[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 208 (Wednesday, December 10, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8611-S8612]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Healthcare

  Mr. TUBERVILLE. Mr. President, for months, our Democratic colleagues 
have been fearmongering about our healthcare system. They blamed 
everyone but themselves for the skyrocketing premiums Americans are 
dealing with today.
  The truth is, Obamacare destroyed--absolutely destroyed--our 
healthcare system. It is completely unaffordable. As a result, American 
families are now paying the enormous price for Barack Obama and woke 
Democrats' ObamaCare system.
  Sure, the idea of ObamaCare sounded great. Who doesn't love the idea 
of free healthcare? But those of us who live in reality or understand 
basic economics knew this was never, ever going to work, which is why 
not a single Republican voted for it in the Senate or the House, when 
it was voted on.
  You see, Obamacare was always destined to fail. You can't pump 
millions of dollars into healthcare and not expect rampant fraud to 
take place. It is not possible. Nevertheless, woke Democrats rammed it 
through Congress, and it was signed into law by President Obama on 
March 23, 2010. It was the biggest overhaul of our healthcare system 
since Medicare and Medicaid, in 1965.
  On paper, it sounded great--expand access, protect people with 
preexisting conditions, and make insurance cheaper for families without 
employer plans. But to no one's surprise, what started as a bold 
Democratic dream of affordable coverage for all turned into a bloated 
mess. In fact, the only winners of ObamaCare are the big insurance 
companies that are getting filthy rich on the taxpayers' money.
  Meanwhile, Americans are spending thousands of dollars on premiums 
for coverage that often doesn't cover their needs. And Americans can 
thank nine of my current Democrat colleagues who voted yes on that 
final passage, in December 2009--Senators Murray, Cantwell, Wyden, 
Merkley, Schumer, Gillibrand, Coons, Durbin, Sanders, and Tammy 
Baldwin, who was in the House at the time. These Democrats jammed this 
through with not a single Republican vote, ignoring real concerns about 
how the system would limit competition, leading to lower standards of 
care; or how it would line the pockets of the big insurance companies 
while forcing hard-working Americans to pay high premiums; or how it 
would decrease transparency, leaving Americans to often leave the 
doctor's office not having a clue how much they owe when they leave; or 
how rural hospitals would be forced to close their doors, and doctors 
and nurses would be leaving the medical field because they couldn't 
make a living.
  But they didn't care about any of this. They didn't care about any of 
it because they always knew we would wind up, today, in the position we 
are in, 15 years later. They knew costs would become unaffordable for 
Americans. They knew that, but they were just fine with that because 
their end goal is to have socialized medicine paid for by American 
taxpayers, which, by the way, has not worked anywhere in the world. 
They have terrible healthcare when they do that.
  Obamacare was just the first step toward free healthcare for all--the 
first step. To start, ObamaCare created State and Federal Marketplaces 
where individuals could shop for coverage. These Marketplaces were 
intended to be online for health plans.
  By the way, if you remember this, they spent about $10 billion and 
couldn't get the healthcare website going. But we wasted all this 
money. When they launched this, it just crashed. People couldn't use it 
for weeks, months. It cost us hundreds of millions of dollars daily. 
That was a foreshadowing of the disaster to come, if you just think 
about it.
  On the Marketplace, health plans are sorted in different levels--
bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Each level shows how costs are 
split, with bronze being the most basic, and platinum being the best 
and higher coverage. The middle-of-the-road silver plan means that the 
insurer pays for 70 percent of your care--insurance companies. The 
enrollee pays the remaining 30 percent through deductibles, copays, and 
coinsurance. Regardless of tier status, each plan covers what is called 
the central health benefits--things like hospital stays, maternity 
care, prescriptions, emergencies, and preventive services. That sounds 
comprehensive, doesn't it? But it came at a heavy, heavy price, driving 
up costs from day one.
  This is where the Democrats' real problems started. They named this 
ridiculous bill the Affordable Care Act. So they couldn't have 
headlines on day one saying how prices were going up. What did they do? 
To address this affordability issue, Democrats came up with two big 
financial plans to supposedly help with affordability.
  The first thing they did was create cost-sharing reductions, which 
were designed for lower income buyers who had the silver plan. 
Basically, CSRs allowed the government to help these silver plan 
enrollees pay out-of-pocket costs like deductibles and copays. Shifting 
the bulk of the cost to whom? The American taxpayers.

  By 2017, a court ruling stopped these ridiculous CSR payments. So 
insurance started raising silver plan prices to cover that gap that the 
court said you couldn't do. As a result, families saw their premiums 
jump 20 percent to 30 percent in some States.
  And the second big Democrat idea was the premium tax credits, which 
was created for people earning about $15,000 a year, and it was capped 
at those making $60,000 a year. This program ballooned during the 
pandemic, when Democrats decided to expand these subsidies.
  In 2021, the American Rescue Plan got rid of the $60,000 income cap, 
meaning higher income Americans could now qualify for the subsidies. 
This meant that many lower income Americans got zero-premium plans for 
the very first time. This caused enrollment in Obamacare to double in 
just 5 years--double--from 11 million people enrolled in 2020 to 24 
million in 2023.
  Here we go.
  This was all thanks to fatter subsidies, slacker rules, and year-
round special enrollment periods, which allowed people to sign up at 
any time, no questions asked.
  These exchanges didn't lower costs. They just shifted the bill. To 
whom? To the American taxpayer. Premiums kept rising, thanks to price-
gouging and decreased competition.
  But the taxpayer-funded subsidies temporarily shielded enrollees from 
seeing how much costs were going up.
  Take a family of four earning $80,000, for example. They might have 
paid $500 a month for coverage before Democrats expanded these 
subsidies--$500 a month. But now, they are paying zero for coverage 
while you, the American taxpayer, are stuck with paying the rest of the 
bill, just moving closer and closer to socialized medicine.
  This is all thanks to the Democrats' broken subsidy system.
  Guess who benefits the most. Not you. The Joint Economic Committee 
report revealed that insurers and brokers are getting rich off of these 
subsidies. For every $1 that is paid by the taxpayers, the families 
only get 34 cents of this $1. The other, where does it go? It goes to 
the insurance companies or it just disappears. I wonder where that 
goes?

