[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6465-6469]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, back when the President and Senate 
Democrats were lobbying for passage of ObamaCare, they made a number of 
promises. The one thing they promised over and over again was that the 
President's health care plan would lower costs.
  ``Bringing down costs of health insurance and making it more 
affordable is job one for this health care reform.'' That is a quote 
that was made by the then-Democratic majority whip on the floor in 
December of 2009. Families will save on their premiums, President Obama 
pledged that same month. The Affordable Care Act, Democrats made clear, 
was the solution to the health insurance challenges facing American 
families. Well, 6 years down the road it is clear the Affordable Care 
Act was no solution at all.
  The President promised that health care reform would reduce premiums 
by $2,500 for the average family. Instead, the average family premium 
for employer-sponsored health insurance rose by $4,170 between 2009 and 
2015. Forty-five percent of Americans report that their health 
insurance premium has increased over the past 2 years, and 35 percent 
report that their copays and deductibles have increased over the same 
period. The President promised that Americans who liked their insurance 
plan could keep it. Instead, the President's health care law pushed 
more than 4.7 million Americans off their health care plans.
  Then there is the centerpiece of the President's health care law, the 
exchanges. The exchanges were supposed to offer accessible, affordable 
health care to those who had struggled to get insurance, but a lot of 
Americans are finding out the health care offered on the exchanges is 
neither affordable nor accessible. Last year countless consumers around 
the country faced massive rate hikes on their exchange plans. One 
constituent wrote to tell me that her plan would cost $1,600 a month 
for her, her husband, and their four children--$1,600 a month. That is 
more than $19,000 a year. A new car would be cheaper, and all signs 
point to consumers being set to face yet huge rate hikes again this 
year.
  Investor's Business Daily recently reported that Oregon's largest 
insurer in the individual market is seeking an average rate increase of 
29.6 percent for its exchange and nonexchange plans for 2017. 
Meanwhile, over the weekend the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported 
that Blue Cross exchange customers in Tennessee will face a ``major 
rate increase'' that may exceed the 36.3-percent rate increase exchange 
customers faced this January. The Associated Press recently reported 
that insurers are seeking rate hikes ranging from 9.4 percent to 37.1 
percent on the exchanges in Virginia--a 37.1-percent increase.
  Think about that. Let's say you have a family health insurance plan 
that costs $10,000 a year. A 37.1-percent increase would add more than 
$3,700 to the cost of your plan--$3,700--for just 1 year. That is a 
significant amount of money, and you could easily end up facing a 
similar rate hike the following year.
  I could go on and on about ObamaCare. I could read from a steady

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stream of news stories reporting on ObamaCare's many failures, from 
huge cost increases to bankrupt co-ops, to decreased access to doctors 
and hospitals. I could talk about the ways ObamaCare has hiked 
prescription drug costs or the challenges facing businesses, thanks to 
the Affordable Care Act's taxes and mandates. I could read stories from 
my constituents--constituents who have had to wrestle with the 
inefficient ObamaCare bureaucracy, constituents who lost their health 
plans as a result of ObamaCare, constituents who can't afford their 
ObamaCare insurance, but since I don't want to use up all my 
colleagues' time on the floor as well as my own, I will just say this: 
Three weeks ago, on April 27, Gallup published the results of a poll on 
the financial challenges facing American families. The headline of the 
article was this: ``Healthcare Costs Top U.S. Families' Financial 
Concerns.'' Let me repeat that. ``Healthcare Costs Top U.S. Families' 
Financial Concerns.''
  If 6 years on from the passage of the Affordable Care Act health care 
costs top the list of American families' financial concerns, then the 
Affordable Care Act has failed, and it is time to repeal it. The 
Republican-led Senate has already passed legislation to repeal 
ObamaCare, but we need a President willing to work with us or 
significant support from Democrats in Congress if we want a repeal to 
become law. I hope we will see that kind of support in the near future.
  The Affordable Care Act has been a disaster from the beginning, and 
it is time to lift the burdens the law has placed on Americans and 
replace this law with health care reform that will actually drive down 
costs for American families and consumers and increase access to care. 
That is what we should--and I hope we will--be focused on.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak, as 
Senator Thune has just spoken, about the disastrous health care results 
for patients of ObamaCare. You have to go no further than this Sunday's 
New York Times, the Sunday Review front page. It looks like a red cross 
tilted on its side with the headline ``Sorry, We Don't Take 
ObamaCare.''
  The minority leader, Harry Reid, comes to the floor and talks about 
how wonderful it is. The President says: ``Forcefully defend and be 
proud.'' Of what? Of ``Sorry, we don't take ObamaCare''?
  This is the New York Times, a newspaper whose editorial board has 
supported this health care law. They talk about the pains of the health 
care act frustrating patients.
  It says:

