“The only reason health care costs aren’t even higher for a lot of people, is because the Obama Administration decided to give subsidies to some people to help hide the true cost. Over the next few months, the Supreme Court is going to decide if President Obama is breaking his own law by giving out some of those subsidies.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate about how millions of Americans could soon be forced to bear the full cost of Obamacare if the U.S. Supreme Court rules that President Obama broke his own law by illegally giving out subsidies.
Excerpts of his remarks:
“Last Tuesday, President Obama met with ten people at the White House. These are people who had written him letters about the health care law.
“The White House said it was designed that this little publicity stunt was to remind people to sign up for insurance on healthcare.gov by the deadline date of Sunday, February 15th.
“At his meeting the other day, the President said that the people there were, as he said, a pretty good representative sample of people whose lives have been impacted, as he said, in powerful ways.
“Well, I will tell you, if President Obama really wanted a representative sample he would have included some of the people that his law has affected in alarming and expensive ways. What does the President have to say to those people? Why didn’t he invite any of them to the White House for his photo op?
“So here’s what ‘The New York Times’ wrote on Sunday, February 8th. Sunday Review, ‘The New York Times,’ headline: ‘Insured but not covered, new policies have many Americans scrambling.’
“Why isn’t the President willing to talk to those people who are scrambling all across the country who may have insurance but are not covered?
“The story starts off by telling the life of one woman in New York City, her name is Karen Pineman. Now, she lost her existing health insurance policy because it didn’t meet all the mandates that President Obama said a health insurance policy had to include.
“Now, it might have worked very well for her but it didn’t work well enough for President Obama so she lost her coverage. So the article says that ‘She gamely set about shopping for a new policy through the public marketplace.’ After all, she had supported President Obama and she supported the health care law as they say, as a matter of principle.
“But the article goes on, Ms. Pineman who is self-employed, accepted that she’d have to pay a higher premium for a plan with a narrower network of providers and no out-of-network coverage.
“So here she is, supported the law, but then lost her insurance, had to buy other insurance, and narrower network providers, higher premiums. Now she accepted that she would have to pay out of pocket to see her primary care physician because her primary care physician didn’t participate, wasn’t part of that narrow network.
“She even accepted ‘The New York Times’ reports, having co-pays of nearly $1,800 to have a cast put on her ankle in an emergency room after she broke her ankle playing tennis.
“They go on. Her frustration bubbled over when she tried to arrange a follow up visit with an orthopedic surgeon in her network. The one that she had to buy the insurance under President Obama’s law because she lost her own insurance even though the President had promised her if you like your insurance, you can keep it.
“Well, the article goes on, the nearest doctor available who treated ankle problems was in Stamford, Connecticut. She’s in New York City. She lives in New York. The closest doctor for her ankle who was in her network was in Connecticut. She’s had it. She said it’s ridiculous. Didn’t they notice it was in another state?
“So what does President Obama have to say to this woman in New York? I see that she wasn’t included in the photo op they had at the White House of the ten people who wrote letters to the President.
“Now what does he think about the powerful negative ways that his health care law is affecting her life? After all, ‘The New York Times’ thought it was enough that they would devote the front page of the Sunday Review section this past week to ‘Insured but not covered, new policies have many Americans scrambling.’
“The article sums it up this way. Says the Affordable Care Act has ushered in an era of complex new health insurance products featuring legions of out-of-pocket co-insurance fees, high deductibles, and narrow provider networks.
“All of Obamacare’s mandates force insurance companies to use things like these deductibles and narrow networks to keep premiums from going up even faster. Remember, the President promised the premiums would go down by $2,500 per family. They’ve actually gone up, not down, and they’ve done all of these things so they wouldn’t go up even faster.
“The New York Times’ article says that under Obamacare these insurance plans come ‘with constant changes in policy guidelines, annual shifts in what’s covered and what’s not, monthly shifts in which doctors are in and out of the network and surprise bills for services people thought would be covered.’
“Is the President proud of that? He stood up and he said that Democrats should forcefully defend and be proud of the law. I don’t see one Democrat on this floor of the United States Senate who is standing here to forcefully defend and be proud of this law.
“The article goes on to say for many people, it’s also confusing and so expensive that they just avoid seeing doctors. Just avoid seeing doctors. What does President Obama have to say to people who are so confused by their insurance now that the easiest payoff is to just not go for health care?
