[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18368-18375]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  NOMINATION OF MELVIN L. WATT TO BE DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL HOUSING 
                       FINANCE AGENCY--Continued

  Mr. REID. On the matter now before the Senate, how much of the time 
that remains is controlled by the Democrats?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 147 minutes.
  Mr. REID. That is a little over 2 hours. How much time for the 
Republicans? The same?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 130 minutes for the Republicans.
  Mr. REID. Oh, I see. Why don't we yield back 130 minutes of our time. 
That would leave us 14 minutes or something like that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seventeen minutes.
  Mr. REID. That is far too much time. I yield back another 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader's time is now set to 7 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican whip.


                              Health Care

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, 4 years ago Members of both parties came 
to this Senate floor virtually every day to discuss the problems with 
America's health care system and offered suggestions for how we could 
remedy that.
  I distinctly remember being here on Christmas Eve, 2009, at 7 in the 
morning and witnessing a party-line vote on ObamaCare. All of our 
Democratic friends voted for it, and all Republicans voted against it. 
I guess the most charitable thing I can say is that our Democratic 
friends actually thought it would work while Republicans were skeptics 
about this big government takeover of one-sixth of our national 
economy.
  Well, 4 years later the cost of ObamaCare has become abundantly 
clear. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that ObamaCare is the 
biggest case of consumer fraud ever perpetrated in this country. A law 
that

[[Page 18369]]

 was supposed to expand coverage to those without it has instead caused 
millions of people with coverage to lose their coverage. A law that was 
supposed to improve patient access has instead resulted in smaller 
provider networks where people are restricted in terms of the doctors 
and hospitals they can see, making it much more likely that people will 
not be able to keep their doctors, should they want them. A law that 
was supposed to bend the cost curve down has instead caused individual 
and family premiums to skyrocket.
  We have heard story after story that even if the premiums are lower, 
people, due to copays and deductibles, are finding themselves with 
thousands and thousands of dollars of deductibles they didn't 
previously have, meaning it is more money out of their pocket before 
the insurance actually kicks in.
  We were told this was supposed to make Medicaid the safety net 
program for the most economically disadvantaged among us.
  We were told that Medicare for seniors was supposed to make them 
stronger. Instead it has made them weaker.
  A law that was supposed to help our economy has instead hurt our 
economy by discouraging full-time job creation, because if you have a 
full-time job your employer has to pay for the full ObamaCare pricetag. 
Due to ObamaCare businesses have been moving people from full-time work 
to part-time work.
  A number of labor organization leaders went to the White House a few 
months ago and called the implementation of ObamaCare a nightmare. They 
said it made full-time work part-time work. It is worse than that.
  ObamaCare has hampered medical innovation by taxing the very people 
who build medical devices here in America and is causing them to move 
those businesses offshore or simply cut down their hiring. It has 
placed costly new burdens on small businesses, the entities which 
produce as much as 70 percent of the new jobs in America. It is not the 
Fortune 500 companies that create the vast majority of jobs in America, 
it is the small mom-and-pop operations, the entrepreneurs who create 
those jobs, and that is who ObamaCare hits the hardest.
  It is no wonder our economy continues to struggle. It is no wonder 
the labor participation rate--the number of people who are actually in 
the workforce--is at a 35-year low. People have given up looking for 
work, and that is an American tragedy.
  As I stand here today, the broken promises of ObamaCare are causing 
enormous distress and financial hardship for people all across my State 
of Texas and all across America. It is undeniable that millions of 
Americans have lost their insurance because of ObamaCare despite 
President Obama's almost daily recitation that if you like what you 
have, you can keep it. He was making that promise as late as 2012, and 
we knew it wasn't true. We knew it was not true--and he knew it wasn't 
true--as early as 2010 when we debated some restrictive grandfather 
regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services.
  Senator Enzi, who was the ranking member of the Health, Education, 
Labor and Pensions Committee, tried to get it fixed, and again we saw a 
