[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 23, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2867-S2868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Healthcare
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, starting in January of 2017, extending to
today, the President, often with the help of this Republican Congress,
has engaged in a very deliberate, very purposeful campaign of sabotage
to the American healthcare system. We are now starting to see the very
serious consequences of this campaign of sabotage. It started on
Inauguration Day when President Trump signed an Executive order that
ordered all of his agencies to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. It
found its way to the Senate floor when Republicans spent most of 2017
trying to pass legislation that would take insurance away from 23
million people, according to the CBO.
The President undertook a number of steps to try to weaken the
exchanges where millions of people get their healthcare. He cut the
open enrollment period in half. He stopped funding advertising. He
pulled funding for the navigators, who are the people who go out and
try to help people sort through their healthcare options. There is no
reason to do that, to try to stop people from being able to sign up for
healthcare, unless your intention is sabotage. There is no public
policy reason to give people less time to sign up or to give them less
information about their options.
Most recently, the Republicans finally succeeded in repealing the
individual mandate which the Congressional Budget Office said will, by
itself, increase premiums by 10 percent and wipe out insurance for 13
million people. The administration is now trying to expand the sale of
what we call junk plans, which are insurance plans that don't have to
cover a minimum set of benefits, that don't have to protect people with
preexisting conditions or existing sicknesses from higher premium
rates.
I think I came down to the floor 2 weeks ago to talk about the first
two rate filings of the rate filing season. These were in Maryland and
Virginia. The rate filings were, quite frankly, catastrophic. While
these were the worst of the bunch, all of the rate filings were much
higher than the rate of medical inflation.
The worst requested increase was when one insurance plan in Maryland
asked for a 91-percent increase in premiums. One insurance plan in
Virginia asked for a 64-percent increase in premiums. In Maryland, the
head of the insurance plan who asked for the 91-percent increase said
the reasons for it were the continuing actions on the administration's
part to systematically undermine the market and to make it almost
impossible to carry out its mission. No one can afford a 91-percent
increase in premiums, and no one can afford a 64-percent increase in
premiums. Frankly, very few people can afford a 15- or a 20-percent
increase in premiums.
This week, we received the rate filings from the State of Oregon. In
Oregon, the Providence Health Plan, with about 90,000 customers, which
is one of the bigger plans in the State, is asking for a 14-percent
premium increase. Now, that is not 91 or 64, but there are
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a lot of families who simply aren't going to be able to afford a
double-digit premium increase in Oregon. It is important to note that
Oregon put into place a new State-based reinsurance program, and if not
for that reinsurance program, this would have been a 20-percent
increase.
I am just going to keep track of all of these increases so we have a
sense of what is happening to consumers as a result of this campaign of
sabotage. We will add this rate increase in Oregon of 14 percent, and I
will make sure I get it right.
The CBO has told us, the repeal of the individual mandate is going to
jump premiums by 10 percent. So, in Oregon, you can be relatively sure
that had the Republicans not repealed this big part of the Affordable
Care Act, you would have been looking at a single-digit increase,
something that would have mirrored medical inflation. Yet, because of
the actions that had been taken here and because of many of the actions
that have been undertaken by this Congress, we are looking at a double-
digit increase.
Keith Forrester, who is the head of one of Oregon's biggest insurance
companies, said our rate increase reflects the expected costs of
providing coverage to our members, including the impact of eliminating
the individual mandate.
Senate Democrats are going to be down on the floor pretty
relentlessly over the course of the next few months to make people
understand that as you are getting your health insurance bills, as you
are seeing these big increases, a big reason will be due to the actions
that your elected leaders have taken--this Republican Congress and this
administration.
Yet the rate increases might be getting even bigger than they already
are today. That is because of this expected proliferation of these new
junk plans. Again, these are called short-term plans by the
administration because they used to be, truly, short-term options. They
were 3 months in duration. You would pick up one of these plans in
between coverage, and because they were short-term plans, they were not
required to cover mental health and maternity, and they could charge
you more if you were sick.
This administration has decided these plans can now be sold for a
full year, meaning they will essentially stand side by side with
regulated plans that have minimum benefits and protect people with
preexisting conditions. The administration said, only a couple hundred
thousand people nationwide might sign up for these plans.
The CMS's Chief Actuary says--this is President Trump's CMS, the
administration's own Chief Actuary--that is wrong; that, in fact, it
will be a million and a half people potentially signing up for these
junk plans. It could get as big as 1.9 million by 2022.
Who will sign up for these junk plans? It will be healthy people
because healthy people aren't going to need all of the coverage. It
will be people who don't have preexisting conditions, who don't have
addictions or diagnosed mental illnesses. It will leave behind in the
exchange plans the people who need the coverage. Those people will not
go on the junk plans because they will need insurance plans that cover
their illnesses or their diagnoses. What we know is that if you have a
sicker population in the exchange-based plans, in the regulated
individual market, those premiums will go up.
A recent study found, the combination of the individual mandate and
the proliferation of these new junk plans will result, on average, in
16-percent increases in premiums all across the country. In
Connecticut, that could mean the premiums will go up by $1,155.
Now, that is not something the health insurance companies did. That
is not because of rising medical costs. That is because of decisions
that were made by this Republican Congress and this Republican
administration--two decisions. There was one decision to repeal a big
part of the Affordable Care Act that protected sick people, that kept
their rates lower. Another decision by the administration was to give
relatively healthy people access to stripped-down plans.
Admittedly, those two changes may offer some benefit to people today
who are healthy. I am not going to deny that those two changes may
provide a lower insurance rate for a subset of people who are healthy,
but we are not supposed to just represent the healthy people. Today you
are healthy, and tomorrow you are not. We are supposed to represent all
Americans. In fact, we probably should be going the extra mile to make
sure people who, through no fault of their own, have serious diagnoses
aren't paying an arm and a leg more for coverage, but we are not doing
that because of the steps this Republican Congress and this Republican
President have taken.
On average, insurance rates are going to go up for everybody in
Connecticut by $1,100, according to one study, and they are going to
potentially skyrocket for people who can't get onto these stripped-down
junk plans.
I think it is really important we talk about this. As I walked across
the State of Connecticut last summer--something I have come to do in
the last few years; I take about 5 or 6 days and walk from one side of
the State to the other, which is something the Presiding Officer and
others probably can't do in States that are a little bit longer across
than 110 miles--healthcare was the dominant theme. In their having
heard the news that I would be in a certain town during the day, people
waited for me who were miles ahead on the road. They waited ahead of me
for hours and hours to talk to me about their illnesses and about their
fears that this Congress and this President were going to take away
their coverage.
We were successful in defeating the full repeal of the Affordable
Care Act, and that is great news, because the Affordable Care Act is
more popular than ever before, but this Congress and this President are
trying to ruin some of the most important protections in our healthcare
system because they are mad that they lost the repeal vote by one vote.
So it is important for us to tell Americans what the consequences of
that sabotage campaign are. It certainly means that people are going to
get less protection, but it also means that, over the course of the
next few months, as rates are filed across the country, you are going
to see some devastatingly high premium increases due to the Republican
campaign of healthcare sabotage--this week, 14 percent in Oregon; last
week or the week before, 91 percent in Maryland, 64 percent in
Virginia. This is what happens when you strike blows at the American
healthcare system, and it is important for Americans to understand what
that means.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.