[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2168-2169]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               HEALTHCARE

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the policy 
changes and choices made in Washington and how they affect the spending 
and the well-being of so many people all around this great country. 
There has been a great deal of talk recently about how we can get our 
out-of-control Washington spending under control. How can we curb 
spending?
  We also need to keep in mind some of the policies of the Obama 
administration and how they have impacted spending and how they have 
created economic conditions that have forced many of these hard choices 
to be made by American families. I believe our weak economic recovery 
is a result of bad policy choices that have cost Americans their jobs, 
and it has cost them dollars--money--they cannot spare.
  The list of the administration's bad policy choices is long and, in 
my opinion, right at the top of that list is the President's health 
care law. Last week, we learned from a GAO study requested by Senator 
Sessions that the President's health care law will add $6.2 trillion to 
Washington's debt. Of course, that is debt on the back of every young 
person in America and on the back of future generations. It is a debt 
upon the entire Nation.
  It is also adding to the financial burden in this country. Recently, 
the Obama administration has released more rules for how this health 
care law will be implemented. The new regulations that have just come 
out lay out something called ``essential benefits.'' These are the 
government-mandated items that health care policies will now have to 
offer.
  Along with other parts of the health care law, these new rules will 
raise the premiums American families pay for their health coverage. 
That is not what the American people wanted, that is not what they were 
promised by the President, and that is not what they need during this 
difficult economic time.
  Remember, President Obama promised that under his health care plan 
insurance premiums, he said, would go down $2,500 for the average 
family by the end of his first term. That has come and gone, but what 
the President promised the American people has not happened. Instead, 
premiums have gone up by an average of more than $3,000 family.
  As more provisions of the law kick in, I can tell you it is going to 
get worse. As the Obama administration puts out more regulations, 
premiums are going to continue to go up and up. The American people are 
in for a serious case of premium sticker shock.
  This is especially true for young people, people in their twenties, 
people in their thirties. That is not just my prediction. It is the 
warning we are getting from State officials who actually supported the 
President's health care law. Of course, they supported it before they 
knew what was in it.
  The State insurance commissioner in Oregon has said the new 
regulations could push up premiums for young consumers by as much as 30 
percent next year. According to a recent piece in the Los Angeles 
Times, that was not an accident. It was an intentional effect of trying 
to lower prices for older Americans by raising the prices for younger 
people. In fact, the cost-shifting was a top priority of the AARP 
during the debate.
  Of course, I believe the administration was not honest about it. They 
did not come out and tell young people: Hey, you are going to have to 
pay a higher premium so someone else pays less. No. Democrats in 
Congress and the White House tried to say young people were going to 
pay lower prices, but now we are seeing it was never true.
  The premium increases are also going to be worse if you do not get 
insurance through your employer. That is because you may end up in the 
individual market. A recent Gallup poll found that fewer people are 
getting their insurance through work. Just since 2008, the number has 
dropped significantly. Among people between the ages of 18 and 25 years 
old, only 32 percent now get their health insurance through work.
  Healthier people--people who take the time to focus on staying 
healthy--are actually going to pay more too. Even if you eat a good 
diet, you exercise, you do the things people would be encouraged to do 
so they do not get sick, you are going to pay more under the 
President's health care law.
  According to a new survey of insurance companies, younger and 
healthier customers can expect premium increases of 169 percent, on 
average, in 2014. That is in the individual market, that more people 
will find themselves forced into as their employers drop coverage.
  The Congressional Budget Office says that even when you take into 
account the subsidies some of these people will get under the law, 
premiums will still go up an average of 10 to 13 percent even after the 
subsidies are applied.
  If that happens, a family buying coverage on its own may end up 
paying

[[Page 2169]]