party-line vote. All of our Democratic friends said, no, let's not 
provide flexibility for the grandfather provisions. Let's maintain the 
rigid grandfather provisions which have now resulted in more than 5 
million people getting notices telling them that even though they like 
the policies they have, they can no longer keep them. That is why I 
have said this is one of the biggest cases of consumer fraud ever 
perpetrated in the United States by virtue of its scope and the 
audacity with which these promises were made time and time again, which 
are demonstrably not true. They are false.
  We know ObamaCare is leading to a dramatic spike in insurance 
premiums for many people who buy their insurance in the individual 
market. My colleagues will recall that during and after the 2008 
Presidential election, President Obama repeatedly told Americans his 
health care plan would reduce their health care premiums for a family 
of four by about $2,500. I don't know where he came up with that 
number, but it turned out to be just another broken promise.
  According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, annual premiums for 
employer-based family health insurance increased by nearly $3,000 
between 2009 and 2013. In other words, the President was $5,500 wrong. 
Rather than going down $2,500, they went up $3,000. For that matter, a 
recent study by the Manhattan Institute estimated that ObamaCare will 
drive up individual premiums by an average of 41 percent.
  I don't know many hardworking American families who can afford a 41-
percent increase in their health care costs as a result of a law 
promising that health care would be more affordable. The single biggest 
increase, according to this study, will be in the majority leader's 
home State of Nevada where individual premiums are projected to rise by 
an astounding 179 percent. The increases in New Mexico, Arkansas, and 
North Carolina are 142 percent--that would be New Mexico; 138 percent, 
that would be Arkansas; and 136 percent in North Carolina. What do each 
of these States have in common? They are represented by Senators who 
voted for this bill, perhaps believing what the President said would be 
true, but their constituents are having to pay the price.
  Such premium increases are particularly burdensome for senior 
citizens and other folks on a fixed income. For example, recently in 
Copper Canyon, TX, one of my constituents wrote to me and said that 
because of ObamaCare, her monthly premiums were increasing by $200, 
which is only $27 less than her monthly Social Security income. In 
other words, it takes up almost the entire amount of her Social 
Security check for her to purchase this insurance. That is wrong.
  In addition to premium hikes, many Americans entering the ObamaCare 
exchanges are facing higher deductibles. I mentioned that a moment ago. 
In a front-page story just yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, it was 
reported that many ObamaCare deductibles are so high that people with 
modest incomes may not be able to afford the portion of medical 
expenses that insurance doesn't cover. What is that all about? In fact, 
according to one study, the average deductible for the cheapest 
individual coverage on the Federal ObamaCare exchange is 42 percent 
higher than the average deductible for individual health insurance 
earlier this year, before most of ObamaCare kicked in--a 42-percent 
higher deductible. As we know, many of these deductibles we are hearing 
are in the $4,000 and $5,000 range for individuals and they are up to 
$10,000 or more for married couples. I don't know many households in 
Texas or across America that can absorb $10,000 in a deductible for 
their health insurance policy. Certainly that doesn't strike me as a 
success if the purpose is to cover health care costs and to prevent 
people from suffering economic hardship as a result. That strikes me as 
an epic failure. In other words, ObamaCare is making it significantly 
harder for many Americans to pay their bills, to buy groceries, and 
take care of their families.
  Again, as I have said many times before, it didn't have to be this 
way. It didn't have to be this way. In 2009, polls demonstrated that 
the overwhelming majority of Americans who had health insurance liked 
what they had, and they were broadly satisfied with it. I assume that 
is why the President said: If you like what you have, you can keep it, 
because about 90 percent of the respondents said: We like what we have. 
So if you are the President trying to sell this so-called Affordable 
Care Act, you wouldn't want to scare that 90 percent of people into 
thinking they can't keep what they have even though they like it. So 
you misrepresent what you are selling. You tell people you can keep 
what you have and your premiums are going to go down and it is all 
going to be all right.
  If we had focused on those people who either did not have coverage or 
who had inadequate coverage--obviously a smaller subset of Americans 
than the whole country--if we focused on them

