Seventy-five percent of Emergency Room Doctors Surveyed Said They’ve Seen an Increase in Patients Since January 2014
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor about how Americans on Obamacare are having a hard time trying to find a doctor to take care of them. Barrasso specifically highlights a recent survey done by the American College of Emergency Physicians that shows emergency room visits have increased since 2014.
Excerpts of his remarks:
“Today, for the first time in six years, Congress will pass a budget. And we’re passing a budget that actually balances.
“This fulfills another basic responsibility of governing and an important promise that Republicans made to the American people.
“In advance of this vote, I would like to take a moment to applaud Budget Chairman Mike Enzi for his leadership on this issue.
“Because of his strong work, our balanced budget will help grow our economy, reduce the debt, repeal Obamacare and rein in Washington overreach.
“Our balanced budget proves that the Senate is fully working again on behalf of the American people.
“And now, I’d like to talk about another issue that is also important to Americans across the country.
“Something I hear about as I travel the state of Wyoming—and I heard about it this weekend.
“Last week, the Democrat leader came to the floor of the Senate and he said some very interesting things about the president’s health care law.
“He said that ‘Obamacare is a smashing success.’
“That was last week.
“Well, on Monday we had this headline in the Wall Street Journal: ‘U.S. Emergency-Room Visits Keep Climbing: People on Medicaid turn to hospital care when doctor access is limited, new survey suggests.’
“I mean it is just interesting to take a look at this large story about the number of visits keeps climbing to emergency rooms, in spite of what the president promised during the debate of the president’s health care law.
“The article goes on to say: ‘Emergency-room visits continued to climb in the second year of the Affordable Care Act, contradicting the law’s supporters who had predicted a decline in traffic as more people gained access to doctors and other health-care providers.’
“Now, this is according to a survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians. And they should know—they’re the ones in the emergency room treating patients.
“The group says that people who the health care law pushed onto Medicaid—pushed onto Medicaid, are having trouble getting appointments, or even finding a doctor to take care of them because its someone who doesn’t take their new coverage.
“Does the Democrat minority leader think that that’s a smashing success?
“Well this is a survey of over two thousand emergency room doctors. Seventy-five percent of them said they’ve seen increases in emergency room patients since the year 2014.
“Only one out of twenty ER doctors said they’ve seen a decrease.
“The article quotes one doctor, Dr. Howard Mell, saying: ‘There was a grand theory the law would reduce ER visits.’
“He says, ‘Well, guess what, it didn’t happen. Visits are going up despite the [law], and in a lot of cases because of it.’
“Now, that’s according to one emergency room doctor who sees the results of the Obama health care law every day in the emergency room where he takes care of patients.
“You know, this really shouldn’t surprise anyone. We’ve seen the warning signs coming now for a while.
“Back in December, the Department of Health and Human Services found that more than half of the health care providers listed, half listed as taking Medicaid patients, well people couldn’t schedule an appointment with them. And they’re even listed with Health and Human Services as taking care of Medicaid patients.
“So this is only of the doctors who actually care for Medicaid patients in the first place. And we know that about half the doctors won’t see Medicaid patients at all because the reimbursement is so low for taking care of them.
“Now, for more than a quarter of the doctors, the wait time for a patient to actually get an appointment was more than a month.
“Does the Democrat leader think that that’s a smashing success? Waiting more than a month to see a doctor?
“Last year, almost half of doctors said that they had seen an increase in emergency room visits. Now we see its much higher.
“Now some supporters of the law last year said that wasn’t important.
“They said don’t worry, they said the numbers would drop off after the first year as more people got primary care physicians.
“Well, it hasn’t happened and it’s actually gotten worse.
“About half of the ER doctors saw an increase in the first year of Obamacare coverage –75 percent saw an increase this year, the second year.
“It’s not getting better, it continues to get worse—to the point that USA Today had an article—an article on May 4, yesterday, page A1: ‘ER Visits Surge Despite Obamacare.’
“It says: Three quarters of emergency room doctors say they’ve seen ER patient visits surge since Obamacare took effect – just the opposite of what many Americans expected would happen.
“Well, it’s not what many Americans expected would happen.
“It’s what the president said would happen.
“Back in 2009 when the president was trying to pass the law, President Obama said this, ‘If everybody’s got coverage then they’re not going to the emergency room for treatment.’
“Well, that was one of the biggest reasons that the law required everyone in America to have insurance coverage.
“Remember, that’s the mandate, called the individual mandate that remains extremely unpopular today.
“The president kept saying it over the years. He said it early on. He said it during the debates. He said it after the law had been passed.
“He continues to hold this position in spite of the fact that 75% of emergency room doctors, 2,000 doctors who actually work in emergency rooms, saying it is not true, Mr. President.
“The ERs are getting more and more crowded. You see what happens when an ER gets more crowded. The wait time goes up. The mortality rates for patients trying to get treatment there goes up because of the health care law.
“In 2013 the president told one group of people: ‘It means that all the providers around here, instead of having to take in folks in the emergency room, they suddenly have customers who have insurance.’
“Well the president’s statements continue to fly in the face of reality.
“According to the people who really know what’s really going on, the medical coverage is not keeping people out of emergency rooms.
“It has become crystal clear that coverage does not equal care.
“Not only is Obamacare coverage not delivering care, in many cases, the system to provide the coverage isn’t even working.
“There was an article last Friday in the Washington Post.
“The headline was: ‘Nearly half of Obamacare exchanges are struggling over their future.’
“It says that: ‘Nearly half of the 17 insurance marketplaces set up by the states and the District [of Columbia] under President Obama’s health law are struggling financially.’
“Does the minority leader think that that’s a smashing success?
“According to this article, ‘Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer-call centers — and tepid enrollment numbers.’
“It talks about problems in Minnesota, in Vermont, in Rhode Island, and in Colorado.
“In Oregon, the exchange has failed so spectacularly that the state shut it down entirely. The Washington Post says, ‘States have received nearly $5 billion in federal grants to establish the online marketplaces.’
“That’s $5 billion that hard working American taxpayers had to pay to set up these exchanges – and half of these exchanges, in spite of all of that taxpayer money, are now struggling financially.
“This article quotes one expert, Sabrina Corlette, who is a project director at Georgetown University’s Center for Health Insurance Reforms.
“She said: ‘A lot of people are going to want to know: What happened to all those taxpayer dollars?’
“Well, that’s what a lot of senators what to know. That’s exactly what senators on this side of the aisle have been asking for quite a while now.
“What happened to all of that hard earned taxpayer money? How much of that $5 billion was wasted?
“The states with these failing exchanges are now looking at raising taxes –raising fees on everybody else’s insurance plans.
“So in half of the states, the exchanges where people are supposed to sign up for coverage are failing.
“Billions of taxpayer dollars wasted – and states are looking at charging people even more. That’s the president’s solution for health care in America.
“For people who do get coverage, and want to see a doctor, they may have to wait more for more than a month.
“Or they may end up going to the emergency room, along with millions of other people since Obamacare’s mandates began.
“Does the minority leader, who came to the floor last week calling this health care law a ‘smashing success,’ does he really think that this is a smashing success?
“This isn’t what the American people wanted from health care reform.
“People knew what they wanted and they wanted something very simple. They wanted the care they need, from a doctor they choose, at lower cost.
“Obamacare has failed on every one of these things.
“It’s not a smashing success.
“It’s time for us to finally give Americans the health care that they were asking for all along.”
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