[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 15298-15301]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.

[[Page 15299]]


  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, in information that came out after close of 
business yesterday, there was a report from CNBC about the 99 percent 
of ObamaCare applications that hit a wall. This report said:

       As few as 1 in 100 applications on the Federal exchange 
     contains enough information to enroll the applicant in a 
     plan, several insurance industry sources told CNBC on Friday. 
     Some of the problems involve how the exchange's software 
     collects and verifies an applicant's data.
       ``It is extraordinary that these systems weren't ready,'' 
     said Sumit Nijhawan, CEO of Infogix, which handles data 
     integrity issues for many major insurers including WellPoint 
     and Cigna, as well as, multiple Blue Cross/Blue Shield 
     affiliates.
       Experts said that if Healthcare.gov's success rate doesn't 
     improve within the next month or so, Federal officials could 
     face a situation in January in which relatively large numbers 
     of people believe they have coverage starting that month, but 
     whose enrollment applications have not been processed.
       ``It could be public relations nightmare,'' said Nijhawan. 
     Insurers have told his company that just 1 in 100 enrollment 
     applicants being sent from the Federal marketplace have 
     provided sufficient verified information.

  The article goes on:

       One insurer reported a better, but still stunningly low, 
     rate of enrollment applications containing enough data to 
     process for coverage. ``It's about half of what we've 
     received,'' a source at that insurer said.
       ``We're getting incomplete data--about half of the 
     applications we haven't been able to process,'' said the 
     source, who used the term ``corrupted'' to describe the batch 
     of applications received.

  The article goes on to point out what a huge problem, after 3\1/2\ 
years to get ready for ObamaCare to be the law of the land, after 
repeated refusals to negotiate whatsoever on delaying anything except 
for what the President has signed in the way of exemptions and waivers, 
hundreds of times himself, as he and Chief Justice Roberts completely 
rewrote the original ObamaCare bill. There has been a refusal to allow 
everyone in America to stand on the same fair, level playing field as 
the friends or supporters of the President have gotten through their 
waivers and exemptions, including people in Congress, which many of us 
here in this body have refused to accept if Americans don't get them as 
well.

                              {time}  1330

  One person in the article said he blamed the exchanges' software, 
which is allowing too many people to finish the process online without 
making sure they provide answers needed by the insurers processing the 
applications. But the article also mentions there are going to have to 
be people who go back and try to get information from these individuals 
that did not complete the application process--it sounds like through 
no fault of their own, just for the impropriety of the software 
programs, themselves.
  And it's not difficult to see what a nightmare that will be, as it 
opens wide the door for identity thieves to start making calls or 
sending emails telling people they did not adequately complete the 
process, and they need this information or that information. It's going 
to be tough for people to know, Am I sending information to the 
government, or am I sending it to a proper contractor, or am I sending 
my information to an identity thief?
  The process was not ready for prime time, and it's just going to get 
worse as we move toward January in the problems that are occurring.
  Here is an article from Dr. Susan Barry. This was dated October 3, 
talking about Secretary Sebelius:

       The woman who is behind the controls of ObamaCare was 
     unable to convince even one person from Kansas, the State she 
     used to govern, to sign up for it.
       Though HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is the former 
     Governor of Kansas, Representative Tim Huelskamp was informed 
     by an insurance provider in his home State that none of the 
     365,000 uninsured people living there successfully signed up 
     for insurance on the ObamaCare exchange on the first day.

