[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9041-9042]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the President put forth a mighty 
ObamaCare spin effort yesterday. We have to give him credit for trying 
to salvage a law that only one--one--out of every nine Americans thinks 
is actually working. But I don't think condescending to ObamaCare's 
victims was the best approach for him to take.
  Consider this cringe-inducing assertion: Americans who already had 
health insurance ``may not know that they've got a better deal now 
[under ObamaCare] . . . than they did, but they do.''
  In other words, he knows what is best for you, so quit complaining.
  It is the very mindset that led this partisan law being forced 
through over the objections of the American people in the first place. 
It is the very mindset that said it was OK to cut a few corners and 
tell a few white lies to sell the country a law it didn't want.
  So what, the Obama crowd seems to think, if Americans couldn't keep 
the plan they had and liked--so what. So what, ObamaCare's defenders 
must reason, if Americans see costs rise after being told they would 
fall.
  To our friends on the left, it is just the cost of doing business. 
These days they have all but given up the ghost of empathy. They just 
talk past the middle class instead.
  Consider some of the statements we have heard from top Democrats. 
``ObamaCare has been wonderful for America.'' ``None of the predictions 
about how [ObamaCare] wouldn't work have come to pass.'' The 
implementation of this is ``fabulous.''
  We have heard all of that from Democratic leaders.
  These are the kinds of statements that raise our blood pressure all 
across America. But quotes such as these betray more than just a 
certain incongruence from reality. This is also a signal of a party 
that has lost confidence in the force of its own arguments--one that 
seems more intent on reassuring itself than convincing others.
  Why else would they be saying things they know aren't true?
  Now, I have spoken broadly over the past week about how ObamaCare has 
failed Americans in terms of higher costs especially, but allow me just 
to touch on the assertion that ObamaCare's implementation has been 
``fabulous'' too.
  Fabulous? That is certainly one way to describe how ObamaCare has 
been plagued by failure since day one. Consider the disastrous rollout. 
Many Americans won't forget the crashing Web sites, the hours on hold, 
the instructions to ``fax in'' their applications while at the same 
time seeing reports of ObamaCare contractors sitting idle, waiting for 
work to come through the door.
  The White House tried to spin it all away as nothing more than a 
glitch--just a glitch--on the Web site. But the American people knew it 
pointed to broader systemic challenges in an unworkable law.
  Consider the many pro-ObamaCare States that launched exchanges with 
great enthusiasm. These true-blue administrations did everything they 
could to make ObamaCare work, but they often ended up exposing 
ObamaCare's tragic realities instead.
  Take deep blue Vermont. Many on the left looked to Vermont's extra-
ambitious ObamaCare experiment as the crown jewel in their ideological 
crown, but it turned out to be little more than ``an unending money 
pit,'' as one Vermonter put it.
  In Oregon, officials spent over $300 million taxpayer dollars to 
launch an ObamaCare exchange and marketing campaign. That is a big 
investment. But ObamaCare has been an even bigger flop. Millions of 
dollars down the tubes and Oregon has little to show for it beyond a 
couple of bizarre marketing videos and a criminal investigation.
  Hawaii just announced it will be the latest State to shutter--close, 
shutter up--its faltering exchange.
  In Kentucky, a Democratic administration poured one-quarter of a 
billion dollars into an exchange that placed nearly 80 percent of the 
enrollees into an already broken Medicaid system. Many of the remaining 
20 percent or so now find themselves stuck with unaffordable ObamaCare 
coverage, such as a constituent from Ashland, who wrote to let me know 
that his monthly premium increased by more than 30 percent.
  So it is hard to disagree with the top Vermont health official who 
said: ``Good God, this just wasn't set up for success.'' That is from 
the top health official in Vermont. Given the spectacular flop in his 
State, he would certainly know, and he certainly seems to have a point. 
Of the 17 original ObamaCare exchanges, some have failed outright, and 
half of those that remain are struggling financially.
  So the truth is this: ObamaCare never had a Web site problem; it had 
an ObamaCare problem.
  No amount of wishful thinking or fast talk is going to change that 
reality. It is not going to change the failures I just mentioned, and 
it is not going to change the failures I haven't, such as the failed 
CLASS Act, the troubled co-ops, the debacle of giving people the wrong 
amount of subsidy or what we just learned yesterday--that the IRS may 
not even be able to verify that many of the people who received the tax 
credit for health insurance actually bought the health insurance.
  I am asking ObamaCare's defenders in the White House and in Congress 
to redirect their efforts away from the spin and toward the reality 
instead. We all know that ObamaCare is a law filled with broken 
promises, higher costs, and failure. So let's work together to start 
over with real health care reform instead.
  That is the kind of health care outcome that actually would be 
``fabulous'' for our constituents. It is something that really would be 
``wonderful for America.'' And it is what we can work together to 
achieve once Washington politicians move past the failure of ObamaCare.

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