“According to a recent poll, 46% of Americans said that paying for basic medical care is a hardship for their family. So where was it a year ago? Well, it’s actually up by 10%.
“The President said things are going to get better, people are going to like this health care law, Democrats should forcefully defend and be proud of it. 10% more people this year than last year say it’s been harder and harder to pay for basic medical care—it is a hardship for their family.
“What does he say to these people? What does the President of the United States say to these people who are saying that his Affordable Care Act is making their life more of a hardship?
“This is an extensive article, ‘Insured but not covered’ in the Sunday issue of this week’s ‘New York Times’ so there’s another example from this article about Alexis Gersten who lives in New York as well in a town called East Quogue.
“Now she bought Obamacare insurance coverage for her family then she found out that they did have insurance, but they weren’t covered. When her son needed an ear, nose and throat doctor, the nearest one in her network was in Albany, New York, which is five hours away from where she lives.
“Even though her own cardiologist was on the network list, he didn’t take her plan. She ended up driving an hour to see a new cardiologist, finally there was a dispute over deductibles that left her with a pediatrician’s bill for $457.
“Five hours to take her son to a specialist. Is that what the President means when he says Democrats in the Senate should forcefully defend and be proud of this law they voted for? Almost $500 out of pocket to see a pediatrician?
“Is that the kind of powerful effect that President Obama wanted to have on families? That’s what he said last week, powerful effect on their lives. What does the President have to say to this woman, to Alexis?
“The only reason health care costs aren’t even higher for a lot of people, is because the Obama Administration decided to give subsidies to some people to help hide the true cost.
“Over the next few months, the Supreme Court is going to decide if President Obama is breaking his own law by giving out some of those subsidies.
“Millions of people in 37 states may suddenly find that they have to bear the expenses of Obamacare entirely on their own, buying insurance that many of them don’t want, don’t need, can’t afford, covering lots of things they would never buy insurance for if given the personal choice to do so, the President says they must because he seems to think he knows more about what they need for themselves and their family than they do.
“Last December, several of us asked the administration to start warning people, people who buy insurance through the healthcare.gov website, you remember that disastrous website, and inform those people because they may lose their subsidies come this summer when the Supreme Court makes its ruling.
“So we asked the administration, we asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of the Treasury, asked them to let us know how the administration plans to protect people who might get caught in the mess that President Obama and his administration and all the people who voted for it in that mess created.
“All we’ve heard in response is that the administration has no plans, no plans to warn anyone or to do anything to help Americans harmed by the President’s health care law. Now this has the potential to be yet another Obamacare train wreck.
“Another study came out last month that looked at the change in health insurance coverage for the first nine months of 2014.
“It found there was a total change of about eight million more people who actually have coverage. The problem is most of those people were just added to Medicaid. Medicaid is a program that is already broken, doesn’t work well.
“As a doctor who has taken care of patients in Wyoming for almost a quarter century, I can tell you that Medicaid across the country is a broken system. Yet the people that have gotten insurance, not care, the President is quick to use the word coverage but he doesn’t use the word care because there is a huge difference, I can tell you that as a doctor, but there were about six million people enrolled in the individual market mostly through the exchanges except five million people lost the insurance they had gotten before through work.
“So when you take a look at the net effect on coverage, 89% of those newly covered got it through Medicaid. That works out to a net gain a little under a million people who have actually gotten private insurance—in spite of the exchanges, in spite of the subsidies, 7.5 million got it through Medicaid.
“All of that expense, all of the hardship that President Obama caused on American families, families who have suffered as a result of the President’s health care law, and most of the net gain in coverage is people who went on to Medicaid.
“The American people didn’t ask for this. If President Obama actually talked with a real representative sample of Americans, he would know that. But he doesn’t. He only hears what he wants to hear. He disregards the rest. He didn’t do that last week, he still refuses to listen to people who have been hurt by his law.
“It’s time for the President to be honest with the American people about the ways that his law has harmed them. This is it. ‘New York Times,’ Sunday, February 8th, ‘Insurance but not covered, new policies have many Americans scrambling.’
“It’s time for the President to start working with Republicans to give people the kind of health care reform that they wanted all along. Access to the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower cost.
“That’s what the American people are demanding. And that’s what they deserve and it’s what Republicans are going to give them when we get the opportunity to do so. It’s time for President Obama to join us.”
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