[[Page 18370]]

and dealt with their challenges in purchasing health insurance, we 
could have done much better. There were millions more who had low-
quality Medicaid coverage that many doctors refused to accept because, 
in my State, Medicaid pays a doctor about 50 cents on the dollar 
compared to private insurance. Many doctors said: Look. I want to see 
more Medicaid patients, but I simply can't afford to do it. I have to 
opt for higher paying private insurance patients. We know Medicare was 
facing a fast approaching bankruptcy date. What Congress could have 
done--what we should have done--is to enact sensible, narrowly drawn, 
targeted reforms, No. 1, aimed at improving the coverage options for 
each of these groups and strengthening and preserving Medicare and 
Medicaid. We needed to bring down the costs, not jack up the costs.
  If we ask most people the biggest problem they have with their health 
insurance, they say it costs too much, and we have made it worse. It is 
worse, not better. To bring down the costs, we could have allowed 
people to buy health insurance across State lines. I know that doesn't 
sound like a panacea, but most States have captive insurance markets 
and many State legislatures, including the Texas legislature, have 
mandated coverage that many people simply don't want, but it adds to 
the cost of their health insurance. So I could have the choice to buy 
insurance across State lines if we enacted this reform. If I liked the 
insurance coverage of Wisconsin or Louisiana or somewhere else, and if 
that suited my needs, I could buy it there and we would have a true 
competitive market and people would compete based on quality and price, 
but we don't have that now.
  What else could we have done? We could have expanded the use of tax-
free health savings accounts paired with high deductible plans, such as 
the kind I talked to a number of my constituents in Austin, TX, about 
who are employed at Whole Foods. They cover roughly 80 percent of the 
out-of-pocket costs for health insurance through health savings 
accounts and high deductible insurance, and the employees--I think it 
is still the case; it was then--still vote on an annual basis for what 
kind of coverage they want. They vote for this type of coverage because 
they are satisfied with it and it gives them a sense of ownership, 
which is actually true, because the money put in a health savings 
account they get to keep and if they don't use it on their health care, 
then they get to save it, the same as with an IRA or something such as 
that. But it also changes the calculation. It makes people much smarter 
shoppers and it moves us further along to a system where people can 
shop for their health insurance and their health services as they do 
with everything else and it will bring down costs and it will improve 
quality of service as a result of competition for that business.
  We could have cracked down on frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits 
which cause defensive medicine. Just think about it. If a doctor is 
worried about losing everything they have worked a lifetime to achieve 
in terms of assets and their medical practice, the last thing they want 
to do is be subjected to a lottery-type lawsuit. So the easiest thing 
for those doctors to do--I know they don't do it on purpose--is make 
the decision to provide a test or a treatment based not so much on a 
patient's clinical situation but based on their desire to not be sued 
and to not be second-guessed 2 years later when somebody comes in and 
says you should have done this or that. So the temptation is to do 
everything and to run up the cost of health care coverage.
  These are just a few examples. But by lowering costs across the 
board, these reforms--which I talked about and which the President and 
his political party rejected--could have helped people who already had 
coverage and we could have helped those who previously could not have 
afforded coverage. Some people--if I have heard it one time, I have 
heard it a thousand times--said we need ObamaCare because people with 
preexisting conditions couldn't get coverage. That is a serious 
concern. But we already have in place high-risk pools in the States, 
and if we needed to help those States provide coverage to people with 
those high-risk health conditions, we could have done it a whole lot 
cheaper and a whole lot more efficiently than creating this huge 
monstrosity, this huge bureaucracy, this huge expense known as 
ObamaCare.
  We could have increased funding to the high-risk pools that were 
already operating in about three dozen States. The irony is that the 
people in the high-risk pool in Texas got a letter that said their 
coverage has been canceled effective December 31--the very people 
ObamaCare was supposed to help--your coverage is canceled because 
ObamaCare kicks in January 1. But because people were worried about 
their ability to get on the exchanges due to the Web site problems, the 
Texas legislature and the Texas Department of Insurance decided to 
extend the coverage of the high-risk health insurance pools in Texas so 
people wouldn't fall through the cracks because of this train wreck of 
a rollout of ObamaCare.
  How about Medicaid. We hear a lot of discussion about Medicaid. I 
have already mentioned that Medicaid only reimburses doctors about half 
what a private insurance policy would, so a lot of doctors simply can't 
afford to see a new Medicaid patient. In Texas, only one doctor out of 
three will see a new Medicaid patient for that reason. It is not 
because they don't want to; it is simply because they can't afford to 
do so. We could have made it a lot easier for States to bolster their 
Medicaid Program and deliver targeted policies that would allow them to 
manage Medicaid populations, for example; create a medical home, for 
example. But because of the redtape Washington refused to cut, Medicaid 
ends up in many instances being an appearance of coverage, but people 
can't find a doctor who will see them. What good is that? That is, to 
me, a sleight of hand and part of the reason I call this one of the 
biggest cases of consumer fraud in American history.
  To help Medicare patients--who are, of course, our seniors--we could 
have increased private competition and patient choice by embracing the 
premium support model that was endorsed by 10 members of President 
Clinton's Medicare Commission back in 1999. That is not a partisan 
solution; it is one President Clinton's Medicare Commission embraced 
back in 1999.
  The reforms I have just outlined would have given us a genuine 
national marketplace for individual health insurance. Unfortunately, 
our friends across the aisle and our President decided to take a 
different path with the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare. 
Unfortunately, the folks who designed ObamaCare consciously chose to 
destroy the individual market and force millions of people to pay for 
Washington-mandated coverage they didn't need and they didn't want and 
at a price they can't afford. Rather than adopt measures to bring down 
the costs and coverage issues for a subset of the population, the 
roughly 10 percent who weren't among those 90 percent who said they 
like what they had, the President and his allies chose to wreck the 
existing health care system--to wreck it, to make it worse, not better.
  As a result, they have made the cost problem worse. They have 
jeopardized physician access for millions of Americans who like their 
current health plans and wish to keep them. And, of course, now the 
administration is boasting that the Web site is mostly fixed. Indeed, 
by most objective reports, people are not experiencing the same sort of 
epic failure they did when they first tried to get into the Obama 
exchanges. But at this point the President and his allies have lost all 
credibility with regard to other aspects of ObamaCare, which I have 
mentioned. Fixing the Web site will not fix the underlying deficiencies 
of ObamaCare. These are not glitches. These were baked in the cake. 
These were designed. This is the way ObamaCare was created and was 
supposed to work, notwithstanding the fact that the American people had 
been sold a bill of goods to the contrary.
  Indeed, the only way to solve America's biggest health care 
challenges is a