       Amy Moses and her circle of self-employed small-business 
     owners were supporters of President Obama and the Affordable 
     Care Act. They bought policies on the newly created New York 
     State exchange.

  We have two Democratic Senators from New York. Where are they to 
respond to what has happened to the people of their home State as a 
result of this law?
  They bought insurance policies on the New York State exchange. What 
happened? Well, when they called doctors and hospitals in Manhattan to 
schedule an appointment, they were dismayed to be turned away--not 
once, it says, but again and again. It says ``We don't take ObamaCare'' 
is the umbrella term for the hundreds of plans offered through the 
President's signature health legislation.
  This is the New York Times, about New York. It is a big city, a place 
where there should be plenty of doctors, plenty of opportunity.
  Ms. Moses said:

       Anyone who is on these plans knows it's a two-tiered 
     system.

  Is that what the President promised the American people--a two-tiered 
system? She is a successful entrepreneur in a two-tiered system. We are 
talking about a number of women in New York who are entrepreneurs and 
are very successful.

       Anytime one of us needs a doctor, we send out an alert.

  Is that what we are supposed to have? Anytime anybody needs a doctor, 
send out an alert? If you have a sore throat, send out an alert. That 
is what they need to do.
  The alert they send out among this whole group in New York says: 
``Does anyone have anyone on an exchange plan that does mammography or 
colonoscopy [who takes our insurance]?''
  She said, ``It's really a problem.''
  I could go on. This is what the President of the United States and 
the Democrats in this body, who shoved this bill down the throats of 
the American people, have found that they have created--a plan one in 
four Americans says has hurt them personally.
  That is just one story in the news in one major newspaper, but it 
says a lot about the health care law in general.
  We just heard from Senator Thune. We know this health care law is a 
lot more expensive than the President ever promised. People all around 
the country remember the President saying that it will drive down 
health care premiums by $2,500 per family if it becomes law. Remember 
that? People all across the country remember it. It just hasn't 
happened. Costs have gone up, copays have gone up, and deductibles have 
gone up. People have lost their plans, lost their ability to see their 
doctor, can't go to the hospital they want, and can't get the care they 
need.
  Insurance companies are cutting back on which doctors people can see, 
and they are cutting back on what drugs people can take. This health 
care law has made health care worse across the United States of 
America. We know that some insurance companies are dropping States 
entirely in terms of a place to do business, so millions of Americans 
are going to lose their insurance plan again next year.
  Do you remember what the President said? ``If you like your plan, you 
can keep your plan.'' Well, not next year, not last year, not the year 
before that. Even the Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies these 
issues, says that there are more than 650 counties in which families 
will have only one choice for insurance next year.
  I pulled up an article from the New York Times. That is not the only 
place there has been a similar article. This is Monday's paper, May 16, 
Wall Street Journal: ``Health insurers quit rural exchanges.'' They are 
abandoning rural areas all across the country--in my home State of 
Wyoming, but it is also happening everywhere. It is entire States--
Alaska, Alabama, Wyoming. There is only one choice where people can buy 
ObamaCare insurance next year.
  If you only have one choice, often you are put in a situation where 
you can take it or leave it. Not under Barack Obama. Oh, no. You must 
buy it. You have no choice, other than to pay an expensive penalty. 
That is what health care looks like now under Harry Reid and the 
Democrats and Barack Obama and the Senators on the Democratic side of 
the aisle who voted for this monstrosity. Take it or leave it. But you 
can't leave it because you must buy it.
  What happens when there is no competition? What happens when the 
health care law adds thousands of pages of expensive mandates and costs 
continue to go up? Premiums have gone through the roof. These are the 
requested premium hikes for ObamaCare plans for next year: We have seen 
33 percent requested in Virginia; Oregon, 32 percent; Iowa, 43 percent; 
New Hampshire, 45 percent for some families. People are finding out 
that their insurance premiums are now higher than their mortgage 
payment.
  What do the Democrats say about all of this? Someone brought this up 
to Hillary Clinton at a campaign event in Virginia last week. A woman 
who owns a small business said: ``I have seen our health insurance for 
my own family go up $500 a month in just the last two years. We went 
from 400-something to 900-something [a month].''
  What did Hillary Clinton have to say about this? What was her 
response? She said: ``What could possibly have raised your costs . . . 
that's what I don't understand.''
  Is she serious? It is ObamaCare that raised her costs. Where has 
Hillary Clinton been the last 6 years that she

