[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9046-9048]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, last week I chaired a hearing of the Joint 
Economic Committee entitled ``Examining the Employment Effects of the 
Affordable Care Act.'' The purpose of the hearing was to discuss how 
the Affordable Care Act has affected the ability of Americans to earn 
and do business, particularly for small businessmen.
  The impact of the Affordable Care Act--better known as ObamaCare--is 
particularly important to discuss at this point this year now that the 
delayed employer provisions are in effect and employers are feeling the 
pinch. Frankly, ``pinch'' is the wrong word; they are feeling the 
hammer blow of the burdens imposed on them, both from regulatory and a 
tax standpoint that are directly affecting their ability to grow, to 
provide jobs, and to expand their business.
  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the law, ObamaCare, 
will reduce the total number of hours worked by as much as 2 percent 
from the years 2017 to 2024.
  People said: Two percent--is that a big deal?
  Yes, it is a big deal. It is equal to 2.5 million full-time-
equivalent jobs--for workers who are looking for those jobs.
  The CBO reasoned that this would result from new taxes embedded 
throughout the ObamaCare program--not talked about when this was 
passed. In fact, nothing was talked about that was passed in terms of 
the way people could understand it, as acknowledged by the former head 
of the House of Representatives.
  With new taxes and measures that employers will face and the 
financial benefits that some will be imposed, the CBO estimates a 1-
percent reduction in total pay over the same timeframe as a result of 
ObamaCare.
  This was something that was sold to the American people without 
credibility. All the promises that were made, some so defiantly made by 
the President. He said: Take my word for it, period, not one penny of 
increase in your premium cost. Keep your doctor. If you like your 
doctor, keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, keep your 
health care plan. What a misrepresentation of the bill this has been.
  I have received many stories in my office, by email, by regular mail, 
by phone calls with descriptions of the impact this law has had and the 
broken promises that have imposed higher premiums, higher copays, 
higher deductibles, and higher costs for the

[[Page 9047]]

American people. So we anxiously await the decision of the Supreme 
Court, which will be coming in several weeks or less, to see where we 
go.
  I want to take this opportunity to share just one story of one 
company and the head of that company and what that one small company--
providing needed and good jobs for Hoosiers in my State--has had to 
endure under this particular law. I think this was expressed so well by 
the head of that company. His name is Dr. Joseph Sergio, president of 
the Sergio corporation.
  He came before our committee, and we heard some of the most clear and 
defined discussion of the impact, the personal impact on families and 
workers of the ObamaCare act and what it has done to his small 
business, which I think is representative of millions of small 
businesses across the country.
  Dr. Sergio is a first-generation American citizen whose family 
business was founded 36 years ago. His father was an Italian immigrant 
who came to America to realize the American dream, and he did. Dr. 
Sergio expanded his father's business, which includes First Response--a 
national award-winning disaster restoration company, involved in every 
major hurricane and storm disaster in recent history, with awards for 
their performance and how effectively and efficiently they brought 
response to people who needed it following these disasters--and Polar 
Clean--another company he has which is an environmentally friendly dry 
ice blast cleaning industrial service. We talk about going green. We 
talk about caring about our environment. This is a revolutionary way of 
cleaning any number of factories, businesses, energy companies, and so 
forth with a new environmentally friendly process.
  Here is what Dr. Sergio said to me: ``As a small business, we have 
felt the profound imposition of the Affordable Care Act, or as it is 
known among many small business entrepreneurs, the Unaffordable Care 
Act.''
  As a small business owner, Dr. Sergio said to be successful he needed 
to be able to accurately identify, forecast, and control expenses in 
order to create profits which would then be reinvested in his growing 
business. That means new jobs and new opportunity. That, he said, is 
where the frustration with ObamaCare begins.
  Now, look, what Dr. Sergio outlined is economics 101. It is the first 
thing you learn in an economics class or the first thing your parents 
tell you: To be successful--and I wish this applied to the Federal 
Government--you have to control your costs, you have to identify and 
forecast what your expenses are going to be in the future and make sure 
you can cover those. And only when you make a profit--not just seeking 
neutrality here in the Federal Government--but only when you make a 
profit in the business can you grow that business and put more people 
back to work.
  ObamaCare, Dr. Sergio said, has imposed a whole set of complications 
and regulations on small business owners that obscures their ability to 
do just that--to identify, forecast, and control expenses. This makes 
it difficult to determine profits that are needed to increase employee 
wages, expand research and development, and invest in new equipment. 
For a company working in disaster response, all of this is important. 
Of course, all of this is important for any company.
  Dr. Sergio said his business has been forced to make major changes to 
meet the requirements imposed by ObamaCare. They had to drop their 
health care plan because it didn't meet the requirements of ObamaCare, 
even though it had been worked out between the employer and the 
employees and they were happy with their plan.
  As a result, his employees and the company are paying more for an 
inferior policy. He said:

       Employees are now paying larger co-pays and larger 
     deductibles. Some are opting to pay the penalty rather than 
     absorb the high cost of ObamaCare.

