“The American people have had enough of this costly and collapsing health care law. They’ve had enough of losing their insurance, losing their doctor, losing access to their prescription drugs that they need, and paying 20, 30 percent more every year to get less coverage.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor highlighting the Democrats’ lack of understanding about how President Obama’s healthcare law is harming Americans.
Transcript of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:
“I come to the floor today to speak as Senator Thune has just spoken about the disastrous results on health care for patients of Obamacare.
“And you have to go no further than this Sunday’s New York Times, The Sunday Review, front page cover.
“It looks like a red cross tilted on its side with the headline, ‘Sorry, We Don’t Take Obamacare.’ Sorry, we don’t take Obamacare.
“I see the Minority Leader come to the floor, Harry Reid, and talking about how wonderful it is.
“The president says to forcefully defend the law and be proud.
“Of what?
“Of something that – sorry, we don’t take Obamacare.
“Now, this is The New York Times, a newspaper whose editorial board supported this health care law.
“They talk about the pains of the health care act frustrating patients.
“Amy Moses and her circle of self-employed small business owners were supporters, 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 here from New York. Where are they to respond to what’s happened to the people of their home state as a result of this law?
“They bought insurance policies in 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 said. But again and again. Here they are.
“It says we don’t take Obamacare. It’s the umbrella term, the hundreds of plans offered through the president’s signature health legislation.
“Mr. President, this is The New York Times. About New York, big city, place where there should be plenty of doctors, plenty of opportunity.
“Ms. Moses goes on and says anyone who is on these plans knows it is a two-tiered system.
“Is that what the president promised the American people, a two-tiered system?
“She describes the emotional sting of those words – she is a successful entrepreneur in a two-tiered system.
“Any time, she says, one of us needs a doctor – you’re talking about a number of women in New York who are entrepreneurs, very successful. ‘Any time one of us needs a doctor, we send out an alert.’
“Is that what we’re supposed to have, Mr. President? Any time anybody needs a doctor, send out an alert. You have a sore threat, send out an alert. That’s what they need to do. The alert says that, that they send out among this whole group in New York, does anyone have anyone on the exchange plan that does – and they describe what they need, mammography or colonoscopy. Who takes our insurance?
“She says that is really a problem.
“I could go on, Mr. President.
“This is what the President of the United States and the Democrats in this body, who shoved this down the throats of the American people, have found that they have created.
“A plan that one out of four Americans say has hurt them personally.
“This is just one story in the news in one major newspaper.
“But it says a lot about the health care law in general.
“People know, and we just heard from Senator Thune, this health care law is a lot more expensive than the president ever promised.
“People all around the country remember the president saying it would drive down health care premiums by $2,500 a family if this became law.
“Remember that? People all across the country remember it.
“It hasn’t happened.
“Costs have gone up. Co-pays have gone up. Deductibles have gone up.
“People have lost their plans, lost their ability to see their doctor, can’t go to the hospital if they want, can’t go get the care they need.
“Of course, insurance companies are cutting back on which doctors people can see. They’re cutting back on what drugs people can take.
“All of those things because of the health care law.
“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 will lose their insurance plan even again next year.
“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, who studies these things, says that there are more than 650 counties where families will have only one choice for insurance next year.
“Now, Mr. President, I just pulled up an article from The New York Times. That’s 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.’
“Just abandoning rural areas all across the country.
“My home state of Wyoming, but it’s happening everywhere. Entire states: Alaska, Alabama, Wyoming. There’s only one choice for where people can buy Obamacare insurance next year.
“Now, often if you only have once choice, you’re 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 pay an expensive penalty.
“That’s what health care looks like now under Harry Reid and the Democrats and Barack Obama and the United States senators on the Democrat side of the aisle who voted for the monstrosity.
“Take it or leave it, but you can’t leave it because you must buy it.
“Well, what happens when there’s 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’ve seen requests in Virginia, 33 percent. 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.
“So what do the Democrats say about all this?
“Well, someone brought this up to Hillary Clinton.
“They brought it 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,’ she said – she is telling this to Hillary Clinton – ‘ go up $500 a month in the last two years.’
“She said, ‘We went from 400-something to 900-something’ a month.
“So, 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?
“What could have possibly raised your costs $500? I don’t understand.
“It’s Obamacare that raised her costs.
“Where has Hillary Clinton been the last six years that she doesn’t understand that?
‘This was in Virginia.
“So this small business owner, the woman who went to the town hall meeting and asked Hillary Clinton this question, may see her rates go up by another 33 percent next year.
“It’s not just Hillary Clinton who’s clueless.
“Harry Reid, the Democrat Leader who just left the floor in the Senate, came to the floor last month.
“He said and he told the world that Obamacare is ‘working.’ Harry Reid, minority leader, senator from Nevada.
“Does Harry Reid not understand that millions of Americans are paying more for their health insurance and their health care than they did before Obamacare?
“Does he not understand that many 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 back in return?
“Does every senator on the Democrat 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.
“It found that only 44 percent of Americans approve of the health care law.
“But 54 percent disapprove of the law.
“I remember Senator Schumer saying after we pass, it will get more popular.
“54 percent disapprove, the highest disapproval number in the last two years.
“In this poll, almost one in three Americans said that the health care law has had a negative effect on their family. 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 she actually wants to expand Obamacare.
“She wants more regulations, more restrictions, more of the terrible ideas that have driven up costs for American families.
“Mr. President, there was another piece of news last week that shows one more way that 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’s what a federal court found last Thursday.
“Back in 2014, the administration asked Congress to appropriate money to pay insurance companies above and beyond the subsidies that they already get that the government pays for insurance premiums.
“It’s called a cost-sharing subsidy.
“Well, Congress – power of the purse – refused to appropriate the money.
“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 it would make Obamacare even more unpopular than it is today.
“So in the panic, because if they knew that if that happened, people would realize how expensive this law really was – and what a disaster it’s turning it, people would see that all of the president’s promises about reducing costs were nothing but fairy tales.
“So the panicked Obama administration went ahead and they handed over the money anyway – without the authority from Congress.
“The total was about $7 billion over the last two years.
“That’s how much additional taxpayer money the administration has given away so far to hide the fact that its health care law is an expensive failure.
“The American people have had enough of this costly and collapsing health care law.
“They’ve had enough of losing their insurance, losing their doctor, losing access to their prescription drugs that they need, and paying 20, 30 percent more every year to get less coverage.
“So, the Democrats can come to the floor and pretend that Obamacare is working.
“Democrats like Hillary Clinton don’t understand what’s going on.
“Well, the American people know exactly what is going on.
“They want us to repeal Obamacare and replace it with health care that actually works.
“Fewer restrictions and 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 better what they need than they do.
“We need fewer mandates that drive up the cost for everyone.
“More options for patients to see the doctor they want, and get the medicine that they need.
“Mr. President, that’s what the American people want – it’s time for Democrats to show that they’re listening to the people of America, and that they understand. Because up to this point, they’ve not been listening and they do not understand.”
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