[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2058-2060]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, last Tuesday President Obama met with 10 
people at the White House. These are people who had written him letters 
about the health care law. The White House said it designed this little 
publicity stunt to remind people to sign up for insurance on 
healthcare.gov by the deadline date of Sunday, February 15.
  At his meeting the other day the President said that the people there 
were ``a pretty good representative sample of people whose lives have 
been impacted,'' as he said, ``in powerful ways.''
  I will tell you, if President Obama really wanted a representative 
sample, he would have included some of the people his law has affected 
in alarming and expensive ways. What does the President have to say to 
those people? Why didn't he invite any of them to the White House for 
his photo-op?
  Here is what the New York Times wrote on Sunday, February 8. This is 
the Sunday Review, New York Times. The headline is ``Insured, but Not 
Covered: New policies have many Americans scrambling.'' Why isn't the 
President willing to talk to those people who are scrambling all across 
the country who may have insurance but are not covered?
  The story starts off by telling the story of one woman in New York 
City. Her name is Karen Pineman. She lost her existing health insurance 
policy because it didn't meet all the mandates President Obama said a 
health insurance policy had to include. It might

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have worked very well for her, but it didn't work well enough for 
President Obama, so she lost her coverage.
  The article says that ``she gamely set about shopping for a new 
policy through the public marketplace.'' After all, she had supported 
President Obama and she had supported the health care law, as they say, 
as a matter of principle.
  The article goes on:

       Ms. Pineman, who is self-employed, accepted that she'd have 
     to pay higher premiums for a plan with a narrower provider 
     network and no out-of-network coverage.

  So here she is--supported the law but then lost her insurance and had 
to buy other insurance with a narrower provider network and higher 
premiums. She accepted that she would have to pay out of pocket to see 
her primary care physician because her primary care physician didn't 
participate and wasn't part of that narrow network. She even accepted, 
the New York Times reports, having copays of nearly $1,800 to have a 
cast put on her ankle in an emergency room after she broke her ankle 
playing tennis.
  The article goes on:

       But her frustration bubbled over when she tried to arrange 
     a follow-up visit with an [orthopedic surgeon] in her 
     network.

  She had to buy the insurance under President Obama's law because she 
lost her own insurance even though the President had promised her ``if 
you like your insurance, you can keep it.''
  The article goes on:

       The nearest doctor available who treated ankle problems was 
     in Stamford, Conn.

  She is in New York City. She lives in New York. The closest doctor 
who was in her network was in Connecticut. She has had it. She said:

       It was ridiculous--didn't they notice it was in another 
     state?

  What does President Obama have to say to this woman in New York? I 
see she wasn't included in the photo-op they had at the White House 
with the 10 people who wrote letters to the President. What does he 
think about the powerful negative ways his health care law is affecting 
her life? After all, the New York Times thought it was enough that they 
would devote the front page of the Sunday Review section this past week 
to ``Insured, but Not Covered: New policies have many Americans 
scrambling.''
  The article sums it up this way:

       The Affordable Care Act has ushered in an era of complex 
     new health insurance products featuring legions of out-of-
     pocket coinsurance fees, high deductibles and narrow provider 
     networks.

