[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 9, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4710-S4711]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Healthcare

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday our friend from New York, the 
minority leader, spoke on the Senate floor about the latest challenge 
to ObamaCare--the Affordable Care Act--which is being considered by the 
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this week. Also, if you can believe the 
press, he is also going to have a press conference with the Speaker and 
other notable Democrats to talk about the danger of a court decision on 
the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. As one might imagine, 
he painted a pretty grim picture of what would happen if the court were 
to strike down the Affordable Care Act, affirming the judgment of the 
trial court. Of course, he tried to place the blame squarely on those 
of us on this side of the aisle. It is strange to me because blaming 
Republicans in Congress for a yet-to-be-decided court case doesn't make 
a lot of sense, but it is pretty consistent with the message we have 
heard from our Democratic friends.
  If the minority leader is going to pick a bone with anyone, then I 
guess his complaint is really about the Constitution itself. Court 
cases are decided on a case-by-case basis based on what the law is, 
and, of course, the Constitution is the fundamental law of the United 
States. So if a court ultimately holds an act of Congress to be 
unconstitutional, it is because the Constitution prohibits it. And a 
consensus among all Americans is that the Constitution shall be 
inviolable, dating back to the early 19th century. The Supreme Court 
has made clear that is ultimately their job--not to decide what the 
policy should be but whether the policy enacted by Congress is 
consistent with the requirements of the Constitution.
  So I find it pretty bizarre that in about an hour, the Democratic 
leader will join Speaker Pelosi for a news conference to talk about 
coverage for preexisting conditions, and I have no doubt that once 
again they will try to blame Republicans as the bad guys and somehow 
perpetuate this myth that Republicans are opposed to covering people 
for preexisting conditions in their health insurance policies. They 
know that is false. They know that is a bald-faced misrepresentation of 
what our policy choices are in this body and in Congress as a whole. 
There is one thing that I think there is a consensus on in Congress 
with respect to healthcare, and that is that preexisting conditions 
should be covered. In fact, there are pieces of legislation that I have 
cosponsored in the Senate that do that expressly. The illogical fallacy 
of their argument is that the only way one can do that is through the 
Affordable Care Act.
  As we know, the Affordable Care Act has been a Trojan horse for a 
whole lot of other policies that, frankly, are not particularly popular 
because they have resulted in high deductibles and high premiums and 
have made it harder and harder for people to afford coverage. It has 
also precluded individuals from picking the kind of coverage that best 
suits their family's needs at a price they can afford.
  I think it is important for the American people to understand what we 
all understand--including the Democratic leader and the Speaker--which 
is that what they are saying about preexisting conditions is false. 
They know it, we know it, and it can be demonstrated. Yet they persist 
in saying it because they believe that people are either uninformed, 
naive, or so partisan that they will not be guided by the facts but, 
rather, by the partisan rhetoric.
  Here is the other strange thing in all of this. Most progressive 
Democrats--we used to call them liberals; now they call themselves 
progressives--have embraced Medicare for All as a solution to our 
Nation's healthcare challenges. As the Presiding Officer knows, 
Medicare for All would be a recipe to bankrupt Medicare, which has 
traditionally, legally, and historically been a benefit earned and 
contributed to by seniors in order to cover their healthcare when they 
are 65 or older. So dumping 180 million or so additional people into 
Medicare who have private health insurance is really a recipe for 
bankrupting it, thus undermining the benefit that seniors thought they 
were buying into during their entire lives.
  Here is the other irony I find. When he was trying to sell the 
Affordable Care Act, we heard that President Obama said, if you like 
your existing healthcare policy, you can keep it. That is what he said. 
It didn't end up being the case, but that is what he said. Yet now our 
Democratic colleagues have become so radicalized on healthcare that 
they are essentially saying, if you have private health insurance you 
like, you can't keep it. You can't keep it.
  This is a very strange place to work sometimes because people say 
things they know are not true, but they hope they can capitalize on 
people's ignorance or on their partisanship. Yet, as many have said 
before, facts are stubborn things, and those are the facts; that there 
are other ways to cover preexisting conditions other than with the 
Affordable Care Act. For a party that has embraced this idea of 
Medicare for All and that wants to destroy privately held health 
insurance, it seems pretty rich for them to then blame this side of the 
aisle for wanting to destroy private health insurance that covers 
preexisting conditions.
  A January Gallup poll found that 7 in 10 Americans have a negative 
view of our healthcare system and have described it as being in a state 
of crisis or as having major problems, which is to say that ObamaCare 
is not working as well as the advocates thought. As we know and as I 
have said, it is not the only way to protect patients who have 
preexisting conditions.
  Earlier this year, I cosponsored a bill that was introduced by our 
friend from North Carolina, Senator Tillis, called the PROTECT Act, 
which would ensure that no American would ever be denied health 
coverage because of one's having a preexisting condition. Now, the 
Democratic leader and the Speaker know that. Yet, presumably, today, at 
12:30, when they hold their press conferences, they will say all 
Republicans are opposed to covering preexisting conditions because of 
this court case in the Fifth Circuit that has yet to be decided. They 
are just gleeful that this will provide, they think, some way for them 
to argue what they know is not true--that the Republicans are opposed 
to covering people's preexisting conditions.
  I believe health coverage for these patients shouldn't hang in the 
balance of a court decision because, ultimately, it is our decision. If 
we pass the PROTECT Act, it would finally codify what I hope every 
Member of this body would agree on--that Americans deserve access to 
healthcare coverage. The PROTECT Act is just one example of the 
countless healthcare bills that are working their way through the 
Senate right now.
  In addition, in the Senate Finance Committee, we are considering a 
package of bills to reduce prescription drug prices, just as we have in 
the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and in the 
Judiciary Committee. The HELP Committee overwhelmingly passed a 
bipartisan bill to reduce healthcare costs, to increase transparency, 
and to eliminate surprise

[[Page S4711]]

medical bills. Last week, the Judiciary Committee unanimously reported 
out legislation that would keep pharmaceutical companies from gaming 
the patent system. Our colleagues--or political candidates--can go on 
TV and try to spin the ObamaCare system all they want, but we are going 
to continue to work hard to make real meaningful changes to make our 
healthcare system better.