  This not only illustrates how ObamaCare affects businesses but how it 
directly affects families all across our Nation.
  Small business owners are angry because ObamaCare promised to lower 
costs for the average family by $2,500. That was another broken promise 
from the White House. They said it would lower costs by an average of 
$2,500. Rather, ObamaCare now has increased the price of insurance and 
decreased the quality of affordable insurance.
  In addition to the quality of insurance, the mandate has affected his 
company's growth, said Dr. Sergio. Small business owners have a limited 
amount of capital to spend on their labor pool--employees. The mandates 
of ObamaCare have pushed spending over to the benefits side. This 
limits the amount of day-to-day compensation increases a company can 
provide.
  This is not only demoralizing to the employee but frustrating to the 
employer that is seeing capital going into an ObamaCare-compliant 
benefits plan that is not benefiting their employees as well as it used 
to. So all the touting of the magnificence of this ObamaCare helping 
people to have better insurance coverage without increasing their cost 
is a fraud. It has simply not turned out to be what it was promised to 
be, and it doesn't benefit his employees--small business employees--as 
well as the plans they had before, he said.
  So this is Dr. Sergio's current dilemma. He has a history of 
providing a strong benefits package, paying up to 50 percent of 
insurance for employees and their dependents and now is unsure how he 
can keep it under the new law. He testified that surpassing 50 
employees would now bring on more administrative costs and reporting 
requirements, causing him to purposely stay under the 50-employee 
threshold and utilize more part-time employees that work less than 30 
hours per week.
  We have heard story after story after story on this floor. I have an 
abundance of messages coming into my office simply saying I have no 
choice other than to put my full-time employees on a part-time basis. 
And I have no choice of adding new employees who take me over the 50-
employee threshold because it puts me into all these regulations and 
impositions by ObamaCare. So it is having a dramatic negative effect on 
employment--on business growth--and that is where the jobs are. It is 
not the big companies as much as it is small companies in America, and 
they are being strangled over these regulations and taxes imposed and 
the regulations telling them what they have put together that their 
employees are happy with, that allow the employer to be profitable so 
they can continue to maintain these benefits and increase wages is 
simply out the window under ObamaCare.
  Can we repair the damage of ObamaCare? Dr. Sergio closed his remarks 
with this request:

       Please work to undo the vast harms that ObamaCare has and 
     is causing to the middle class and start addressing the 
     essential issue of unleashing small businesses to create 
     millions of new jobs which could raise most people from being 
     at risk and into truly affordable plans.
       As a small business entrepreneur and job creator, I urge 
     you to repeal ObamaCare, and allow for market innovation 
     within the health industry, and allow for pooling across 
     State lines, and allow small businesses freedom from 
     oppressive requirements, new taxes and fees, and increased 
     uncertainty.

  I was moved by his testimony, and that is why I am standing here 
today, so I can put it in the Record. I was moved by his experience of 
how ObamaCare has impacted his business decisions in a negative way, 
how it has hurt his employees, the families of his employees, how it 
has restricted him from expanding his business, how it has caused him 
from going to a profitable business, where he could do more research, 
do more innovation, pay more, provide more benefits to his employees to 
a situation where he now has to reduce those benefits, where he has to 
sit down with his employees and say, I am sorry, under the requirements 
of this new act, this is where we are as a company. We can't continue 
to give you the benefits you once had. We can't raise your wages 
because we are not making the profits, and it is either go out of 
business or it is to try to struggle along under this new law, which is 
why he believes we need to change it.
  I certainly agree with that, and I think this is backed by tens of 
millions of businesses all across America. We

[[Page 9048]]

can all agree with the goal of ensuring access to quality care when it 
is needed. I don't think anyone on this floor has disputed that fact. 
Unfortunately, a one-size-fits-all government-run health care system is 
not the answer. We are looking for the best workable, real-world 
solution for Americans and their health care, and we have not hit that 
mark. This Congress has failed and this administration has failed to 
hit that mark.
  We should pursue initiatives that truly make health care an option 
for all. Such initiatives should drive down costs by increasing 
competition and transparency, reforming medical malpractice, making 
health insurance portable, promoting pooling options for small 
businesses, and giving States greater flexibility in how they deliver 
their services.
  Dr. Sergio should have better certainty for his business, and all 
small business people should have better certainty for their future. 
His employees should have a better health care system, as should all 
Americans. These are the goals we need to reach.
  We should strive for a system that puts individuals squarely in 
charge of their health care and doesn't discourage Americans from 
working and improving their earnings. That is the American dream Dr. 
Sergio's father sought to achieve when he started his business 36 years 
ago. That is the dream we should pursue. Yet we are hampered in doing 
that by the onerous regulations, taxes, and stipulations imposed by the 
health care law passed by one party without any input from the opposing 
party, and famously labeled as something we would need to learn about 
after it was passed. That was probably the most telling statement by a 
Member of Congress--in this case the former majority leader and then-
Speaker of the House of Representatives--about something that was 
shoved down America's throat without any bipartisan support whatsoever.
  Now, yes, if it had been read before it was passed, we could have 
avoided all of this. It could have been debated and people could have 
looked for a bipartisan way of moving forward to provide health care 
for the uninsured and to ensure the health care plan they imposed would 
not have these negative effects. That is what should have happened. It 
didn't. We now have a chance to rectify that. We have a chance to 
remedy that. We are waiting for a Supreme Court decision before we go 
forward with an alternative to what has cost us in terms of jobs and 
all the costs to small businesses in terms of their ability to grow.
  That is a part of the American dream. We have denied that under this 
health care program, and I am hoping my colleagues will join us as we 
look to address this very important issue--important not only for the 
health of the American public but important for the growth of our 
economy.
  Mr. President, with that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator withhold his suggestion?
  Mr. COATS. The Senator will be happy to do just that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.

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