[[Page 18371]]

do-over, to replace ObamaCare with the sort of patient-centered reforms 
I mentioned a few moments ago. ObamaCare may be a complete disaster, 
but it is not too late for us to work together to fix what is broken 
and to start over.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, with less than 2 weeks remaining 
before the deadline for people who need to sign up for health insurance 
that starts for them to be insured on January 1, there is a significant 
amount of anger as well as anxiety across the country. The Web site 
where people are supposed to go to buy that insurance has been plagued 
with problems that everyone in the country seems to know about, and 
that has caused huge amounts of anxiety. I heard about it last week in 
Wyoming, I hear about it on Capitol Hill with staff members, and I hear 
it pretty much anywhere I go.
  What people have been learning is that the problems with the Web site 
are actually just the tip of the iceberg. The Obama administration has 
been saying that it has been fixed, that the problems with this health 
care law are fine, that everything is good, that a majority of people 
are having good experiences. I remember listening to the President not 
long ago, sitting with Bill Clinton, saying: Easier to use than Amazon.
  Well, that is not what the American people found. He also said: 
Cheaper than your cell phone bill. He said: You will be able to keep 
your doctor if you like them.
  But the law continues to leave so many Americans struggling--
struggling with higher costs, with greater confusion--and really with a 
lot less confidence in the administration. People all around the 
country are worrying about whether the administration even knows what 
it is doing.
  So when I talk about the Web site being just the tip of the iceberg, 
people around the country are running into higher premiums, canceled 
coverage, finding out they cannot keep their doctor. They are running 
into fraud and identity theft issues and issues in terms of higher 
copays and out-of-pocket costs and deductibles.
  People at home in Wyoming--and I went not just around communities in 
the State, traveling to a number of different communities, but I also 
went to my own medical office where I practiced as an orthopedic 
surgeon at Casper Orthopedics for 24 years--were telling me how worried 
they were about the higher costs they are seeing regarding paying for 
insurance for next year.
  I got a letter from one man in Cody, WY. He talked about how the 
rates he has been quoted are going to go up from about $860 a month 
that he pays now for a family of four to $2,400 a month--$860 to $2,400 
a month. He said: ``I'm not sure what planet they think I live on, but 
there is no way I can spend more than half of my monthly income on 
insurance.'' Well, I hear the same thing from people all around 
Wyoming. People are having this same sticker shock all over the 
country.
  We know that more than 4.7 million Americans in 32 States are being 
told they cannot keep the insurance they had. When we take a look at 
the map, we know we do not have the numbers yet on certain States, 
including the State of Wisconsin. We do not have Illinois. We do not 
have Ohio. We do not have Texas. We do not have Virginia. So we really 
do not know how many people have lost their coverage. But we know that 
at least 4.7 million Americans were told they cannot keep the insurance 
they had in spite of what the President may have promised them. Now 
what they have to do is buy new Washington-approved health coverage 
that really may not be the right coverage for them and may likely cost 
more than they were paying before. Millions of Americans are going to 
be forced to use money that in the past was used to pay rent or put 
their children through school or to invest in their communities or in a 
business or to help make repairs to their homes--now that money is 
going to go to pay for higher premiums as well as the incredibly high 
deductibles people are seeing related to the health care law.
  It is interesting, looking through the papers--this was yesterday's 
Wall Street Journal, Monday, December 9. Above the fold on the front 
page: ``Deductibles Fuel New Worries of Health-Law Sticker Shock.'' The 
article says:

       The average individual deductible for what is called a 
     bronze plan on the exchange--the lowest-priced coverage--is 
     $5,081 a year, according to a new report on insurance 
     offerings in 34 of the 36 states that rely on the federally 
     run online marketplace.

  The Wall Street Journal reports:

       That is 42% higher than the average deductible of $3,589 
     for an individually purchased plan in 2013 before much of the 
     federal law took effect.

  So what people are seeing--and the Wall Street Journal reports above-
the-fold on the first page--are higher deductibles by a lot.
  It is not just the Wall Street Journal. In the New York Times 
yesterday, Robert Pear had an article: ``On Health Exchanges, Premiums 
May Be Low, But Other Costs Can Be High.'' It says:

       . . . as consumers dig into the details--

  Dig into the details--something this body never did. Members of that 
part of the body who voted for this health care law never did dig into 
the details.

  It says:

       . . . as consumers dig into the details, they are finding 
     that the deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs are often 
     much higher than what is typical in employer-sponsored health 
     plans--the plans many of these people have had in the past.

  So what we are seeing are not just the higher costs, not just the 
higher deductibles, the higher copays; there is also a lot of confusion 
about the health care Web site itself, and I think that is only going 
to get worse. Ten weeks after the Web site launched, there is still an 
awful lot that is broken, including the parts that actually get people 
the insurance they think they signed up for.
  A number of my staff have applied, and they believe they have signed 
up for health insurance. They are not sure. They have not yet gotten 
confirmation. And I know Members on Capitol Hill who have staff signing 
up are experiencing the same thing.
  Last month one of the officials from the Department of Health and 
Human Services testified in the House of Representatives that as much 
as 40 percent of this Web site's system still has not even been built 
yet. The Web site still has trouble transmitting information to the 
insurance companies once someone has chosen a plan.
  The Web site was down again earlier today. It still has not figured 
out how to automatically pay the portion of premiums covered by any 
government subsidy.
  There are still many, many security holes that can be exploited by 
con artists, by hackers. Certain branches of the government have been 
warning citizens to be cautious when going on the Web site because of 
the concerns about exploitation, people who are trying to use this in a 
fraudulent way.
  And then you hear that the administration is bragging. It is really 
sad that almost 9 weeks after the Web site opened the administration is 
now bragging that it only has an error rate of 10 percent on one 
important step of the Web site. Madam President, 1 in 10 is their error 
rate. This is a President who said the Web site was going to be running 
like amazon.com. He said that 3 or 4 days before the Web site opened. 
Now, 9 weeks later, he is delighted that the error rate is still 1 out 
of 10. Does the President actually believe Amazon would accept a 10-
percent error rate in their customers not being able to finish their 
purchases?
  I believe all of these flaws and failures have led to a dramatic loss 
of confidence by the American people in their government. According to 
a new Gallup poll, 52 percent of Americans are in favor of scaling back 
the health care law or repealing it entirely. People continue to turn 
against the law for a number of reasons, and it is not just the Web 
site, it is the higher premiums, it is the canceled coverage, it is 
that they cannot keep their doctor, and it is fraud and identity theft, 
higher copays, higher deductibles, and confusion about what is going to 
go wrong

