[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18217-18218]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  Mr. HELLER. Mr. President, I rise to share my concerns about the 
devastating impact of the Affordable Care Act and, specifically, the 
Cadillac tax. The Cadillac tax is a 40-percent excise tax set to take 
place in 2018 on employer-sponsored health insurance plans. In Nevada, 
1.3 million workers who have employer-sponsored health insurance plans 
will be hit by this Cadillac tax. These are public employees in Carson 
City, service industry workers on the strip in Las Vegas, and small 
business owners and their retirees across the State of Nevada.
  My colleagues from across the country have heard the same concerns I 
have: This 40-percent tax will increase costs, significantly reduce 
benefits or result in employers getting rid of employer-sponsored 
health coverage all together. Is this what we want? Is this what we 
voted for? Is this what the other side voted for?
  This is precisely why Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and I 
have sponsored the Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act of 2015, 
the only bipartisan piece of legislation to fully repeal this onerous 
tax. My bill has 19 bipartisan cosponsors.
  Over the summer, when I committed to taking a leadership role to 
fully repeal this tax, I waited for months for a sign that my 
colleagues across the aisle would work together to repeal this tax. 
There was a lot of talk, but there was no action. To date there is 
still little action from these same colleagues, which is why I ask them 
once again to join me in repealing this bad tax.
  This shouldn't be a bipartisan issue. Yet my colleagues across the 
aisle have turned it into one. That is why I commend Senator Heinrich 
for joining me in working together in a bipartisan manner to fully 
repeal this tax, and this repeal needs to happen and happen quickly for 
the employers to be able to plan for the future. Whether it is through 
our bill or any of the must-pass measures the Chamber takes up in the 
next 6 weeks before the end of this year--for example, tax extenders--
the Cadillac tax needs to be fully repealed.
  As a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, this is something I 
have engaged my colleagues on and will continue to do so, especially as 
we hopefully look to move tax extenders before the end of this year. 
This is not just something that needs more bipartisan support in the 
Senate. There are over 218 cosponsors in the House of Representatives--
nearly half of them are Democrats--and 83 organizations have endorsed 
our efforts to repeal the Cadillac tax. It is very rare these days to 
see this much agreement in Washington, DC. Organized labor, chambers of 
commerce, local and State governments, large and small businesses have 
come together with a bipartisan group putting forth a solution to 
fixing a problem affecting so many hard-working, tax-paying Americans.
  The Cadillac tax doesn't officially go into effect until 2018, but 
the impact of this tax is being talked about more and more because 
employers are starting to make major changes today now to their 
workers' health care benefits in order to limit the impact of the tax 
or avoid the tax altogether.
  I have heard from large companies, I have heard from small businesses 
and organized labor, such as the culinary union in Nevada, and they are 
all saying the same thing: The Cadillac tax needs to be fully repealed 
or our employees will experience massive changes to their health care.
  We are talking about three things. We are talking about reduced 
benefits, we are talking about increased premiums, and we are talking 
about higher deductibles. Is this what we want? All of these lead to 
more money being taken out of the pockets of hard-working, tax-paying 
families.
  According to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, employees who 
have job-based insurance have witnessed their out-of-pocket expenses 
climb from $900 in 2010 to $1,300 in 2015, on average. That is almost a 
50-percent increase in their insurance coverage in the last 5 years. 
Employees working for small businesses now have deductibles over 
$1,800. Kaiser also notes that deductibles have risen nearly seven 
times faster--seven times faster--than workers' earnings since 2010. 
Kaiser's president, Drew Altman, said:

       It is quite a revolution. When deductibles are rising seven 
     times faster than wages . . . it means that people can't pay 
     their rent . . . they can't buy their gas. They can't eat.

  As deductibles rise, another way employers are planning on avoiding 
ObamaCare's massive new tax is by eliminating health savings accounts 
and flexible spending accounts. Over 33 million Americans use FSAs, or 
flexible spending accounts, and 13.5 million Americans use health 
savings accounts, or HSAs. They may see these accounts vanish in the 
coming years as companies scramble to avoid the law's 40-percent tax 
hike.
  HSAs and FSAs are used for things like hospital and maternity 
services, they are used for childcare, they are used for dental care, 
physical therapy, and access to mental health services. Access to these 
lifesaving services could all be gone for tens of millions of Americans 
if the Cadillac tax is not fully repealed.
  Every day there is a new article in the national press talking about 
how middle-class workers, tax-paying Americans, are going to be hit by 
this tax. Towers Watson, a management and consulting firm, did a survey 
of large businesses that typically offer the most comprehensive 
coverage. They found in 2018 more than half of the employers are 
planning to significantly cut what they contribute to insure employee 
spouses and children. The United Parcel Service, UPS, is one of those 
companies that have already said they plan on limiting plan eligibility 
for spouses of employees.
  Shaun O'Brien, assistant policy director of the AFL-CIO, said 
recently that ``employers are coming to the table asking for cuts in 
benefits based on their preliminary projections around the 40 percent 
excise tax.''
  To make matters worse, the chief financial officer of a waste and 
recycling company, Action Environmental, recently told the Wall Street 
Journal that his company would consider getting rid of its employee 
coverage altogether because of ObamaCare's Cadillac tax. He said: ``I'd 
be lying if I said we haven't had that discussion.''
  Delta Airlines expects ObamaCare will cost it $100 million per year. 
One reason for the new costs is the 40-percent excise tax on Delta's 
employee health benefits, as if Americans don't already have enough 
issues with airlines these days.
  Out of all the news we see from the Cadillac tax, none of it--zero--
is positive. The goal of health care reform

[[Page 18218]]

should be to help those who do not have health coverage and lower costs 
for those who already have insurance. This tax doesn't achieve either 
of these goals, and everyone knows it.
  I will do everything I can to see that this tax is fully repealed. 
There is a real urgency that we get this done. I will work with anybody 
in this Chamber to see that the Cadillac tax is fully repealed by the 
end of the year. Once again, whether it is my bipartisan bill or a 
year-end package such as the tax extenders, we need to repeal this very 
bad tax. Fully repealing the Cadillac tax is an opportunity for 
Republicans and Democrats to join forces and to work together to repeal 
a bad tax for one purpose: to help 151 million workers keep the health 
care insurance they like.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

                          ____________________