, and yet it is just going to get worse.
  As this spring and summer plays out--I think every single week there 
is a new State or set of States unveiling rate filings--I will come 
down and update this chart so everybody knows what the numbers are. It 
starts with rate increases as high--and I am not saying every single 
increase is this high, but in Virginia it is 64 percent, and in 
Maryland it is 91 percent. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot 
of very big numbers on this board, and I want to make sure everybody 
understands that if you want to know why premiums are going up at the 
rate they are, you don't have to look any further than this campaign of 
healthcare sabotage that has been waged by the Trump administration and 
Republicans in Congress.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The President pro tempore.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the distinguished 
Senator, and I am going to come back to the floor and explain why he is 
wrong on every point. I am just really amazed that they make these 
arguments when they are the ones who really caused the healthcare bill 
to come forth, which is just eating us alive, but I am here for another 
reason.