  Now in the midst of all the chaos, all of the broken promises where 
people have lost their insurance, they have lost the coverage they had, 
even when they keep their insurance, insurance prices have spiked for 
the vast majority of Americans in this country.
  They did not get the $2,500 cheaper insurance the President promised. 
They either lost their insurance altogether or it has spiked 
dramatically. They didn't get to keep their doctor. We're hearing from 
those people constantly. And at the same time, when here in the House, 
we have sent compromise after compromise before the shutdown occurred 
down to the Senate, which normally, in a functioning Senate, would have 
the Senate--if they didn't like what we proposed--send back an 
alternative. And at that point, after an alternative is passed in the 
Senate, then the Speaker can appoint negotiators called conferees. The 
head of the majority in the Senate, Harry Reid, could appoint 
negotiators, and then come together, and they work out an agreement. 
And then that comes to the House and Senate for an up-or-down vote, 
non-amendable, straight up-or-down vote in each House.
  But the Senate was playing games. It is now clear that there was no 
intention of having any agreement, that the conventional wisdom in this 
town for the last 3 years say that, Gee, if there is a shutdown, then 
Republicans will likely lose the majority in the next election. So 
whatever it takes to shut down the government, go ahead.
  That was borne out by the fact that the first 21 mainstream stories 
completely faulted the Republicans, failing to point out the 
compromises that were sent down the hall and the Democrats' refusal to 
even entertain them. And then on the fourth, the ultimate capitulation 
said, All right, all right. Basically, we're appointing conferees; just 
appoint people to sit down and talk about it. We can probably have this 
worked out by morning. But it was clear they wanted damage from a 
government shutdown.
  We've learned that as these telltale signs emerged--and one park 
ranger was quoted as saying that it was disgusting. But as park 
rangers, they had been instructed to make life as difficult as possible 
for people.
  We're getting stories in from around the country about how this 
abusive Federal Government that wants to tell you what health care you 
can have, what surgery you can have, who wants to supervise everything 
about your private life, they want every page of every medical record 
about you they can get their grimy hands on so that bureaucrats can 
decide if you're doing something they don't like, how to jerk you 
around, as the IRS has been caught doing now, as we've gotten reports 
of other agencies--whether EPA, FEC, others--being abusive. And we find 
case after case now, since the shutdown, of this government funding 
park rangers to go out and create as much chaos for Americans as 
possible.
  We have this administration, where the buck stops with the Commander 
in Chief, that has now made clear to Catholic chaplains of the military 
that are independent contractors that you are not to show up and 
conduct mass on Sunday. And if you do, you may be arrested or subjected 
to disciplinary action.
  There was a time in this country when we believed in volunteerism, 
where no matter what happened, Americans would step up and make sure 
things that needed to happen actually got done. Now we have an abusive 
administration so intent on, as the park ranger said, making life as 
difficult as possible for people in such a mean-spirited way that it 
would go shut down facilities that don't take a dime of Federal money 
just to hurt as many people as possible.
  And those same people that are calling those shots want to decide 
what you can have in the way of health care, Mr. Speaker. No, thank 
you. I am opting out. I will pay the penalty. I am not going to have 
the government telling me what I can or cannot have. I will pay the 
penalty. I'm waiving the subsidies. If Americans can't have it, why 
should we, in Congress?
  That same spirit of entrepreneurialism prevailed in 1995 when the 
Grand Canyon was actually shut down. It's amazing this administration 
hasn't tried to pay for some kind of screen to put over the top of the 
Grand Canyon so commercial airliners can't fly over and look down and 
see God's creation.
  But in '95, there was an agreement between the State, local 
government,

[[Page 15300]]

and the Federal Government to make sure that after it was initially 
closed, it reopened. And State and local government people were able to 
allow Americans who had scheduled their vacations, their travel time, 
to allow them to enjoy that.
  Not this administration, oh no. They are so intent on refusing to 
allow even a delay across the board to be given to everyone as they've 
given to Big Business, to their cronies that they are not going to 
allow any local government, private business, States to reopen parks 
and things that have no business being shut.
  The stories are coming in of all kinds of places that there was no 
need to close. There was no need to spend money to barricade but just 
to make life tough for Americans, because this is how Big Government 
has grown. This is how abusive government has become.
  And I can't help but draw the conclusion that since Lois Lerner was 
never actually punished for the abuses and the obvious lies that have 
now come to light, that others in the Federal Government have said, 
Well, they didn't do anything to Lois Lerner. She got caught red-
handed. So we can be as abusive to people as we want.
  So a story from October 4 which talks about how Arizona Governor 
Brewer, local businesses, local governments are trying to get 
permission to fund the reopening of at least part of the Grand Canyon, 
but this Federal Government, like the park ranger said, wants to make 
life difficult and wants to create as much misery as possible.
  I'll say this about the Carter administration. I was in the United 
States Army at Fort Benning for over half of the Carter administration, 
and we had a lot of misery as a result of the calls by the Commander in 
Chief then. And there came something that was called the misery index, 
to measure how miserable Americans were under President Carter. Because 
we were having inflation, which is now coming under this administration 
because of the massive creation of money. You can't keep creating money 
and not end up causing inflation. That's coming. Interest rates that 
keep being teased, that they're about to go higher. We'll see. And the 
unemployment rate was massively high back in those days.
  But I'll say this about the Carter administration: they didn't mean 
to cause that much misery. They really did not mean to cause that much 
misery. There was massive misery across the country back then. But at 
least that administration did not intend to make people that miserable.
  But reports continue to come in of the misery this administration is 
inflicting because they can, because they want everyone to succumb to 
what has been classified as Chicago-style thuggery, that having more to 
do with tactics of organized crime. If you didn't go along with what 
they wanted, they made you suffer. And we're seeing that.
  I mean, for goodness sake, we passed a law before the shutdown. I've 
been pushing for a military pay bill for over 2\1/2\ years. And I'm 
very grateful the Speaker finally brought that to the floor. I'm 
grateful to the gentleman from Colorado, Michael Coffman, for 
shepherding that. And then the Department of Defense gets it.
  We were going to mitigate as much as we could. To the Senate's 
credit, they passed that before the shutdown. But then the Department 
of Defense, this administration chose to interpret it so much more 
narrowly than the law itself, and said that they furloughed lots of 
people, just like the park ranger said, trying to make life as 
difficult as possible. And they said, Well, we're going to take some 
time to read the legislation and let people suffer for a while. And 
eventually we'll get around to deciding whether or not we think 
Congress meant to do what they said they meant to do, and that is, 
protect our country, provide for the common defense, make sure our 
military continued to get paid, along with every private contractor 
that supported them in any way, along with every civilian employee that 
supported them in their role. They just, apparently, wanted to make 
life miserable.
  There are enough problems being created by ObamaCare and by the 
overspending of this administration without creating things 
unnecessarily.
  Here's a story from Stephanie Condon from CBS news about ``Obamacare 
marketplaces raise data security concerns.'' That is continuing to be a 
concern. It seems to be borne out that this was a train wreck, it is a 
nightmare, and that it will continue to just get worse.

