Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s remarks.
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor regarding the Democrats blocking legislation to fight the spread of the Zika virus. Barrasso also highlighted some of the recent damage caused by the president’s health care law.
Excerpts of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:
“This legislation includes $1.1 billion to fight Zika. The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would fund all of the agency’s immediate needs in the fight against Zika at this point.
“When the Senate voted on this in May, every Democrat in the body voted to support the exact same amount of money.
“Two months ago, Democrats thought this was the right answer, but now they are willing to let the American people suffer because of this virus.
“What happened? What changed in the last two months? Nothing has changed – except that the situation has gotten worse, more dangerous for people.
“I think that the Democrats were never serious about wanting to do anything at all. Democrats decided that they would rather have a political issue than have a real solution.
“Democrats aren’t going to be able to dodge responsibility this time. We are running out of time to prevent an epidemic.
“Last week, Senator Bill Nelson from Florida said, ‘We are at the 11th hour and 59th minute.’
It’s exactly right. So why are Senator Nelson and his Democrat colleagues playing a game of chicken with the American people?
“There was a poll that came out last week from the Kaiser Family Foundation. It found that 76 percent of Americans support this legislation that we have on the floor, the Zika legislation.
“Democrats ought to start listening to the American people.
“They should stop playing political games, and take the money that they asked for – that the Center for Disease Control says is the right amount of money – to fight the spread of this threat to the health of the American people.
Damage Caused by Obamacare
“This is not the first time that Democrats in this body have put their own political talking points ahead of the American people in terms of their health care.
“At the beginning of this year, Republicans passed legislation to repeal the president’s health care law. Why? So we could replace it with health care reforms that work for the American people.
“President Obama vetoed the legislation – and Democrats in Congress resisted every attempt to undo years of damage caused by Obamacare.
“Taxpayers paid to set up 23 different insurance co-ops across the country, 16 of them have now folded. Only a third of the original co-ops are still operating. Billions of dollars in taxpayer money wasted, never to be paid back.
“And more than 850,000 Americans have lost their insurance that they got through the co-ops – because the insurance co-ops can’t afford to stay in business under the health care law.
“The co-op in Illinois just collapsed this week—that’s the president’s home state. Last week, it was co-ops in Oregon and Connecticut, yet the senator from Connecticut comes down to the floor and says that the health care law is working. It is not, not even in his home state.
“There are more than 20,000 people in Oregon who’ve been left scrambling to find new coverage starting July 31 – just a couple of weeks from now.
“It’s not just people who belong to the co-ops who are losing their insurance.
“The largest insurance company in Minnesota says that they’re going to stop selling insurance in the state at the end of this year.
“BlueCross and BlueShield of Minnesota covers 100,000 people. All of them are going to lose their insurance, and have to find coverage elsewhere.
“More companies have been saying how much they plan to charge next year – and the numbers are staggering. In Montana, BlueCross BlueShield just announced on Friday that it’s raising Obamacare rates 62 percent. Who can afford that?
“Premiums are skyrocketing, so are deductibles, so are co-pays, every other cost that people pay out of pocket for their health care have gone up.
“Just before the Fourth of July, we learned that 1.6 million people who signed up this year for Obamacare have already quit by the end of March.
“The Congressional Budget Office said that they were expecting by this time over 21 million people to sign up for Obamacare.
“Well, more and more dropouts, we’re only at half that number. And it is just more evidence that the president’s health care law is cratering, it is collapsing.
“Once again, the Democrats seem to rather have a political issue than a solution.
“Republicans are here offering solutions, Democrats are offering gridlock and the same old political games.”
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