[[Page S8612]]

  That is not affordability. That is a straight-up scam that the 
American taxpayers are facing. Even worse, these loose rules turn the 
Marketplace into a fraud playground. Enhanced subsidies made plans free 
for people earning $15,000 to $23,000 a year. So, of course, people 
started fudging the numbers to qualify for free coverage. Brokers and 
scammers piled on, setting up systems claiming to enroll people for 
free coverage, while stealing money for themselves.
  A Paragon Institute report estimated that there were 5 to 6.4 million 
cases of fraud, last year alone.
  To catch some of the fraud, the Government Accountability Office 
tried their own scam. They created 44 false applicants. They made up 
Social Security numbers. They ran it through the system. Shockingly, 96 
percent of the Government Accountability Office's fake applications got 
approved--100 percent-free healthcare.
  It is hard to figure out how exactly these people are getting 
enrolled. Some are lying about their income. Some are double dipping 
with Medicaid. And some, likely, might not be citizens of this country.
  Sound familiar?
  All of this fraud is hard to stop and hard to wrap your mind around. 
But, unfortunately, the scam of ObamaCare is much bigger than 
fraudulent enrollees. That is because ObamaCare just didn't destroy our 
healthcare system. It also ``paid for'' itself by getting the 
government involved in student loans.
  You heard me right.
  We are going to pay this--ObamaCare is going to pay for it through 
student loans. Loans went from being managed and loaning borrowed money 
from the bank to the Federal Government loaning money to go to 
college--what a great idea. As a result, education is more expensive 
than ever.
  Listen to this. Today, after 5 years, 45 million students across this 
country owe $2 trillion--embarrassing. We are screwing over our young 
people who are just starting out in life, all to prop up this broken 
ObamaCare system.
  ObamaCare promised lower costs and better care, but 15 years in, it 
delivered just the opposite. ObamaCare premiums have nearly tripled 
since 2014, not to mention the outrageous bills you get after you leave 
the doctor.
  Quality healthcare is gone. Hospitals all over the country have been 
forced to close. We are losing doctors and nurses, left and right, 
because these jobs don't pay what they used to. Because we don't have 
transparency in the system, bad actors are able to hide prices, 
insurers face no real competition, and the COVID subsidies allowed 
scammers to get rich off of fraudulent money that was intended for the 
most vulnerable.
  So, no, this is not Republicans' fault, as you are hearing. Not a 
single Republican voted for this disaster called the Affordable Care 
Act. Democrats voted for it then, and Democrats are the ones who own 
this disaster today.
  By the way, your premiums aren't going up 20 percent starting in 
January because of expiring COVID subsidies, like Democrats want you to 
believe. That is not happening. These credits are going up only 3 
percent, 4 percent, 5 percent. The rest of the premiums are going up 
because insurance companies are charging more. So don't let them tell 
you the subsidies are because all of these premiums are going up. They 
are getting rich off the American taxpayers. That is what is happening.
  The way I see it, there are three main problems with the healthcare 
system. The first problem, Democrats created a broken system that needs 
to be repaired, and we are going to do that. I am glad to see several 
of my Republican colleagues are working on this daily. I am hopeful any 
Republican plan will focus on the main issue--affordability. The only 
way to lower costs is through more competition and more transparency. 
We need more plans to give Americans more of a choice when it comes to 
insurance plans. This is the only way to drive costs down.

  The second problem is that Democrats allowed 20 to 30 million 
illegals to come into this country under Joe Biden, many of whom came 
from Third World countries. Many of these people have never ever been 
to the doctor and have all sorts of health problems. These illegals are 
now overrunning our emergency rooms, and you, the American taxpayers, 
are paying for it. The next time you go to the ER, see how long it 
takes you to get in, and then blame the Democrats. The next time a 
hospital in your town closes, as has happened all over my State of 
Alabama, blame the Democrats.
  The third problem is that we are horribly sick in this country. 
Americans are the unhealthiest we have ever been: 74 percent of 
Americans are either overweight or obese. More than 76 percent of 
Americans have at least one chronic disease. Cancer rates are 
increasing among young people at an alarming rate. If we do not start 
getting healthier in this country by working out, eating healthier, and 
getting rid of processed foods and toxic ingredients, we are not going 
to make it.
  Our healthcare system was not built to support so many unhealthy 
people. Fifty years ago, you didn't have any of this crap because 
Americans were more active and didn't have all of this processed food. 
We are overmedicated, overweight, and sicker than ever, and our 
healthcare system simply wasn't built to handle it.
  Thank God that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is working around the clock to 
make America healthy again. We need it.
  At the end of the day, the Republicans have control of the Senate, 
the House, and the White House. We have no excuse not to do something 
about this healthcare disaster. We need to come up with a plan that 
actually delivers for the American people. This is not a Republican or 
a Democrat problem. Every American is getting screwed over every day by 
this horrible healthcare system. The Republican Party is working to fix 
this. Let's grow a backbone and do what is right for the American 
people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Budd). The Senator from Idaho.