[[Page 18372]]

next because so many things the President and his administration have 
said--have looked into the camera and told the American people would be 
one way--turned out to be something very different. There have been so 
many changing stories coming out of the White House.
  The President said: If you like your health insurance, you can keep 
your health insurance, and then he actually said ``period,'' with a 
punctuation mark, that that was it; no ifs, ands, or buts--just the 
period. People now know all across the country--those who voted for 
him, those who did not--what they all know is that what the President 
said was not true.
  The President said: If you like your doctor, you can keep your 
doctor. Well, on Sunday one of the architects of ObamaCare went on FOX 
News and admitted also that was not true. This is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel--
the brother of Rahm Emanuel, the former Chief of Staff of the White 
House--who is a medicine professor. What he said was, if you like your 
doctor and you want to keep your doctor, you can pay more for insurance 
that includes your doctor. There are a lot of places where you cannot 
even buy insurance that will cover that doctor. This is not at all what 
the President promised.
  It is interesting, even in the Financial Times yesterday, 
``Healthcare insurers cut costs by excluding top hospitals.'' So you 
cannot even go to the hospitals. There is a picture here of the 
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. ``Plan will not cover 
treatment at Houston cancer center.'' So we have somebody who has lost 
their insurance who has been going to that cancer center where their 
doctors are--they are losing their insurance on January 1, knowing they 
cannot keep their doctor, they cannot keep their hospital. We see 
children's hospitals around the country, people who are not going to be 
included in these exchanges. So children with leukemia, come January 1, 
are going to lose their doctor, lose their hospital. But that is what 
the President and that is what the Democrats in this body who voted for 
this health care law have given to the American people.
  Just before Thanksgiving, the Obama administration announced it would 
have to delay a health insurance exchange that was supposed to let 
small businesses shop for insurance. I remember hearing speeches on 
this floor about small businesses being able to find affordable 
insurance. Well, it turns out, once again, the administration knew at 
least 6 weeks before that they were going to have to delay the program. 
Did they admit it to the American people? Did they tell the truth? No. 
They waited.
  One broken promise after another, one statement after another that 
the administration knows is not true. So is it a surprise, then, that 
the President of the United States is viewed as untruthful by a 
majority of the people of this country? It is a terrible situation for 
anyone to put their country in.
  Back when we first started talking about the health care law, 
Republicans offered ideas on how to give people what they really 
wanted, which was reform that lowered costs and improved access to 
care. That is what people were concerned about. So many of the 
complaints we have heard around the country have had to do with the 
cost of care.
  So President Obama and Democrats in Congress refused to listen, 
ignored all of the warning signs, and used raw majority power to force 
this bad law on all of the American people. I remember the vote in this 
body, Christmas Eve morning, voting on a health care law. We watched it 
crammed through on party-line votes.
  Now Democrats in the Senate have decided to make another power play 
and have broken the rules of the Senate just a couple of weeks ago to 
change the rules of the Senate. They took a drastic and unwarranted 
step so that they could have the power once again to force more bad 
ideas like the Obama health care law onto the American people.
  They say we do not need the 60 votes now; all we need is a simple 
majority. Let's change the way the Senate has run for well over 100 
years, because, once again, the Democrats say: We know better than the 
American people. We know better than you.
  That is what the President said with his health care law. Now the 
American people are realizing what they knew all along. This is not 
what they wanted with health care reform. Regrettably it is what they 
are living with now, and they are seeing the higher premiums, the 
canceled coverage, losing their doctor, the fraud and identity theft, 
higher copays, and higher deductibles.
  It is interesting; even today in the Washington Post, the front page 
above the fold said: ``Under health law, insurers limiting drug 
coverage.'' Costs may soar. It talks about many different ailments, 
including for those with HIV. That is a result of the health care law. 
If this health care law would not have passed, forced down the throats 
of the American people with the President telling one falsehood after 
another, deliberately designed to mislead the American people, you 
would never have seen a headline like this today.
  If President Obama really wants to help the American people, he is 
going to sit down with the Republicans and talk about the real issues 
to reduce costs, to get rid of all of this confusion that he and the 
Democrats have caused and to restore people's confidence in America, as 
well as in him.
  There is a better way. Republicans agree we need to reform America's 
health care system. We think that those reforms could have been done 
without the kind of harm caused by the President's health care law.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, once again I come to the floor to discuss 
the negative impacts ObamaCare is having on my constituents in South 
Dakota and to countless Americans across the Nation. Since this health 
care law was enacted in 2010, I have come to the floor on numerous 
occasions to discuss the number of promises the President made to the 
American people, promises that have been broken. My colleagues and I 
have highlighted the fact that the President's promise, ``if you like 
your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan--period,'' 
simply isn't true.
  Reports indicate that more than 5 million Americans already have 
received cancellation notices from their insurance companies and much 
of the ObamaCare policy has not even been implemented yet. What is 
worse, the administration knew they would never live up to this 
promise. Instead of finding a permanent solution to the problem, they 
proposed a political solution.
  Today I would like to highlight yet another broken promise made by 
the President that is resulting in sticker shock as many Americans 
purchase health insurance.
  While campaigning for the Presidency, and in speeches leading up to 
the passage of ObamaCare, President Obama promised the American people 
that their premiums would decrease by up to $2,500 per family. Instead, 
many families are facing sticker shock. Since enactment of ObamaCare, 
health care premiums have actually increased by more than $2,500 per 
family--that according to the Kaiser Family Foundation annual survey. 
As a result, many American families are sitting around their kitchen 
table trying to figure out how they are going to shift their finances 
around to afford health care when they were promised their premiums 
were going to go down by $2,500 per family.
  As the President has said, this law is more than just a Web site. We 
agree with that; this law is more than just a Web site. This law is a 
series of broken promises that are resulting in higher premiums, higher 
deductibles, and higher out-of-pocket costs for middle-class families, 
money the families could be using to help pay off student loans, save 
for a house, or start a business. Those are now going to be used to

