[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17463-17464]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, ObamaCare is working, as the New York Times 
indicated in a strong column this week showing how dramatically the 
rates of uninsurance have dropped since this bill passed. The initial 
posting of premiums doesn't tell the whole story. The law requires the 
Department of Health and Human Services to post only the proposed 
increases that exceed 10 percent. Many of those proposed rates have 
gone through a review process at the State level, and after that 
review, States will reduce many of those rates. Remember, we are 
talking only about the States that had an increase of more than 10 
percent. Almost all the States had increases that were far less than 
that.
  The health reform law caps 85 percent of exchange enrollees' premiums 
as a share of their income, and because of the health law, insurance 
companies must spend at least 80 cents of every dollar on health 
services. Prior to this law passing, these health insurance companies 
spent huge amounts of their money on salaries and other things that 
didn't relate to the health of their enrollees, and now 80 percent of 
every dollar must be spent on the enrollees. This has resulted in 
rebates totaling
$9 billion paid to consumers since 2011. Eighty cents of every dollar 
is spent on health services rather than administrative costs and 
profits.
  Addressing insurance premium increases in the individual market was a 
key reason we enacted the health reform bill in the first place. Before 
the health reform law, patients were subject to premium increases, 
cancellations, denials for preexisting conditions, and arbitrary limits 
on how much care insurance would cover.

[[Page 17464]]

  Thanks to this health reform law, proposed premium increases are 
seeing the light of day and are subject to scrutiny, which wasn't the 
way it was before.
  Under the health reform law, insurance companies cannot deny coverage 
or charge more because of a preexisting condition or for simply being a 
woman. Insurance companies cannot arbitrarily cut off benefits when you 
really need them.

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