[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11165-11166]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I want to speak briefly today about some 
broken promises related to the health care bill, specifically, 
President Obama's promise that if Americans liked their current 
coverage, they would be able to keep it.
  Remember that promise. Last June, the President promised on national 
television that:

       Government is not going to make you change plans under 
     health reform.

  In his September address to Congress, he reassured Americans:

       If you have health insurance through your job, nothing in 
     our plan requires you to change what you have.

  Well, those two statements are true as far as they go. The law does 
not require. The problem is, everything written into the law will, 
nevertheless, result in that happening.
  What we are seeing is new developments every week that prove that 
what we had said would happen will, in fact, happen. Many Americans are 
not going to be able to keep the coverage they have, even though they 
like it. That includes many who have employer-based coverage in 
addition to many seniors who rely on private Medicare plans known as 
Medicare Advantage.
  So how does this happen? First, with regard to the 170 million 
Americans who have employer-based coverage, regulations are being 
written right now by the administration, specifically by the Labor and 
Health and Human Services Departments and the IRS that will have a 
direct impact on people not being able to keep their plans. These 
regulations deal with existing plans called ``grandfathered plans.'' 
Grandfathered status was supposed to allow employers to continue 
offering their current plans even if they did not meet all of the 
government's new cost-increasing mandates and requirements, such as 
minimum standards for what a plan must offer. That was the whole point 
of grandfathering.
  It was also intended to protect Americans enrolled in their plans 
from ``rate shock'' or significant premium increases as a result of the 
new government mandates. But according to the administration's own 
report, new regulations could mean that two-thirds of all workers at 
small businesses would have to relinquish their grandfathered status, 
exposing them to these new mandates and requirements.
  The worst-case scenario, according to the report, is that a whopping 
80 percent of small firms' plans would lose their grandfathered status. 
By 2013, the report concludes, more than half of all workers' plans, 51 
percent, will be subject to new Federal requirements. So much for the 
idea that if you like your plan you get to keep it.
  These requirements drive up the cost of insurance, impede an 
employer's ability to adjust to rising health care costs, and 
ultimately provide an incentive to employers to drop their coverage 
altogether and instead pay a fine or, to put it another way, it creates 
a disincentive to keeping your coverage and an incentive to dropping 
their coverage and forcing them to buy the coverage through the so-
called exchange.
  The individual mandate provision in the bill would then require these 
workers whose coverage has been dropped to purchase the government-
approved insurance from the new government-dictated exchange, replete 
with the highest costs, more mandates, and so on.
  Of the new regulations, James Gelfand, who is health policy director 
at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said:

       These rules are extremely strict. Almost no plan is going 
     to be able to maintain grandfathered status.

  So what has happened? The President said: If you like your plan, you 
get to keep it. We will grandfather it in.
  Now the rules and regulations are being written in such a way that 
virtually none of the plans will be grandfathered so that the employers 
all have an incentive to send their employees to the new health 
exchange and therefore to drop the coverage they currently have and 
like.
  This frankly validates concerns that we voiced throughout the debate, 
that despite the President's claims, his health care bill will force 
Americans to accept unwanted health care coverage changes and that, in 
fact, therefore it amounts to a government takeover of health care.
  I mentioned American seniors. This is the second area in which they 
will not get to keep their plans even though they like them. The White 
House recently sent out a promotional mailer to seniors, saying:


[[Page 11166]]

       Your guaranteed Medicare benefits won't change--whether you 
     get them through original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage 
     plan. Instead, you will see new benefits and cost savings.

  Wrong. Seniors are normally skeptical about such a claim, given the 
President's bill is funded by $\1/2\ trillion in Medicare cuts. 
Republicans brought this up repeatedly during the health care debate. 
Democrats assured seniors not to worry, that if they liked their plan 
they could keep it. They were promised the law would strengthen 
Medicare. Yet now we are seeing and hearing from the experts that 
millions of seniors too will lose their Medicare Advantage benefits.
  In fact, the White House's claims to the contrary are flatly 
contradicted by the administration's own expert, Richard Foster. He is 
the CMS Actuary, and he says:

       The new provisions [in the health care law] will generally 
     reduce [Medicare Advantage] rebates to plans and thereby 
     result in less generous benefits packages.

  That is the administration's own actuary telling us that seniors who 
have Medicare Advantage will not get to keep what they have. Here is 
how a Wall Street Journal op-ed summed up the expert's conclusions:

       In an April memo, Richard Foster estimated that the $206 
     billion hole in Advantage will reduce benefits, cause 
     insurers to withdraw from the program, and reduce overall 
     enrollment by half. Doug Elmendorf and his team at the 
     Congressional Budget Office came to the same conclusion, as 
     did every other honest expert.

  In conclusion, we have a number of experts, not partisans, on the 
record saying that seniors who use Medicare Advantage will see their 
benefits eliminated and their coverage changed.
  The administration is trying to soften the blow by sending some 
seniors a $250 rebate check. I am sure people are happy to get the 
check. But it is not much of a gain for those seniors who face 
skyrocketing premiums and may not have access to the same Medicare 
Advantage plans they now enjoy.
  These developments are consistent with a pattern. It is a pattern 
ever since the bill was passed and signed into law by the President of 
broken promises. Americans never liked or wanted this bill, and they 
are continually reminded why they opposed it in the first place. The 
fact is, it turns out they will not get to keep what they have even if 
they like it. That is just one of the reasons why a strong majority of 
Americans want to see it repealed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 30 minutes in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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