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doesn't understand it? This was in Virginia. This small business 
owner--the woman who went to the townhall meeting and asked Hillary 
Clinton a question--may see her rates go up another 33 percent next 
year.
  It is not just Hillary Clinton who is clueless. Harry Reid, the 
Democratic leader in the Senate, came to the floor last month and told 
the world that ObamaCare is ``working.'' Does Harry Reid not understand 
that millions of American are paying more for their health insurance 
and their health care than they did before ObamaCare? Many people are 
paying for insurance, but they can't get care, as we see from the New 
York Times story. Does Senator Reid not understand that people are 
paying more for coverage and getting less care in return?
  Does every Senator on the Democratic side of the aisle who voted for 
ObamaCare not understand how this outrageous law is hurting America and 
Americans and the people of this great country?
  There was a new poll that came out last month that found that only 44 
percent of Americans approve of the health care law but 54 percent 
disapprove of the law. I remember Senator Schumer of New York saying: 
After we pass it, it will get more popular. Still, 54 percent 
disapprove. That is the highest disapproval number in the last 2 years. 
In this poll, almost one in three Americans said that the health care 
law has had a negative effect on their family--their personal family; 
not that they know somebody but in their own family. Hillary Clinton 
doesn't seem to understand that. She said that she wants to expand 
ObamaCare. She wants more regulations, more restrictions, more of the 
terrible ideas that have driven up costs for American families.
  There was another piece of news last week that shows one more way the 
health care law is failing. It turns out that the Obama administration 
has been making illegal payments--payments found by a judge to be 
illegal--to big insurance companies to help prop up this health care 
law. That is what the Federal court ruled last Thursday.
  In 2014 the administration asked Congress to appropriate money to pay 
insurance companies above and beyond the subsidies they already get 
that the government pays for insurance premiums. It is called a cost-
sharing subsidy. Congress--power of the purse--refused to appropriate 
the money.
  Do you know what the administration did? The administration panicked. 
It knew that without more Washington spending, people would pay even 
more out of pocket for their health care costs, and that would make 
ObamaCare even more unpopular than it is today. In the panic, because 
they knew that if that happened, people would realize how expensive the 
law really is and the disaster it is turning into, and people would see 
that all the President's promises about reducing costs were nothing but 
fairy tales, the panicked Obama administration went ahead and handed 
over the money anyway without the authority of Congress. The total was 
about $7 billion over the last 2 years. That is how much additional 
taxpayer money the administration has given away so far to hide the 
fact that the health care law is an expensive failure.
  The American people have had enough of this costly and collapsing 
health care law. They have had enough of losing their insurance, losing 
their doctors, losing access to the prescription drugs they need, and 
paying 20 or 30 percent more every year to get less coverage.
  The Democrats can come to the floor and pretend that ObamaCare is 
working. The Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, don't understand what is 
going on. The American people know exactly what is going on. They want 
us to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with health care that actually 
works, that has fewer restrictions, more freedom--freedom for people to 
get the coverage that works for them and their families, not what 
President Obama says they have to have because he believes he knows 
