“Washington took on too much power over the health care decisions of American families. More Washington control, less Washington accountability – they’re never the right answers for our country.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor highlighting the Obama administration’s lack of accountability in its health care law.
Transcript of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:
“I come to the floor today to discuss more of the troubling news that has come out about how the health care law has affected the people of this country.
“A new poll just came out from National Public Radio and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This is what they found.
“According to this poll, 26 percent of Americans are telling us that the health care law – Obamacare – has directly hurt them. The health care law has directly hurt them.
“Only 14 percent of the people in the poll said that their health care, personal health care, has gotten better under Obamacare – it’s just one in seven that says it’s better. Over a quarter say they have personally been hurt.
“Almost twice as many people have been directly hurt by the law, compared to the people who’ve been helped.
“American taxpayers are also being hurt by Obamacare – because of the waste and the fraud in our health care system.
“There’s a new report by the Government Accountability Office that came out last week.
“It found that the Obama administration is still failing to stop the fraud in health care subsidies.
“Here’s how the law was designed to work.
“People must have government-approved insurance because of the law. It’s a mandate.
“There are a lot of people who have been forced to buy very expensive insurance to comply with the law – and in many cases, it’s far more coverage than they want, that they need or they can afford.
“So the health care law that the Democrats voted for and the Republicans voted against, said that the government will give people subsidies to help them pay for this Washington-mandated insurance.
“To get a subsidy, people are supposed to be able to prove that they’re eligible, and there are various criteria to make sure that you’re eligible.
“So, that means things like proving that they make a certain income, or how many people are in their family, or that they’re a citizen of the United States, or that they are here legally.
“Washington then pays the subsidy directly to the insurance company – and then later, the government comes around to figure out if the person even qualified for the money.
“So there’s huge potential for fraud, and for wasting taxpayer dollars.
“This new report from the Government Accountability Office found that, despite the billions of dollars at stake, the Obama administration has taken what they describe as a ‘passive approach to identifying and preventing fraud.’ The Obama administration has taken a passive approach.
“It says that the Obama administration has struggled to confirm the eligibility of millions of people who applied for subsidies. This is a report from the Government Accountability Office. We want accountability in government.
“This report found that there are 431,000 people who still had unresolved issues with their subsidy paperwork, more than a year after they first applied.
“These cases amounted to $1.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies.
“The insurance coverage these people had for that year had already ended – and the Obama administration still didn’t know if they should have gotten the money that was sent out to the insurance companies on their behalf.
“There were another 22,000 cases where it still isn’t clear if the person who got a subsidy was serving time in prison.
“How can Washington not even know if someone is in prison? This should be one of the easiest things to find out.
“There are millions of cases where the administration is taking this passive approach to figuring out if there is fraud occurring with these subsidies.
“People all across the country are asking where is the accountability from the Obama administration?
“They’re spending billions of tax dollars.
“Where is the accountability to make sure that it’s being spent properly, and not wasted?
“There is no accountability, because the Obama administration doesn’t seem to care about protecting taxpayer money.
“It cares more about getting a large number of people enrolled in insurance.
“That’s what they want – no matter what the law says, and no matter how much money they waste to do it.
“This report from the Government Accountability Office came out last Wednesday – and the very next day there was more bad news for taxpayers because of the health care law.
“There was an article in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, February 25, under the headline ‘Insurance Fight Escalates: Health co-op leaders say the effort to recoup federal loans will come up short.’ This is taxpayer money.
“Remember, the health care law gave out billions of dollars – billions of dollars – in loans to set up health insurance co-ops across the country.
“They set up 23. Already more than half of them have collapsed and have gone out of business.
“Twelve out of 23 have gone bust. 700,000 Americans lost their insurance because these co-ops failed.
“Now it looks like hard-working taxpayers are going to lose the money that the government loaned to these failed insurance businesses.
“According to this Wall Street Journal article, leaders of these co-ops say that taxpayers are going to lose more than a billion dollars on the failed co-ops.
“They say it’s ‘because most of the money has been spent.’
“The article quotes the head of the co-op in New Mexico saying, ‘Will there be a little money left? Yeah, maybe.’
“That’s what he said – that’s his answer.
“’Yeah, maybe’ there will be a little money left – out of more than a billion dollars in taxpayer loans?
“It’s outrageous. It wasn’t supposed to be a bailout for insurance companies.
“These were supposed to be loans.
“Is this how the administration thinks that loans are supposed to work?
“Does the Obama administration think if they lend out money, people borrow it from the taxpayers and spend it, and they don’t have to pay it back?
“Where is the accountability from these co-ops for the American people?
“Where is the accountability for the Obama administration to make sure that they loaned this money responsibly, and didn’t waste it?
“Reports like this paint a very bad picture for health care and the health care law in this country.
“And then just yesterday, we talked about these co-ops, 23 co-ops, half of them have failed. This is the headline yesterday: ‘Losses deepen for the remaining Obamacare co-ops.’ It says losses snowballed in the fourth quarter of four co-op plans have now reported their numbers for 2015.
“The articles says the nonprofit start-ups based in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio and Maine lost about $270 million last year. That’s more than five times the level of losses the plans reported in 2014. That was the first year they operated. They are still waiting for the updated financial reports on the other seven remaining co-ops who have not yet posted their returns. So, here we are.
“Six years ago there was a debate in Congress about America’s health care system.
“Everyone in this body agreed that we had problems.
“Everybody agreed that we needed to do something to help Americans.
“Republicans presented our ideas on the floor of the Senate.
“We went to meetings at the White House, and we offered President Obama our solutions.
“Democrats and the president rejected our ideas – and they came up with their own massive plan.
“Washington took on too much power over the health care decisions of American families.
“More Washington control, less Washington accountability – they’re never the right answers for our country.
“If Washington can’t protect taxpayer dollars, it shouldn’t be collecting so many of these dollars in the first place.
“Republicans warned that Obamacare would be bad for patients, bad for providers and terrible for the taxpayers.
“The news keeps coming out, showing that we were exactly right.
“So Republicans will continue to talk about our health care ideas.
“We will continue to talk about ideas that will actually hold Washington accountable as Washington spends taxpayer dollars.
“We will continue to talk about ideas like giving families more control over their health care and their health care decisions, and giving Washington less control.
“That’s what Americans want. This new report out from the National Public Radio poll showed 26 percent of Americans say the health care law – Obamacare – has directly hurt them. Directly hurt them.
“They didn’t want this kind of health care reform that directly hurts them instead of helping them. They wanted to be helped.
“They don’t want an approach like we have. They want an approach that gives them control, and certainly not a passive approach to preventing fraud.
“The American people do not want Obamacare.”
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