Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s speech.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) spoke about how the President’s health care law is causing health premiums, co-pays and deductibles to increase substantially for families across the country.
Excerpts of his remarks:
“I come to the floor today, as I have week after week since the President’s health care law was passed because I have many concerns about the way this health care law is impacting families in my home state of Wyoming as well as across the country.
“People who find out that their rates are going up, they’re paying higher deductibles, higher co-pays, higher premiums. They feel that government is in control.
“Washington is in control rather than them, when Washington decides if the policy insurance that they have had that worked for them is something that they would be able to keep. And many times they weren’t because the President’s law said, no, it wasn’t good enough for you even though the families in Wyoming I think are better able to make decisions about what’s better and more important for them.
“When the President tells them they need to buy insurance that they don’t want or need or can afford, in many ways, with a long list of things that Washington mandates that be included.
“And I hear every week, as I did last weekend in Wyoming, from folks who have had hours cut, lower take-home pay because of the impact of part of the law that resulted in bipartisan opposition that says that the workweek is 30 hours, so people who are working part time have had their hours cut to below 30 hours and lower take-home pay.
“I talked to ER doctors at home and around the country where I’ve trained and where I’ve gone to medical school and the ‘Wall Street Journal’ even wrote about it last month, ‘ER visits rise despite the law. Health act isn’t cutting volume.’
“Front page—or the lead paragraph, ‘Early evidence suggests that emergency rooms have become busier since the Affordable Care Act expanded insurance coverage this year despite the law’s goal of reducing unnecessary care in emergency rooms.’ It says ‘Democrats who designed that law hoped it would do the opposite.’
“Hasn’t been the case. I heard last weekend in Wyoming about the story about all these fake applicants, fake applications that actually, I guess the Government Accountability Office said let’s see how well this works. Is the Obama health care law working?
“So they made up ten fake applications, sent them in, and they found out that actually for a dozen fictitious applicants online or by phone using invalid or missing social security numbers—and this is in ‘The Washington Post’ writing about this, but it’s made the stories across the country.
“Invalid or missing social security numbers, inaccurate citizenship information. All but one of the fake applicants ended up getting subsidized coverage.
“So here we are, a health care law that is supposed to provide a number of things, including integrity, and we find out that when the Government Accountability Office says let me put in a number of applications and see what happens, it’s not working.
“The administration set up the health insurance marketplace in ways, we’re hearing from the Government Accountability Act, that leave it vulnerable to fraud and waste of taxpayer money. I mean, that’s what we’re dealing with, with this health care law.
“So I come to the floor today, and I know that many senators are preparing to head home. They’ll be traveling around their home states in the month of August, and I expect that every senator who goes home will hear from people in their state about very damaging side effects that so many people across America are feeling from the President’s health care law.
“So I hear it every weekend. But I hear it when I travel as well, as Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, one of my responsibilities is to study how policies that come out of Washington, like the President’s health care law, how it affects people all across America, and that’s what I try to look at.
“So, in looking around the country, here’s what I found in Louisiana. Last month the Shreveport Times in Louisiana had an op-ed written by a doctor, Regina Fakner. The headline in the Shreveport Times was ‘Washington ties doctors’ hands.’
“Not the doctor, not the hospital, not the patients. Washington ties doctors’ hands. Now, the doctor who wrote this op-ed says she’s practiced pediatric medicine in Shreveport since the early 1990’s.
“Now we need pediatricians, we need people to take care of children, we need primary health physicians. There is a gross shortage of nurses, of physicians, of additional health care personnel.
“She says that health care was and is impossible to navigate because it is wrapped in layers of red tape and government regulations. Now this doctor knows that America’s health care system needed reform.
“We needed to do something. That’s what Republicans here in the Senate have been saying too. Need to do something.
“The American people wanted reform that gave them access, access to high-quality affordable care. It is not what people got. As this doctor writes in the Shreveport Times, Obamacare only adds to the mess.
“She said, this pediatrician takes care of lots of children. She said patients and health care providers suffer for it. Government doesn’t suffer. Senate Democrats who voted for it don’t suffer. Patients and health care providers are suffering.
“And she puts patients first, which is what doctors do. The President’s health care law has added tens of thousands of pages of red tape and Washington mandates, thousands of pages of red tape and mandates.
“The doctor says in her op-ed, that this one-size-fits-all approach limits patient freedom while picking their pockets. This is a doctor who talks to her patients every day. She says that she’s seen for herself in Louisiana how Washington is standing between her and her patients.
“Nothing should be between a patient and that person’s doctor. Nothing—not a government bureaucrat, not an insurance company bureaucrat, no one.
“The doctor-patient relationship is one that is sacred. Well, this doctor’s experience is typical of what I’m hearing and what we’re hearing from all across the country from doctors. Every Democrat in the Senate voted to pass this terrible health care law.
“President Obama says Democrats who voted for the health care law should he said, ‘Forcefully defend and be proud of the law.’ Is the President proud that patients and health care providers like this pediatrician are suffering because of his health care law and all of its dangerous side effects?