[[Page 18373]]

pay for government-approved health care.
  Recent reports out this week by the New York Times and Wall Street 
Journal highlight the fact that deductibles and other costs under 
ObamaCare have surged. The Wall Street Journal reports that the average 
individual deductible for a bronze level plan on the exchanges is over 
$5,000 a year. This means a policyholder would need to pay over $5,000 
in order for their insurer to start making payments.
  One of my constituents recently informed me that her family's health 
insurance plan was cancelled and the new policy she was offered would 
double their deductible to $5,000 per individual. She and her husband 
have three children. In addition to a higher deductible, this family 
faces higher premiums, higher copayments, and a higher out-of-pocket 
maximum. She goes on to say, ``Please explain how this new coverage is 
considered `affordable' under the Affordable Care Act?''
  Another couple in my State of South Dakota informed me, in the form 
of an email, that their premiums were going up by $400 a month and the 
deductibles were going up by $1,400 on their policy. Their question 
was, What is the Federal Government doing? The gentleman says I feel 
like the Federal Government just stole $5000 from me.
  That is the frustration people across the country are feeling as a 
result of ObamaCare. The middle class is faced with higher costs, while 
their take-home pay and hours are being reduced.
  As more and more Americans begin to formulate their family budget for 
2014, they are going to learn that yet another promise by the President 
has been broken. Not only are they losing the plan they were promised 
they could keep, they are facing sticker shock over the increased cost 
of health care coverage. This flawed law will continue hitting middle-
class Americans in their pocketbooks as the Nation's economy continues 
to struggle to regain its footing.
  The flawed rollout of ObamaCare is no secret. We have all seen what 
were described as the countless glitches associated with the rollout. 
But to make matters worse, recent reports indicate that in October, one 
in four ObamaCare enrollees faced a glitch not many were aware of. This 
glitch, called an 834 error, has prevented insurers from receiving the 
proper information regarding people who believed they had successfully 
enrolled in a health care plan. In essence, 25 percent of the initial 
enrollees in ObamaCare, after persevering through the errors on a Web 
site that was not ready for prime time, may not have proper coverage 
come January 1 of 2014.
  What is even more troubling is that the administration estimates that 
10 percent of new enrollees will continue to face this problem. Here we 
are, 23 days before January 1, and those who worked through the 
headaches of healthcare.gov may or may not have coverage. 
Unfortunately, this administration continues to refuse to seriously 
address these problems.
  Even though they have unilaterally delayed several portions of this 
law from taking effect and have previously failed to meet half of the 
requirements mandated by the law, the administration will not provide 
the same relief for the individual Americans as it has for big 
businesses.
  This law is fundamentally broken and we need to start over. Rather 
than expand the government's role in providing health care, we need to 
enact policies that make the private insurance market more competitive 
to ensure that individuals and families have choices when it comes to 
their health care. Yet the unfortunate reality for middle-class 
families is that their premiums, their deductibles, their out-of-pocket 
costs under ObamaCare are not glitches, they are a harmful reality that 
is resulting in sticker shock for literally millions of Americans.
  We can do better; we should do better. This is more than just a Web 
site. It is the substance of this law that was built upon a faulty 
foundation that is leading to canceled policies, higher premiums, 
higher deductibles, higher taxes, fewer jobs, and lower take-home pay 
for the American people. This is a direct shot at the heart of the 
American middle class.
  The President last week got up and made a speech where he talked 
about income inequality. What he should have focused on is the best way 
to get rid of income inequality is to repeal this health care law 
because what is going to happen to middle-class families and middle-
class Americans under this health care law is much higher costs, much 
lower take-home pay, many fewer jobs for them and for their children, 
and a lower standard of living and lower quality of life than they have 
enjoyed in the past. This will be the impact upon middle-class 
Americans as a result of this law.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss what I call 
the Washington exemption from ObamaCare. One of the few real victories 
the American people had in the ObamaCare debate was we actually got an 
amendment included in the Senate consideration of the bill that said 
much of Washington--all Members and all of our congressional staff--
have to go to the ObamaCare exchanges for our health care, just like 
millions of other Americans. We had to get it there.
  Unfortunately, I guess this was an example of what Nancy Pelosi said 
when she said we need to pass the bill in order to understand what is 
in it.
  After the ObamaCare statute passed with that very clear and very 
specific provision in it, a lot of folks around here read it and said: 
Oh, you know what. How are we going to deal with this? A furious 
behind-the-scenes lobbying effort then began. It went on for months. It 
was to essentially get around that provision and the pain it would 
cause--the pain being subjecting Members of Congress and all of our 
staff to the same circumstance and experience as other Americans.
  That ended with President Obama getting personally involved and the 
Obama administration issuing a special rule, and that rule is just an 
end run around the specific statutory provision. I think it is 
completely illegal for that reason, because it is in conflict with that 
statutory provision.
  One of the key issues of that rule says--well, the statute says all 
official staff will go to the exchange, but we really don't mean that 
so we are going to leave it up to each individual Member to decide what 
staff are official and what staff will go to the exchange.
  As a result, there is a huge loophole some Members are using to 
exempt much--in some cases even all--of their staff from going to the 
exchange.
  As mandated clearly by the ObamaCare statute, we have to walk the 
walk of other Americans, and we have to share in that experience.
  Sadly, according to press reports, the distinguished majority leader 
Mr. Reid is one of those Members actively taking advantage of that 
loophole and exempting much of his staff. Because of that, I have 
written the majority leader today and asked him to answer some very 
important and straightforward questions about that situation.
  In order to make my point, I will simply read the letter into the 
Record. It was sent to the distinguished majority leader in the last 
several hours.

