[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12076-12077]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have trouble comprehending my friend the 
Republican leader--how he can, with a straight face, talk about how 
terrible America is today. Things are upside down; it is terrible.
  Remember, Obama was elected President almost 8 years ago. That month, 
under the prior administration, for lots of reasons we have all talked 
about, our country lost 800,000 jobs in one month. That wasn't the only 
month. Our unemployment rate shot up in places like the Presiding 
Officer's and my State to more than 14 percent. Unemployment in America 
was raging. Major companies failed. I saw the Secretary of Treasury on 
his knees in the White House begging the Speaker of the House, Nancy 
Pelosi, for help.
  We joined together with President Bush. There was nothing partisan 
about what we did. Even though there were some small steps, we did our 
best to help the country. Since then, under the last 8 years of 
President Obama's leadership, the country has been significantly turned 
in the right direction.
  For my friend the Republican leader to parrot what Donald Trump is 
saying: ``Make America great again''--America is great right now. 
Unemployment is less than 5 percent. Millions of jobs have been created 
in this administration--millions and millions of jobs--about 16 
million.
  We have no ground troops, except in Afghanistan. They have been 
brought home, and rightfully so. To hear my friend the Republican 
leader talk about the awfulness of ObamaCare--you don't have to have a 
long memory to know what it was like before ObamaCare. Insurance 
companies were canceling policies, denying insurance, not writing 
insurance because you are a woman, because you had a prior disability. 
I don't know if my friend is briefed by his office, reads the 
newspapers, or watches the news. Three days ago the word came out that 
the uninsured are at alltime lows in our country. Ninety-two percent of 
Americans have health insurance. Is that bad? Is the insurance perfect? 
Of course it is not. We have 19 States led by Republican Governors who 
refuse to accept Medicaid. The Republican Governor from Nevada made the 
right choice, and it has been good for the State of Nevada.
  It is interesting that after more than 6 years, we still have never 
seen a plan by the Republicans and what they want to do other than vote 
against ObamaCare. ObamaCare has expanded coverage to millions of 
Americans. It has improved the quality of health insurance. A lot of 
people who don't like the plan don't like it because they don't think 
it is strong enough and they want to do more. The marketplace will 
continue to connect Americans to quality, affordable health insurance.
  I thought Republicans believed in the free enterprise system, and 
that is what we have with ObamaCare. The health insurance marketplace 
is so much better than pre-Affordable Care Act. They should stop trying 
to repeal

[[Page 12077]]

ObamaCare and work with us to improve what we have. It is not going to 
go away.
  The Affordable Care Act has shown that it has had a positive impact 
on the stated goal of lowering the number of people without coverage. 
Millions of people have health insurance who didn't before. He and 
other Republicans continue to come down to the floor and complain, 
although not as often as they used to because they have been 
embarrassed too many times. The Republican leader seems to think that 
things were better before Americans had coverage, including the 500,000 
people in Kentucky who now have insurance because of ObamaCare. I guess 
he seems to be saying that he liked it better when insurance companies 
could deny coverage for any reason that they thought was appropriate; 
it didn't have to be a good reason.

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