$2,100 a year more because of the health care law. You might ask 
yourself, why are the premiums going up so fast? It is because of the 
law's new requirements.
  For one thing, there is something called the essential health 
benefits. We just got new rules on these from the administration. Those 
are the specific mandates that require insurance plans to cover a wide 
range of services. For most consumers it is going to mean a more 
extensive and longer list of benefits. That might sound good, but they 
may be for things the consumers do not want. It does not matter. Under 
the law, the consumers have to pay for them. It is still higher costs--
much higher costs. People cannot just get the insurance they and their 
family want, that is right for them, and they can afford. No, that is 
not enough. They must buy Obama administration-approved health 
insurance. That is what they have to buy. That is what the law says, 
and it is going to be much more expensive than what they might want, 
they might need or they can afford and think is good for them.
  Families are going to have to pay for insurance that covers the whole 
laundry list of benefits, whether they want them or not. Why should the 
government--Washington--tell a single 33-year-old man he has to pay for 
ovarian cancer screening? Why should someone without children have to 
pay for a plan that covers pediatric eye exams? Even the American 
Academy of Ophthalmology has said that requirement goes too far. They 
are worried that once insurance has to cover it, there will be overuse 
of comprehensive eye exams on children who do not even need them. Of 
course, that may happen. If it is covered by insurance, people are 
going to want more of it. That drives up health care costs, and health 
insurance costs go up even more.
  To make matters worse, the law requires the Secretary of Health and 
Human Services to update the list of these benefits every year. These 
are the benefits you still may not want--certainly do not want to be 
forced to pay for--but you are stuck with them now. We all know this 
list is not going to get any shorter. It is going to grow longer, and 
the costs are going to continue to go up.
  That is what has happened at the State level. Health insurance 
mandates in some States now include everything from circumcisions to 
breast implant removal, and mandates add anywhere from 10 to 50 percent 
to the cost of insurance.
  It is no way to run a health care program. Consumers should decide 
what benefits they want, what benefits they think they may need, not 
Washington bureaucrats.
  Finally, I will give just one more example of how the new rules will 
drive up premiums. This has to do with new age rating rules in the law. 
The age rating limits the amount premiums can vary between healthy 
younger individuals and unhealthy older consumers. This is the most 
direct way Democrats are taxing the young to pay for everyone else.
  Under the President's health care law, the premium charged to a 
sicker older person cannot be more than three times what a healthy 21-
year-old has to pay. So those younger people are going to end up paying 
more. Rather than pay the higher cost, many younger people will just 
not purchase insurance at all. They will just pay the law's tax penalty 
instead. That is because it is still cheaper than the insurance 
premiums that have been driven up due to the President's health care 
law. That means premiums will go up even faster for the people left in 
the insurance pool, and the whole thing will keep spiraling out of 
control.
  The White House says it will not budge on these age-rating rules. So 
people in their twenties and thirties and early forties should just 
prepare themselves now for the premium hikes they are going to see 
under the President's health care law.
  Those are just a few of the new rules and just a few of the ways the 
health care law continues to raise costs and raise premiums for hard-
working Americans. It seems to me the President is still in his 
campaign mode, so he will not admit it, but he is not fooling anybody.
  I recently completed a statewide tour of Wyoming. I visited a dozen 
towns across the State and met with hundreds of people. I can tell you, 
in those meetings, people still say the health care law is unworkable, 
it is unaffordable, and it remains very unpopular.
  The people of Wyoming, as did people across the country, knew what 
they wanted from health care reform. They wanted the care they need, 
from a doctor they choose, at lower costs. What they got were higher 
premiums, higher taxes, and more government control over their personal 
health care decisions.
  When the new rules were released 1 week ago, HHS Secretary Kathleen 
Sebelius said: ``Being sick will no longer keep you, your family, or 
your employees from being able to get affordable health coverage.''
  What she should have added was: The President's own health care law 
will be the thing that keeps people from getting affordable coverage.
  The law that was passed was the wrong solution and the wrong way to 
reform our health care in this country. Hard-working American families 
cannot afford it, and they deserve better.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Nelson pertaining to the introduction of S. 436 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. NELSON. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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