                              {time}  1345

  And the L.A. Times, Chad Terhune, had a story:

       California exchange overstated its Web traffic for 
     ObamaCare launch.

  That would be consistent with so many of the mainstream that grabbed 
ahold of a young man who said he had signed up successfully, so he was 
hailed. He was interviewed by different media, and then come to find 
out, actually, he is a paid computer hack who gets paid by Organizing 
for America, President Obama's lobbying group that he funds. The guy is 
paid, as he admitted. He's paid to go online and just say things 
politically supportive of the President. It turns out he had not 
actually successfully signed up for ObamaCare.
  There was a story from Andrew Johnson, National Review:

       Zero enroll in the new Louisiana plan on ObamaCare's first 
     day.

  One from the Weekly Standard, October 3, the White House on a number 
of enrollees in ObamaCare:

       We don't have that data.

  AP reports that pressure continues to mount to fix the health 
insurance exchanges. Those continue to be a nightmare.
  And in the midst of all this, where you had had Franklin Roosevelt 
say the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, we have John Harwood 
in a CNBC interview this week saying to the President, ``Wall Street 
has been pretty calm about this,'' and the President said, ``This time 
I think Wall Street should be concerned.'' So we have to fear the 
President making people fear.
  There was an interesting online entry this week indicating at the 
World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington where veterans have 
been staging protests to keep it open, Washington Examiner reports that 
at least seven officials were dispatched to Wednesday morning to set up 
a ring of barricades to block tourists from the memorial. That's two 
more security officers than the State Department had in Benghazi one 
year ago on the night of the terrorist attack that killed four, 
including the U.S. Ambassador.
  Well, as I keep going out to the memorial each day to ensure veterans 
are getting in, I've noted there are more Park Service people out there 
than I have ever seen at the World War II Memorial. I have been there 
all times day and night--I don't sleep that much when I'm in 
Washington--although come to find out, our park rangers don't know the 
law. They don't know the parking law properly. There are a lot of 
things they don't know. We find out they have been instructed to make 
life as difficult as they can for people. As the ranger said, that was 
disgusting. Thank God there are some people I have met and spoken with 
with the Park Service that care about the veterans. We have veterans 
that serve in the Park Service who just want people to enjoy their 
parks, not to make things difficult. But I'm seeing more Park Service 
personnel around the Mall than you ever see out there around the World 
War II Memorial.
  The last few days I've been out there, each time you see mounted Park 
Service people on horseback watching over things keeping their eye on 
the veterans. You know, those guys in wheelchairs from World War II, 
they may make a run. They may try to go down the sidewalk where they 
are not allowed.
  It is outrageous what this administration is doing. The Obama 
administration has decided to block access to public memorials on the 
National Mall as a result of the government shutdown, like its decision 
to end White House tours when the sequester cuts took effect. There is 
no rational reason for this. The Park Service normally in charge of 
monitoring these spaces isn't even affected by the shutdown, and

[[Page 15301]]

they are shutting off access to these sites. It is gratuitous and 
petulant.
  Another article about the ObamaCare privacy nightmare.
  Shutting down the cemetery at Normandy for people that have spent so 
much, saved so much, trying to get a family member there to see the 
graves they never saw of people who fell while serving with them at 
Normandy is about as outrageous as it gets.
  For heaven's sake, make life miserable for Members of Congress; but 
for Pete's sake, leave our veterans alone. Let them enjoy their 
memorials. Let them have their times of silence and meditation at their 
memorials, at their cemeteries. There are private entities, there are 
local governments, there are State governments wanting to keep these 
things open. But I can tell you, any administration that is so callous 
that it would allow and encourage difficulty for its citizens when it 
has a tantrum and doesn't get what it wants is not somebody you want in 
charge of your health care. Every American ought to be seeing this and 
ought to be saying loud and clear, let's hold up for at least a year on 
ObamaCare. You've done enough damage already. We don't want you 
controlling our health care. At least give us that break.
  We are here this weekend. It would have been nice to have been back 
in east Texas and to be at the events that I was scheduled to be in 
different places this weekend, but we're here. I have no regrets. I 
just hope that the Senate, Mr. Speaker, and the administration will 
decide that negotiating means more than calling a press conference and 
announcing that we're willing to work things out, because when the 
President announces we're going to work things out, we're willing and 
he calls the leaders of Congress up to the White House so he can 
announce to them in person that we're not negotiating, I just wanted to 
make that clear, you give us everything I want, you abdicate, forget 
the Constitution, forget your requirements that you appropriate the 
money, you go through, you have oversight, you make sure that we're not 
wasting money, forget your obligations under that, give me all the 
money I had last year, don't put anything on it. Just give it to me 
like I want it or we're not negotiating. That is not an administration 
you want in control of your health care.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________