       Dear Majority Leader Reid.
       It has been reported that you were the only Member of top 
     Congressional leadership--House and Senate, Democrat and 
     Republican--who has exempted some of your staff from having 
     to procure their health insurance through the Obamacare 
     Exchange as clearly required by the Obamacare statute.
       Millions of Americans are losing the health care plans and 
     doctors they wanted to keep and are facing dramatic premium 
     increases, all as Washington enjoys a special exemption. 
     Given this, I ask you to publicly and in writing answer the 
     four important questions below regarding your office's 
     exemptions. I will also be on the Senate floor to discuss 
     this at approximately 4:15 pm today and invite you to join me 
     there.

[[Page 18374]]

       First, how did you designate each member of your staff, 
     including your leadership staff, regarding their status as 
     ``official'' (going to the Exchange) or ``not official'' 
     (exempted from Exchange)? Did you delegate that designation 
     to the Senate Disbursing Office, which would have the effect 
     of exempting all of your leadership staff from going to the 
     Exchange?
       Second, if any of your staff is designated as ``not 
     official'' (exempted from Exchange), are any of those staff 
     members receiving official taxpayer-funded salaries, 
     benefits, office space, office equipment, or any other 
     taxpayer support?
       Third, if any of your staff is designated as ``not 
     official'' (exempted from Exchange), did any of these staff 
     members assist you in drafting or passing Obamacare into law? 
     If so, which staff members exactly?
       Fourth, how are the above designations of yours consistent 
     with the clear, unequivocal statement you made on September 
     12: ``Let's stop these really juvenile political games--the 
     ones dealing with health care for Senators and House members 
     and our staff. We are going to be part of exchanges, that's 
     what the law says and we'll be part of that.''
       I look forward to your clear, written responses to these 
     important questions. I also look forward to having fair up-
     or-down votes on the Senate floor on my ``Show Your 
     Exemptions'' and ``No Washington Exemptions'' proposals in 
     the new year.
       Sincerely, David Vitter.