what they need better than they do.
  We need fewer mandates that drive up the cost for everyone and more 
options for patients to see the doctors they want and to get the 
medicine they need. That is what the American people want, and it is 
time for Democrats to show that they are listening to the people of 
America and that they understand, because up to this point, they have 
not been listening and they do not understand.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his 
words. Obviously he is an expert on health care. He is somebody who 
spent his entire life treating patients and working to improve the 
health care of others in Wyoming and beyond. His expertise on this 
issue is particularly important as we debate the real-life 
ramifications of ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act--the so-called 
Affordable Care Act.
  I come to the floor today to talk about the broken promise of 
ObamaCare and the negative impacts this poorly planned law has had on 
my State of Colorado. In essence, what ObamaCare did was create a pay-
to-play scheme--mandates and dictates of a law where you will pay 
higher premiums to abide by the law.
  As ObamaCare continues on a downward trajectory, Americans are the 
ones who are bearing the brunt of its failures, particularly those who 
are living in rural America, in rural Colorado.
  Month after month, headline after headline, Americans are no longer 
surprised when they hear of another ObamaCare disaster as they continue 
to foot the ever-increasing bill. There are fewer choices, less 
competition, and higher costs.
  ``If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.'' Do you 
remember those famous words? The President assured Americans time and 
time again not to worry. ``If you like your health care plan, you can 
keep it.'' He said it countless times. It was echoed by almost every 
Member in this body who supported ObamaCare.
  Coloradans and millions of Americans around the country learned that 
this promise was far from the truth. In late 2013, roughly 335,000 
small-group and individual policies in Colorado were canceled due to 
the requirements of ObamaCare, 335,000 Coloradans who witnessed through 
a letter in their mailbox--including a letter I received in my mailbox 
canceling my insurance because of ObamaCare. Those 335,000 people 
realized that ``if you like your plan, you can keep your plan'' was 
simply not true.
  The cancelations in 2013 were just the very beginning. In 2014, a 
couple months later, the Colorado Division of Insurance canceled 
another 249,000 plans because these plans didn't meet the requirements 
of ObamaCare. When we talk about these plans being canceled because 
they didn't meet the requirements of ObamaCare, some people on the 
left, those who supported ObamaCare, would argue they must have been 
bad plans, bad insurance, or bad policies. But that presumes that the 
government knows what is best for everyone involved, that the 
government has a better idea of what their insurance ought to be, and 
that the government should take care of and think for people who chose 
these plans themselves individually. But 249,000 people, on top of the 
335,000 people in January of 2014, had their insurance canceled.
  Again, in 2015 the story continued with an additional 190,000 plans 
on the individual and small group markets being canceled. In total, 
according to the Congressional Research Service, over 750,000 health 
insurance plans in Colorado were canceled between 2013 and 2015. Three-
quarters of a million people who were promised that ``if you like your 
health insurance plan, you can keep your plan'' had their plans 
canceled under the broken promise of ObamaCare. That is still not the 
end of it for Coloradans because Coloradans are still receiving 
cancellation notices. Within the last 2 months, two of the Nation's 
largest insurers, UnitedHealthcare and Humana, announced their intent 
to exit the individual marketplace. UnitedHealth Group's CEO cited that 
the marketplaces were a risky investment and