“Where are the Democrats ready to forcefully defend standing between patients and their doctors? Where are they? I don’t see them coming to the floor. Democrats in Washington were so eager to pass the President’s health care law that they made a lot of promises and they just were not true.
“They said people could keep their insurance. That wasn’t true. It seems like 5 million people received letters saying that their insurance had been canceled in spite of what the President had promised them.
“People in Wyoming, people in Louisiana, people all across the country lost the insurance that they had because it didn’t include all the unnecessary coverage that the President’s health care law mandated.
“Democrats said people could keep their doctor. That wasn’t true. People in Wyoming, Louisiana, all across America lost their doctor because the new, narrow provider networks made people lose the doctor that they had worked with, who had treated them, treated members of the family, who they knew and trusted.
“The President said the American people would save $2,500 per year per family on insurance premiums. Democrats in the Senate who voted for the law promised the same thing. I remember them standing here. I can see one after another saying that. It wasn’t true.
“People all across America are paying more than ever because of the health care law. Well, people in Louisiana specifically where this pediatrician lives and works and takes care of patients, they are paying a lot more.
“There’s an article from the Associated Press in Lake Charles, Louisiana, last Thursday ‘Health insurance price increases could top 10% for thousands in Louisiana.’ That was the headline, front page above the fold.
“According to the article, Blue Cross—that’s the largest health insurer in Louisiana—is planning to raise rates by more than 18% next year. Is President Obama ready to forcefully defend these premium increases because of the law? He’s the one who said that premiums are going to go down.
“The American people see what’s happened. The President didn’t say well they’re not going to just kind of go up as fast. He said they’re going to go down $2,500 per year per family.
“So we’re seeing large increases all across the country. Are the Democrats in the Senate proud that families in Louisiana are getting hit with another 18% premium increase in some locations?
“Higher premiums, higher co-pays, higher deductibles—all to pay for coverage that people don’t want, don’t need, can’t afford, but were mandated to have.
“People in Louisiana were already paying more because of the President’s health care law. A recent study found that health insurance premiums for an average 27-year-old man in Louisiana are over 100 per higher this year than last year. Double this year from last year. That’s before they were forced into the Obamacare exchange.
“Premiums for an average 64-year-old woman, $2,000 more this year than they were last year. These are very expensive side effects for families in Louisiana as a result of the President’s health care law.
“Well, what does the President have to say about these outrageous rate hikes that he caused because of his health care law, what does he have to say to the people suffering from the costly side effects of the health care law?
“Well, the President went to Kansas City, Missouri, the last couple of days. I think that when he travels outside of Washington, the President should actually meet with doctors who live in those communities, doctors like this woman, this pediatrician who practices in Louisiana.
“He should sit down with the women whose children are patients of doctors like this one, talk to the parents of these children about what the impact of his health care law has been on them. The President should hear directly—directly from these people about the devastating side effects of his health care law and how it’s hurting them and hurting their families.
“Every Democrat in the Senate voted for this health care law. Every one. Where are the Democrats willing to forcefully defend these costly and damaging side effects of their health care law?
“Democrats don’t want to defend this terrible law and all of its devastating side effects. Republicans are going to keep talking about this law. We’re going to keep standing up for the American families that are being hurt by this law.
“We’re going to continue to come to the floor to talk about stories that we hear from back home, what we hear about from families in our home states, people who have lost their insurance and end up having to get insurance they don’t need or don’t want or never going to use that is much more expensive than what they had before because the insurance that worked for their families, the President said it wasn’t good enough.
“We’re going to continue to come and talk about the families who see their take-home pay go down because instead of being able to take that money home, and working the hours they want, they’ve had their hours cut not because they weren’t needed at work, not because there wasn’t a demand for their services, but because of the health care law that says anybody working over 30 hours a week is then considered full-time and by the President’s mandate they have to be supplied with health insurance at work.
“So what happens? Businesses—and it’s not just businesses—what we’re seeing is school districts, we’re seeing counties, county governments, the whole state of Virginia, all of the different governing bodies.
“Any part-time workers, they’re saying, well we’ve got to keep them below 30 hours because we can’t afford the insurance for these folks. So these folks are saying, well, I lose my take-home pay. And the reason is the President’s health care law.
“School districts are having to say, well, you know we can either keep them above 30 hours and then have to pay for their insurance but then we’re going to have to fire a number of reading teachers, fire the coach, fire the bus driver, fire someone else who works in the school.
“That’s not a way to help people in a in a community. That’s not good for anybody’s health. But those are the side effects of the President’s health care law. A bill that so few people actually read before they voted for it because, because as Nancy Pelosi famously said, first you have to pass it before you get to find out what’s in it.
“So we’re going to continue to talk about patient-centered reforms, reforms that get people care they need from a doctor they choose at a lower costs. We’re going to talk about restoring people’s freedom, freedom to buy health insurance that works for them and their families, because they know what’s best for them.
“It’s not Washington control, its local decisions, families making decisions for their own. And we’re going to talk about giving people choices, not Washington mandates.
“Republicans are going to keep offering real solutions for better health care without all of these tragic side effects.”
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