[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
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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.
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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.