“Most Americans can’t afford to pay 8% more a year in premiums each and every year.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor highlighting a new Congressional Budget Office report that predicts health care premiums will increase more than 8% next year, and the year after, for Obamacare enrollees.
Excerpts of his remarks:
“I noticed earlier today the Minority Leader as well as the Minority Whip of the Senate on the floor talking about the president’s health care law.
“And I would like to point out that the Congressional Budget Office released a report Monday about the Obama health care law, Obamacare. I see the White House is actually championing the report as they call it great news for America.
“Well I’m here to tell you, let’s be clear, this report contains significant amounts of bad news for people. Bad news for people who signed up on the Obamacare exchanges for getting their health insurance coverage.
“In fact, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that health care premiums will increase more than 8% a year this coming year for Obamacare enrollees.
“Now, they also predict it will increase 8% next year for Obamacare enrollees through the exchange for the benchmark plan. And they predict it will increase another 8% the year after that.
“Now, most Americans can’t afford to pay 8% more a year in premiums each and every year which is what the Congressional Budget Office is proposing but you don’t hear the Democrats on the floor talking about that. Wasn’t it the President of the United States who said that premium rates would go down, down for families by $2,500 a year?
“Isn’t it that many senators on the other side of the aisle came to the floor and said rates would go down, Nancy Pelosi said they would go down for everyone.
“Why are the Democrats not mentioning what the CBO is saying that year after year after year the rates are going to go up 8%, another 8%, another 8%?
“So we know the reality of what’s happening to people all across the country. Which is why this health care law continues to be unpopular, unaffordable, and unworkable.
“So I think it’s time for the White House to stop celebrating and start thinking about the people who have been impacted specifically by this expensive and unworkable piece of legislation.
“So I found it interesting, Mr. President, that on Monday, the Secretary of Health and Human Services held an event to celebrate the number of people who had signed up for coverage this year.
“Secretary Burwell said she was ‘pleased with the results to date.’
“She repeated the administration’s sound bite that the health care law working.
“Well, that’s not what I’m hearing from people at home in Wyoming. It’s not what I’m’ hearing from my friends, neighbors and patients. And as a doctor who’s taken care of patients in Wyoming for 25 years I’ve talked to lots of patients every weekend at home. And people are very concerned.
“It’s also not what I read in the paper. Papers all across the country, from East to West coast, about hardworking Americans who have been devastated by the impacts of this terrible health care law.
“It seems like every day there’s more bad news, about more ways that Obamacare is hurting American families, and failing to live up to the many promises that the president and the Democrats in this body who voted for it—promises they made.
“When you take a look at the Congressional Budget Office new estimates of how many people are going to sign up for Obamacare this year. They had originally said that there would be 14 million people who would sign up for Obamacare plans by the end of the year.
“Now they’ve dropped that number down to 11 million people. So it’s not a surprise when fewer people by 3 million fewer people sign up, that it’s going to cost the taxpayers less than the very high number they were expecting to have to pay. So that number has dropped, because fewer people are choosing to sign up for the Obama health care plan.
“Is the Obama administration ‘pleased’ that the president’s health care law is so much less popular with the public than the president and Democrats expected it to be?
“As I talk about some of the stories that are coming out from East to West coast, I would like to start with a story in the Press Herald newspaper in Portland, Maine, February 27th.
“The headline was: ‘Many insured under Affordable Care Act taking a hit at tax time.’
“This article tells the story of Diana Newman, who lives in Southwest Harbor. Now, she had Obamacare insurance last year.
“So she went to file her taxes this year, a few weeks ago, the article says, ‘she got a $400 surprise.’ That’s how much she owed on her taxes specifically because of the health care law.
“She told the newspaper that her tax troubles are just another stumbling block in what’s been a long, difficult year trying to figure out how to use – and how to pay for – her new insurance.
“She said, ‘At the end of all this confusion, I was hit with hundreds of dollars at tax time. It’s frightening.’
“Frightening—that’s how somebody who the president is claiming has been helped by the law is describing the impact of the law on her life. It is frightening.
“It turns out, she was one of almost a million people who got bad information from the government about their tax forms.
“Well, that just made things more confusing for her.
“She said, ‘At this point, I don’t know what to think. I may owe more, or less, or about the same.’
“Is the Obama administration and all the Democrats who voted for this health care law ‘pleased’ about the way it is frightening this woman in Maine?
“I don’t hear the Senate Minority Leader or the Whip talking about that.
“Does the administration think that Obamacare is ‘working’ for Diana Newman?
“Now the tax preparation company H&R Block says that more than half of their clients have had their refunds reduced because of the health care law.
