“Someone said to me why is it that the President is going to give my boss a one-year delay? The bosses are getting a delay, but the workers are not. We need a delay in the individual mandate.”
Click Here to Watch Sen. Barrasso.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” this morning to discuss Obamacare and the implementation of the new health care exchanges that open on October 1st.
Key excerpts of the interview:
On Long-Term Consequences of Obamacare Implementation:
“Well, it’s not going to be affordable. There’s going to be sticker shock, number one. And number two, it’s going to be harder for people to actually get what they wanted which is the care they need from a doctor they want at lower cost. The President made a couple of promises. One with the exchanges, and he said it would be cheaper than a cell phone bill. And I don’t expect a lot of people to be able to find something less than $71 a month on the exchanges. People are going to be paying more. And he said you can keep the doctor—if you have your doctor and you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. We’re seeing all across the country exchanges that trying to get the price down have had to exclude many doctors.
On Whether or Not the Exchanges Are Ready:
“I think the exchanges are being held together right now with duct tape and chicken wire. We’ve seen many states—even the Governor’s home state of Vermont has had problems. They’re not going to be able to accept payments online. Oregon is backing down. Other states are—the District of Columbia last week said, hey we’re not ready. Huge ability for I think for fraud, for identity theft on the exchanges. The bottom line is I think it’s not just an issue of will doctors still see patients—patients are going to have a hard time finding a doctor to take care of them under these exchanges. In New Hampshire, where Howard was on Monday giving a speech, we know that there is an uproar because the Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield is excluding 10 of the 28 hospitals in that state from the exchange. Pediatricians aren’t going to be able to take care of kids they’ve been taking care of.
On the Need for a Delay on Individual Mandate:
“This law is unworkable, it’s unpopular. It is unaffordable for us as a nation. It’s hurting jobs, it’s hurting the economy. And now what I’m hearing and I was at a health fair in Lovell, Wyoming yesterday, it is unfair. Someone said to me why is it that the President is going to give my boss a one-year delay? The bosses are getting a delay, but the workers are not. We need a delay in the individual mandate.
“Howard just said small businesses are going to dump their employees who are currently paying for their health insurance. Dump them on to the exchange. Dump them on to taxpayer subsidies. Now think about that. The President said if you like what you have, you can keep it. There are people all around the country who like the insurance that they have and can’t keep it because as Howard said, they’re going to get dumped into the exchanges. And the people that are going to pay the most, who are going to be most abused by this are the young people, those who are going to be forced to pay more than they would based on their own risk to subsidize others.
On if We’re Headed Toward a Single Payer System:
“That’s what Harry Reid said in a discussion in Nevada on a television interview. He said there’s going—the Obama health care law is going to fail and we go to a single payer system which is like the system in Britain or Canada where the care is free but the waits are very long. I’ve operated on people from Canada who have come down because they couldn’t wait. They couldn’t afford to wait for their free operation. And death rates from cancer are much higher in England than the United States because the care is delayed.”
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