[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Page 9391]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         HEALTHCARE LEGISLATION

  Mr. DONNELLY. Madam President, over the last several months, there 
has been an important debate about healthcare--a debate between those 
who believe we can strengthen the American healthcare system by 
improving the Affordable Care Act and those who believe the law must be 
repealed and replaced. If you listen closely, however, the question at 
the heart of both sides of this debate sound oddly the same--how do we 
make sure Americans have access to quality healthcare they can afford? 
It is this shared concern about the affordability of quality healthcare 
and the recent actions of the Trump administration that I would like to 
discuss today.
  For a moment, let's set aside the healthcare reform debate because 
whether we agree to work together in a bipartisan way to improve our 
healthcare system, as I strongly believe we should, or whether 
Republicans push through a partisan proposal to significantly change 
the way in which Americans receive healthcare, we should all be able to 
agree that we want to protect the stability of the insurance markets 
and access to quality, affordable healthcare. Yet, despite this shared 
objective, protecting the stability of our healthcare system has not 
been the approach of this administration. Instead, it has done the 
opposite. It has tried to drive change by creating instability and 
chaos.
  On his first day in office, the President did not ask how he could 
fix the Affordable Care Act or improve the healthcare system. Instead, 
he began a deliberate, strategic effort to undermine the healthcare 
system, to drive up costs, and to create a scenario so painful for 
regular folks that we would have no choice but to rebuild the 
healthcare system from scratch.
  On the day he was sworn in, President Trump signed an Executive order 
to exempt, to delay, and to defer the implementation and enforcement of 
the law, creating instability in the marketplaces where millions of 
Americans obtained the coverage they needed. The administration 
canceled enrollment efforts to attract younger and healthier Americans 
into the insurance markets. This resulted in an estimated 500,000 fewer 
Americans purchasing coverage. Most notably, the administration has 
refused to commit to continuing critical payments that lower 
deductibles and copays for our families. This drives up the costs for 
our friends and neighbors, and in some States, it drives insurance 
companies out of the market completely.
  To be fair, though, the President has been straightforward about his 
strategy to undermine the Affordable Care Act, noting that the best 
thing we can do ``is to let ObamaCare explode. Let it be a disaster 
because we can blame that on the Democrats.''
  For the President and many in Washington, healthcare seems to be a 
political exercise. I can assure you that for the citizens of my State 
back home in Terre Haute, in Richmond, in Fort Wayne, in Indianapolis, 
in Lawrenceburg, and in Evansville--particularly for those with 
preexisting conditions, including children, older Hoosiers, and people 
with disabilities--this is about a lot more. It is about the health and 
the well-being of our loved ones. It is about the financial security of 
our families. For many, it is a life-and-death issue.
  This week, Indiana's insurance companies will submit their proposed 
healthcare rates for 2018 to the Indiana Department of Insurance. It is 
the first step in a routine process that determines how much Hoosiers 
will be paid for critical healthcare coverage in the coming year. The 
2018 filings, however, are likely to be anything but routine. Growing 
evidence across the country shows that the actions taken by the 
President and the administration, along with legislative uncertainty in 
Congress, have created instability and have created chaos in the 
insurance markets, resulting in significant cost increases for 
consumers.
  Let me share just a few examples of what I am hearing from the 
insurance companies in my home State of Indiana. The president and CEO 
of CareSource, an insurer that offers plans to Hoosiers through the 
insurance marketplace, told me that at the beginning of this year, the 
company was seeing rates stabilize, and if there was certainty 
regarding cost-sharing payments--those payments I previously 
discussed--rates would increase by about 2 percent--2 percent--in 2018 
compared to 2017.
  Now, though, the company is saying that, if the administration stops 
cost-sharing payments--and they have refused to commit to making those 
payments--rates for silver plans would increase by a minimum of 15 
percent.
  This is real money, real families, real healthcare, and real life-
and-death decisions.
  The president and CEO said: ``In addition, we believe that ceasing 
CSR payments may adversely impact the risk pools, potentially leading 
to further increases in future years.''
  The chairman and CEO of Indianapolis-based Anthem said, in part, in a 
letter:

       As I have stated publicly over the previous few months, 
     without certainty of CSR funding . . . Anthem will have no 
     choice but to reevaluate our approach to filing 2018 rates.
       Such adjustments could include reducing service area 
     participation, requesting additional rate increases, 
     eliminating certain product offerings, and/or exiting certain 
     individual ACA-compliant markets altogether.

  Let me be clear. These cost increases, limits on product offerings, 
and market exits are not the result of the current law or even the 
healthcare system. This is a deliberate choice. They are the result of 
a deliberate choice by the President to undermine the healthcare law at 
the expense of real people--moms, dads, sisters, brothers, sons, and 
daughters.
  This makes no sense. If your house needs repairs, you don't set the 
house on fire. You work to fix the issues.
  If we are serious about improving healthcare in this country, we can 
do it, and we can do it by working together. In my home State of 
Indiana, I was proud to work with then-Indiana Governor and now Vice 
President Mike Pence when he used ObamaCare to establish a program we 
call the Healthy Indiana Plan, or HIP, 2.0. The innovative plan 
expanded healthcare coverage to over 200,000 Hoosiers, and it helped to 
reduce the uninsured rate in Indiana by 30 percent--30 percent.
  Our Vice President called this program a ``national model'' to 
provide affordable healthcare to our most vulnerable citizens and 
treatment to those struggling with opioid abuse and heroin use, which 
is an absolute scourge on our country.
  We can improve our healthcare system by working together, but the 
first step is to do no harm--to stop doing damage to the current system 
and to the people who rely on it.
  Healthcare is not a game. It is life and death. This is about 
people's health. It is about economic security. It is about real lives.
  I hope my Republican colleagues and the administration will 
immediately stop these efforts to damage our healthcare system and will 
work with all of us on our shared goal to make quality healthcare more 
affordable. There is way too much at stake for Hoosiers and for all the 
people in our beloved country.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam 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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