[[Page 6468]]

that UnitedHealth could not serve these exchanges on an ``effective and 
sustained basis.'' This decision will impact roughly 20,000 more 
Coloradans, and beneficiaries of these plans can expect cancellation 
notices in July.
  The disappointment and frustration over a canceled plan that your 
family once enjoyed is made worse by the rising costs of the remaining 
plans, and that is what many Americans are faced with today. After 
losing 750,000 of them in Colorado--losing the health insurance plans 
they were promised they could keep--they looked at the second promise 
made under ObamaCare--that this will lower the cost of health care. Now 
they are met with the second broken promise--the broken promise of 
cost. They were told they would see reduced costs with ObamaCare. Yet 
the Colorado Division of Insurance found that individual insurance 
premiums for 2016 on the Western Slope of Colorado rose by an average 
of 25.8 percent. The Western Slope of Colorado had a nearly 26-percent 
rate increase. When people think of Colorado, that is often the part of 
Colorado they think of most. Denver is on the Front Range. The 
mountains have the ski communities. The rural communities have farming 
and agriculture. The mining communities and the oil and gas industries 
are on the Western Slope. These rural areas watched their health 
insurance premiums increase by 26 percent--premiums that were promised 
would be going down.
  A woman who lives on the Western Slope was recently interviewed by 
the Denver Post. She said she saw her premium cost alone rise from $300 
per month to $1,828 per month, or nearly $22,000 a year in increased 
costs. She says:

       It's actually like another mortgage payment. I have friends 
     who are uninsured right now because they can't afford it. 
     Insurance is hard up here.

