[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 168 (Wednesday, October 10, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S6736]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                               HEALTHCARE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on another matter, today the Senate 
will also vote on an effort by my Democratic colleagues to strip away 
health insurance options for families whom ObamaCare has failed.
  The first 4 years of the ObamaCare experience was one of failure 
after failure--skyrocketing premiums and broken websites built on 
broken promises. Many families were caught right in the middle of the 
ObamaCare mess--those who earned too much to receive subsidies but not 
enough to keep pace with premiums--so it became even more important to 
look for alternatives. The American people are resourceful. Some held 
on to so-called grandfathered and grandmothered plans, and others 
looked for lower cost, short-term plans that could be held for up to a 
year.
  We all know that Big Government doesn't like it when citizens try to 
avoid the micromanagement and run their own lives as they see fit, so 
in the waning months of the Obama administration, Democrats issued a 
new regulation that cut these plans from 12 months down to 3 months and 
made them nonrenewable. I guess the goal was to force even more 
Americans into ObamaCare. The real effect was just to punish these 
people twice for Democrats' bad policy.
  Fortunately, this year the Trump administration righted the ship. 
They undid the restriction and restored the status quo that was in 
place from the 1990s through most of the Obama administration. It was a 
simple fix. It doesn't take away the choices they have under ObamaCare 
but empowers Americans to use this alternative choice if they prefer 
it. According to even the liberal Urban Institute, more than 1.7 
million Americans will likely be insured with this option, who 
otherwise would have gone uninsured. But apparently our Democratic 
colleagues can't tolerate even this modest step away from top-down 
government control. They have introduced a resolution of disapproval to 
overturn the Trump administration's fix and snatch these options away 
from families once more. We will be voting on it today.
  I know my Democratic colleagues are embarrassed by the state of 
ObamaCare. It has been more than 8 years since they passed their 
signature law that was supposed to make it all better. Instead, working 
Americans are saddled with increasing costs and decreasing choices. But 
surely they must have a better answer than snatching away one of the 
remaining options that some Americans still prefer to anything 
Democrats have been able to come up with.
  This is an easy decision. I urge every one of my colleagues to vote 
against this resolution. Our constituents deserve more options, not 
fewer. The last thing we should do is destroy one of the options that 
is still actually working for American families.

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