“Now on average, H&R Block said their customers owe the IRS an extra $530. That’s an awful lot of money for hardworking taxpayers.
“A lot of people count on getting that tax refund to help them pay their bills this time of year.
“Is the Obama administration ‘pleased’ to see the IRS take another $530 from hard working American families?
“Some of these people who owe money to the IRS didn’t sign up for Obamacare insurance at all last year.
“Now they’re finding out, many for the first time, that they owe a tax penalty. A tax penalty because of the health care law’s mandate that they buy health insurance.
“Not just necessarily insurance that works for them and their families and their family’s needs. Oh, no, the mandate that they have to buy insurance that President Obama says works for them, even though they know it doesn’t work for them. It may be too much insurance, insurance they don’t need, don’t want, can’t afford and they don’t have the flexibility to even make the choice.
“President Obama says he knows what’s best for them because they don’t. The problem is that by the time many of these people figured that out, it was already too late to sign up for Obamacare insurance for this year, so they’re getting taxed, penalized.
“People who didn’t understand the tax penalties feel like the Obama administration has pulled a fast one on them.
“Again, this law continues as we approach the five-year anniversary. It continues to be very unpopular with the American people.
“There was so much anger about the timing of the tax issues that the administration had to backtrack and allow extra time for people to sign up this year.
“The president made a YouTube video saying the deadline is February 15th. February 15th came and went. Then the president said we better open it up again.
“This president, I will tell you, is making it up as he goes along. We’ve seen it time and time again with this president and this law. Making it up as he goes along.
“Is the Obama administration ‘pleased with ‘this confusion and anger that a lot of Americans are feeling because of the IRS penalties? And, it’s not just Washington that’s causing troubles for people with the president’s health care law. We’re seeing bad news all across America.
“I started in Maine, let’s go over to the other coast, let’s go to Oregon, the state tried to set up its own health insurance exchange.
“They did such an awful job, that not one single person was ever able to sign up on the state’s website. Not one, no one.
“People had to fill out paper applications if they wanted to try to buy insurance last year.
“So how much did it cost the state to set up this exchange that not one person was able to buy insurance on the website? $248 million of taxpayer money.
“Last Friday the governor of Oregon officially gave up, signed a law dissolving the state exchange.
“Oregon will just use the federal government’s exchange, and the federal website.
“Does the Obama administration think that that failed website and the wasting of $240 million in taxpayer money is a sign that the health care law is ‘working?’
“Is this administration ‘pleased’ with the way Oregon’s Obamacare exchange wasted nearly a quarter of a billion dollars? That’s one state alone.
“Now just next door, in Washington state, they’re having troubles of their own.
“There was an article in The Hill newspaper here in Washington on February 25 titled ‘State’s Obamacare overcharges 13,000.’
“According to the article, ‘The Washington state Obamacare exchange says that it withdrew the incorrect amount of money from the bank accounts of 13,000 people.’
“So think about that in reference to your own checking account where there may be an automatic withdrawal based on a cable bill, cell phone bill, whatever.
“Well, many people, 13,000 here in this case in Washington state have a withdrawal from the Washington state Obamacare exchange. 13,000 incorrect amount withdrawn.
“It says some of the people say that more than three times the correct amount was withdrawn for their monthly premium for health insurance.
“I mean, could you imagine if the electric company, one of the utilities, your cell phone, your cable withdrew three times the amount expected from your checking account for that monthly bill?
“For some people, that glitch in the state system probably meant their accounts were going to end up overdrawn. Even if the states get the problem fixed right away, that’s an alarming failure by that Obamacare exchange.
“Is the Obama administration pleased with the anxiety the exchange is causing 13,000 people in Washington state?
“These are just a few of the ways Obamacare is not living up to the promises that Democrats and the administration made to the American people.
“Later this month – on March 23 – we’ll hit the fifth anniversary of President Obama signing this health care bill into law.
“If Monday’s event with Secretary Burwell is any indication, the White House is going to throw a celebration.
“They’ll say once again that they are ‘pleased,’ and they’ll say that Obamacare is ‘working.’
“The Obama administration shouldn’t be pleased with its health care law – the Obama administration and every Democrat who voted for it should be embarrassed by it.
“It isn’t what Democrats promised –it’s not what people wanted.
“People wanted something very simple when it came to their health care and health care reform – people wanted the care they need, from a doctor they choose, at lower cost.
“That’s what Republicans in the Senate are planning to give them.
“We can do it without a 2,000-page law. We can do it without all the negative side effects of Obamacare.
“That will be health care reform worth celebrating.”
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