  The Western Slope of Colorado had two promises broken--the promise 
that if you liked your health care, you could keep it and that this 
would lower the cost of your health care. They had an increase of 
nearly 26 percent. If you live on the Western Slope of Colorado, you 
saw your increase go from a premium of $300 a month to over $1,800 per 
month--a $22,000 a year increase. This is incredible.
  In 2014, a study found that nearly 150,000 Coloradans saw their 
insurance become 77 percent more expensive. Where is the promise of 
ObamaCare? Where are the people who supported the Affordable Care Act 
today defending this law, defending the promise, or explaining how 
these promises weren't broken? They are not here because they can't 
explain it. They know the promise was broken. They know that 750,000 
people had their promises broken. In Colorado alone, there are people 
facing 26-percent and 77-percent increases. As we approach the new 
rates for 2017, it appears there will be no limit to the additional 
costs that Coloradans will have to bear as a result of this poorly 
conceived partisan law.
  Marilyn Tavenner, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance 
Plans, or AHIP, served as a key Obama administration health official as 
Administrator of CMS. She has testified multiple times before 
committees of the House and Senate and has made warnings that the 
Affordable Care Act premium increases are coming. She predicted that 
the increases for open enrollment in 2017 will be higher than ever 
before. This is coming from a former administration official who helped 
run ObamaCare and was in the room during the discussions and the 
crafting of policies of ObamaCare.
  In Colorado, insurers submitted their initial premium bids last 
Friday, May 13. We will soon know the rates that have been approved by 
the Colorado Department of Insurance in late September or early 
October, but it looks like Coloradans are in for yet another rude 
awakening. The people in Colorado have already had their health 
insurance plans canceled, and more are losing their policies in July of 
this year and trying to figure out how to make ends meet. If they are 
in a situation like the one I spoke of before--the example I used 
before--this person is going to have to figure out over the next year 
how they are going to basically create a $22,000 a year payment they 
didn't face before.
  I was speaking to an executive with an insurance company who said 
they believe the rates they will be submitting for increases this year 
to their department of insurance commissioner will be between 60 and 70 
percent. That is a 60- and 70-percent insurance rate increase under 
ObamaCare for the 2017 cycle. Premiums are expected to rise and many 
parts of the country are going to experience double-digit rate hikes. 
Plans are getting canceled, plans are getting more expensive, yet the 
ObamaCare mandates continue.
  I believe what we need in this country is greater competition and 
greater choice. That is what President Obama promised in the 
marketplace, but data shows that because of unbearable bureaucratic 
hurdles, competition has actually decreased.
  On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled 
``Insurance Options Dwindle in Some Rural Regions.'' I live in a very 
rural part of Colorado, on the Eastern Plains, as opposed to the 
Western Slope, which we spoke of before. I live in a town of about 
3,000 people. The nearest big town is 60 miles away, and that town has 
9,000 people. The article in the Wall Street Journal explains how rural 
areas have experienced the greatest decline in competition and how many 
rural counties will only have one insurance plan to choose from. I 
think most people understand that rural areas aren't exactly the 
wealthiest areas in the Nation. There are pockets of wealth, 
absolutely, as there are in most places, but by and large our rural 
communities represent some of the poorest and least economically driven 
counties in the country.
  A Kaiser Family Foundation study found that over 650 counties across 
this country will have only 1 insurer on the exchanges to choose from 
during the open enrollment in 2017. This is a number which is up by 225 
counties from 2016. Let me say that again. There are 650 counties 
across this country that will only have 1 choice when it comes to open 
enrollment. They will only have one plan to choose from under 
ObamaCare. This is the plan for competition that the Affordable Care 
Act was supposed to address. But instead of adding more insurers to the 
marketplace, it actually resulted in fewer insurers in the marketplace. 
We will see 225 additional counties down to 1 choice in 2017. These 650 
counties are 70 percent rural, and these rural areas are fearful that 
the dwindling competition will create a monopoly and costs will 
continue to rise.
  The President also insisted that the competition would increase 
through consumer-run co-ops. Over 80,000 Coloradans felt the impact of 
this broken promise when Colorado HealthOP was declared to be insolvent 
by the Colorado insurance commissioner and expeditiously liquidated.
  To date, 12 of the 23 co-ops created by ObamaCare have been shut 
down. That is an additional 80,000 people in Colorado who had their 
insurance policies canceled because ObamaCare created a system that 
allowed insurance co-ops and companies to bank on a bailout. They were 
able to bank on a bailout and use that to create some aura of economic 
feasibility on their balance sheets. When the government couldn't 
provide any bailouts--because the government shouldn't be in the 
business of bailouts--the ObamaCare promises were shown for what they 
truly were--poor policy. Collectively the failed co-ops were loaned 
over $1 billion in taxpayer money to help get them off the ground. Now, 
with these failures, the taxpayers will never get their money paid back 
and tens of thousands of people lost their insurance.
  Today, this Congress has shown a path forward. With each passing dis-
aster of ObamaCare, it continues to become clearer how much of a 
failure this law is. Americans continue to demand real health care 
reform that will increase competition, reduce costs, and expand access 
to lifesaving care that improves the quality of their lives and, most 
importantly, will provide predictability and sustainability in the 
marketplace.
  This crisis demands real leadership, and I continue to remain 
committed to

[[Page 6469]]

working with my colleagues on free-market solutions that will bring 
about real change that will actually uphold the promises that were 
made.
  In Colorado, I heard from countless individuals who have been 
displaced from their plans, and it is time for Congress to stand up as 
well.
  The Denver Post article that I referred to about the broken health 
care system in Colorado's Western Slope begins with a statement from 
Terri Newland of Glenwood Springs, CO. This is the headline: ``Colorado 
mountain residents struggle to pay for health insurance.'' The story 
starts like this: ``The new era of affordable health care bypassed 
Terri Newland.''
  Millions of Americans have seen the Affordable Care Act's era of 
affordable health care bypass them, and this body's responsibility for 
that law can only be made up by repealing the law and putting in its 
place a bill that actually increases the quality of care and decreases 
the cost of care.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. 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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