  This letter lays it out clearly. I think this is an important debate 
the American people care about. As I said in the letter, millions of 
Americans face real dislocation and pain under ObamaCare. They are 
losing--in millions upon millions of cases--the health care plan they 
wanted to keep and they were promised they could keep. They are losing 
their ability to see the doctor they love and were promised they could 
continue to see. That number in Louisiana alone is 93,000 families.
  They face skyrocketing premiums in many cases. Yet, as all of that 
goes on, Washington enjoys this Washington exemption from ObamaCare. 
Some Members of Congress, in particular--apparently, according to press 
reports, that includes the majority leader Mr. Reid--are using this end 
run around the clear language of the ObamaCare law and exempting much 
of their staff.
  I think it is incumbent upon the distinguished majority leader to 
come clean and answer these four very legitimate, very straightforward 
questions in an open, transparent, written, and straightforward way.
  I am sorry he could not join me on the floor right now to discuss 
this matter. I welcome that conversation at any point in the near 
future, and I certainly look forward to his written responses to these 
questions. I think the American people deserve that, at a very minimum.
  I also think they deserve--at a very minimum--what I have been 
fighting for months: Fair up-or-down votes on my Show Your Exemptions 
proposal and No Washington Exemptions from ObamaCare proposal. The 
first is real simple. It simply mandates that every Member disclose how 
they are handling their office. It is the same sort of question and 
goes to the same sort of information I am asking directly of Senator 
Reid.
  The No Washington Exemptions from ObamaCare ends the end run around--
ends that special status, that special treatment for Congress and our 
official staff. It would also put them in the same category of having 
to go to the exchanges with no special treatment or subsidy. It would 
include the President, Vice President, White House staff, and political 
appointees.
  Unfortunately, again, the majority leader has blocked all of my 
attempts to simply get a vote on these matters. I am not asking 
everyone to agree with me; it is a free country, but I think I deserve 
a vote. I think the American people deserve a debate and a vote, and so 
I will continue fighting for fair up-or-down votes on the Senate floor 
on both my disclosure proposal, Show Your Exemptions, and the ultimate 
fix, No Washington Exemptions from ObamaCare.
  I will continue that work, and I look forward to the majority 
leader's response to this letter.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the Senate has considered several well-
qualified nominees this week. One of those is Congressman Mel Watt, the 
President's nominee to be Director of the Federal Housing Finance 
Agency. Congressman Watt has the institutional knowledge, legislative 
experience, and vision to transform our housing market and ensure that 
the mortgage crisis doesn't happen again.
  Congressman Watt has vast experience working with the housing market. 
He practiced law for 22 years prior to his congressional career, 
executing countless real estate transactions. Since being elected to 
serve in North Carolina's 12th District in 1993, Congressman Watt has 
fought tirelessly to restore integrity to our financial system.
  He serves on the House Financial Services Committee, where he 
sponsored legislation that would eventually become part of the Dodd-
Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to ensure that 
mortgage applicants can, in fact, meet their mortgage obligations. What 
is more, he recognized that lenders were engaging in predatory 
practices when underwriting mortgage loans well before the foreclosure 
crisis.
  Since 2004, he has advocated for legislation to combat predatory 
mortgage practices. He has also been working for 10 years toward reform 
of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I share his goal, and I want the right 
person at the helm when Congress begins that process.
  Before responsible reform can happen, we need to come to some 
consensus about what we want the secondary mortgage market to look 
like. Families should have access to traditional 30-year mortgages. And 
we don't want to cut off access to capital for multifamily housing, 
which provides affordable housing for millions of families. Congressman 
Watt's experience delving into these issues will be invaluable in his 
role as the new Director of FHFA.
  The mortgage crisis that took our Nation's economy to the brink in 
2008 is still hurting American homeowners and our economy. About 15 
percent of all borrowers--more than 7 million Americans--are still 
under water on their mortgages and high rates of foreclosure continue 
to plague communities across the country. The housing market still has 
a long way to go.
  There is more that FHFA can do to help the housing market recover--
from working with State and local governments to maintain vacant 
foreclosed properties held by Fannie and Freddie, to targeted principal 
reduction to help families stay in their homes. I look forward to 
working with Congressman Mel Watt to address the challenges still 
facing the housing market.
  Time and again, some of my colleagues threaten to block confirmation 
of nominees to further sometimes unrelated agendas. Sometimes it is 
simply because President Obama nominated these individuals. I hope that 
my colleagues will carefully consider the struggling homeowners in 
their respective States as they do this.
  FHFA has gone without a Director for more than 4 years. This 
important agency needs a Director that will stand up for homeowners and 
work with Congress to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  FHFA deserves to be fully staffed so it can serve the best interests 
of taxpayers and homeowners. I urge my colleagues to support 
Congressman Watt's confirmation and look forward to working with him as 
he becomes the new Director of the FHFA.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Donnelly). The question is, Will the 
Senate advise and consent to the nomination of Melvin L. Watt, of North 
Carolina, to be Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency for a 
term of 5 years?
  Mr. SCHATZ. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second. There is a sufficient 
second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

[[Page 18375]]

  The result was announced--yeas 57, nays 41, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 252 Ex.]

                                YEAS--57

     Baldwin
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--41

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Enzi
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Cruz
     Kirk
       

  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, that last vote took 30 minutes. We are not 
going to wait around for Senators to come. We are going to start 
cutting off votes--Democrats, Republicans, Independents, everybody. We 
cannot do this. We have a lot of work to do, so it is unfair to 
everyone who gets here on time. We are going to start cutting off the 
votes in 20 minutes. I advise the floor staff that in fact is the case. 
We are not to be waiting for people. It is wrong. It is unfair.

                          ____________________