  All of ObamaCare's mandates force insurance companies to use things 
like these deductibles and narrow networks to keep premiums from going 
up even faster. Remember, the President said premiums would go down by 
$2,500 per family. They have actually gone up, not down, and they have 
done all these things so they wouldn't go up even faster.
  The New York Times article says that under ObamaCare these insurance 
plans come with ``constant changes in policy guidelines, annual shifts 
in what's covered and what's not, monthly shifts in which doctors are 
in and out of network,'' and surprise bills for services people thought 
would be covered. Is the President proud of that? He stood up and said 
the Democrats should forcefully defend and be proud of the law. I don't 
see one Democrat on this floor of the Senate who is standing here to 
forcefully defend and be proud of this law.
  The article goes on to say that for many people it is all so 
confusing and so expensive ``that they just avoid seeing doctors.'' 
What does President Obama have to say to people who are so confused by 
their insurance now that the easiest path is to just not go for health 
care?
  According to a recent poll, 46 percent of Americans said that paying 
for basic medical care is a hardship for their family. Forty-six 
percent say it is a hardship for their family. Where was it a year ago? 
Well, it is actually up by 10 percent.
  The President said that things would get better, that people would 
like the health care law, and that Democrats should forcefully defend 
and be proud of it, but 10 percent more people this year than last year 
say that it is harder to pay for basic medical care, that it is a 
hardship for their family. What does he say to these people? What does 
the President of the United States say to these people who said his 
Affordable Care Act is making their life more of a hardship?
  This is an extensive article, ``Insured, but Not Covered,'' in the 
Sunday issue of this week's New York Times.
  There is another example from this article--Alexis Gersten, who lives 
in a town called East Quogue. She bought ObamaCare health insurance 
coverage for her family. Then she found out that they did have 
insurance, but they weren't covered. When her son needed an ear, nose, 
and throat doctor, the nearest one in her network was in Albany, NY, 
which is 5 hours away from where she lives. Even though her own 
cardiologist was on the network list, he said he didn't take her plan. 
She ended up driving an hour to see a new cardiologist. Finally, there 
was a dispute over deductibles that left her with a pediatrician's bill 
for $457.
  Five hours to take her son to a specialist? Is that what the 
President means when he says the Democrats should forcefully defend and 
be proud of this law they voted for? Almost $500 out of pocket to see a 
pediatrician? Is that the kind of powerful effect President Obama 
wanted his health care law to have on families? That is what he said 
last week, ``a powerful effect on their lives.'' What does the 
President have to say to this woman, to Alexis?
  The only reason health care costs are not even higher for a lot of 
people is because the Obama administration decided to give subsidies to 
some people to help hide the true costs. Over the next few months, the 
Supreme Court is going to decide if President Obama is breaking his own 
law by giving out some of those subsidies.
  Millions of people in 37 States may suddenly find that they have to 
bear the expenses of ObamaCare entirely on their own, buying insurance 
that many of them don't want, don't need, and can't afford, covering 
lots of things they would never buy insurance for if given the personal 
choice, but the President says they must because he seems to know more 
about what they need for their families than they do.
  Last December several of us asked the administration to start warning 
people, people who buy insurance through the healthcare.gov Web site--
the disastrous Web site--to inform those people that they may lose 
their subsidies come this summer when the Supreme Court makes its 
ruling.
  We asked the administration--the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services, the Secretary of Treasury--to let us know how the 
administration plans to protect people who might get caught in the mess 
that President Obama and his administration and all the people who 
voted for it created. All we have heard in response is that the 
administration has no plans--no plans--to warn anyone or to do anything 
to help Americans harmed by the President's health care law. This has 
the potential to be yet another ObamaCare train wreck.
  Another study came out last month that looked at the change in health 
insurance coverage for the first 9 months of 2014. It found that there 
was a total change of about 8 million more people who actually have 
coverage. The problem is that most of those people were just added to 
Medicaid. Medicaid is a program that is already broken and doesn't work 
well. As a doctor who has taken care of patients in Wyoming for almost 
a quarter of a century, I can tell you that Medicaid across the country 
is a broken system. Yet the people who have gotten health insurance--
not care; the President is quick to use the word ``covered,'' but he 
doesn't use the word ``care'' because there is a huge difference. I can 
tell you that as a doctor. There were about 6 million people enrolled 
in the individual market, mostly through the exchanges, except 5 
million people lost their insurance that they had gotten before through 
work.
  So when you take a look at the net effect on coverage, 89 percent of 
those newly covered got it through Medicaid. That works out to a net 
gain of a little under 1 million people who actually got private 
insurance, in spite of the exchanges and in spite of the subsidies.

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Seven and a half million got it through Medicaid. All of that expense 
and all of the hardship President Obama caused on American families--
families who have suffered as a result of the President's health care 
law--and most of the net gain in coverage is people who went onto 
Medicaid?
  The American people didn't ask for this. If President Obama actually 
talked with a real representative sample of Americans, he would know 
that. But he doesn't. He only hears what he wants to hear. He 
disregards the rest. He didn't do that last week. He still refuses to 
listen to people who have been hurt by his law.
  It is time for the President to be honest with the American people 
about the ways his law has harmed them. This is it--New York Times, 
Sunday, February 8, ``Insured, but Not Covered: New policies have many 
Americans scrambling.''
  It is time for the President to start working with Republicans to 
give people the kind of health care reform they wanted all along--
access to the care they need from a doctor they choose at a lower cost. 
That is what the American people are demanding, and that is what they 
deserve, and that is what Republicans are going to give them when we 
get the opportunity to do so. It is time for President Obama to join 
us.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  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. SCHUMER. 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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