[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14936-14937]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. BLUNT. I have come to the floor almost every week. I think I have 
come to the floor every week it was possible to be on the Senate floor 
over the course of the last year to discuss the changes we have seen in 
health care. We are now approaching the 1-year anniversary of the--
everybody would agree--disastrous launch of ObamaCare. Most Americans 
now agree, not only was the launch disastrous, but actually the changes 
in our health care system have not been what they would have hoped for.
  The administration has delayed the 2015 open season, to sign up for 
health care, until the middle of November now. Interestingly, the 
middle of November is right after the election. I assume that is not a 
coincidence that the administration does not want voters to be 
reminded, between now and election day, of what the problems are in 
just trying to sign up and what the new costs and new deductibles may 
be.
  But for whatever reason, of the many delays and the many 
determinations by the administration over and over again, no matter 
what the law said, the administration decided: Well, we can actually 
change that. There is no justification for November 15 except the first 
Tuesday in November. I think we all know that. No matter how many 
things we delayed, though, the health care plan continues to get less 
and less popular. Every month, as I look at those numbers, fewer 
Americans have confidence in the direction we are headed in health care 
than we did before.
  Earlier this week, CMS began sending notices to consumers enrolled in 
the exchanges that have income-related discrepancies that do not match 
the Federal data. Apparently, about 363,000 individuals are receiving 
those letters. If they do not respond by September 30, the subsidy they 
thought they were having for their policy will not be there. In August 
CMS began to reach out to people who required proof of citizenship. 
Apparently, it is too much trouble to have proof of citizenship to take 
to the polls with you but not too much trouble to have citizenship 
proof if you are going to participate in this program that taxpayers 
pay for and that voters, ultimately, by who they send here and who they 
send to the White House, are responsible for.
  On Monday, it was announced that around 115,000 individuals--1,700 of 
them were Missourians--were notified that their coverage would end by 
September 30 unless they could provide that verification of 
citizenship. That is not a very good notice to get with 2 weeks and a 
couple of days of notification: By the way, you are about to lose your 
health care coverage unless you can provide documents and provide them 
right now.
  USA Today reported that healthcare.gov still remains so ``glitchy,'' 
according to them, ``remains so glitchy,'' that some people are being 
forced to send their information multiple times. Many cannot access 
their accounts, and then now there is the well-understood concern that 
the information may not be nearly as secure as we would want it to be.
  Serco, a company that was hired to provide services for processing 
paper applications--we found out just a few days ago, after months of 
waiting, that the Federal Government finally responded to a St. Louis 
television station--KMOV's freedom of information request which they 
submitted in March. It takes a long time to get one simple question 
answered. The question was: How many paper applications are actually 
being processed at this processing center in Wentzville, MO? How many 
applications were processed between October of last year and March of 
this year?
  The number was not so big that it should have been that hard to 
count. It was less than 5 percent of the anticipated number that the 
workforce was put in place for and the company was paid to process--
about 271,000 people over that several months' period of time.
  The director of the project testified in September that the company, 
he said, was ``prepared to manage an estimated 6.2 million paper 
applications'' between that period of time, and instead they managed 
271,000. When you have a workforce in place to do 6.2 million 
applications and they do about one-quarter of a million, no wonder 
people from that workplace were coming forward. Numerous 
whistleblowers, according to KMOV, were saying: We are playing board 
games. We have library books stacked up on the tables. We are told, 
every once in a while, to push the button that refreshes our computers 
so that it at least appears that the computer has not just gone away in 
one of many miscalculations in how this was going to work.
  A GAO report released on Tuesday confirmed that people who had had 
concerns about this bill because it would use Federal funding for the 
first time to lead to taxpayer-funded abortions--and many of my 
colleagues in the House voted for this and voted for it only because 
President Obama repeatedly promised that the health care law would not 
lead to American tax dollars being used for this purpose. It is a 
longstanding policy. It is a policy that Americans have strongly 
supported for a long time. Unfortunately, this new report by the 
government itself indicates that was one more government promise not 
kept.
  We are on the verge of entering the second year of healthcare.gov. We 
are on the verge of entering the second year of this new Federal 
involvement in people's health care decisions. I think there is a 
reason that every week, every month, when Missourians are asked by the 
Kaiser Foundation and others about this, this is less popular than it 
was the month before.
  Hopefully, when we come back next year, we will look for ways to make 
health care work better. Then we will begin to see people have more 
confidence if we would do that effectively month after month, instead 
of less confidence month after month.
  I yield back and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MANCHIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.

[[Page 14937]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MANCHIN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes or 
until my remarks are complete.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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