WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor highlighting what will not be said about the president’s health care law in tonight’s State of the Union address.
Transcript of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:
“Tonight, President Obama will be coming to Congress to deliver his final State of the Union address.
“His advisors have been all over television talking about what the president is planning to say.
“Tonight, I expect President Obama will talk a little about his health care law.
“Last year in his State of the Union address, the president bragged – he actually bragged – that more people have insurance now than when he took office.
“I expect he’ll probably say something similar tonight.
“Well, I want to talk a little bit about the other side of the story.
“I want to talk about what President Obama is not going to say tonight to the American people.
“The president is not going to admit that many Americans are actually worse off under his health care law.
“He’s not going to say that under the health care, law there is a very big difference between health law insurance and being able to actually get actual health care.
“The president focuses on the word ‘coverage’ and as a doctor, I focus on the word ‘care.’
“The New York Times had an article about this just the other day.
“This was an article on page one, last Monday, January 4: ‘Many holdouts roll the dice and pay I.R.S., not an insurer.’
“They rather pay the penalty to the Internal Revenue Service than pay the insurance company.
“Why? Turn to page nine of the same page, dated January 4, ‘Many who refuse insurance see I.R.S. Penalty as the most affordable option.’
“The most affordable option for the American people is not the Obama health law insurance, it’s actually paying the I.R.S. – the penalty.
“Now, the article tells the story about a number of different people. One is named Tim Fescoe from Culver City, California.
“He and his wife had an insurance plan that cost them more than $5,000 a year – but it came with a $6,000 deductible for each of them – $5,000 for the policy, $6,000 for the deductible for him and another $6,000 for her.
“They decided to drop that insurance last year.
“He told The New York Times, ‘It literally covered zero medical expenses.’
“I wonder, is President Obama going to talk about this man tonight – Tim Fescoe? Will we hear anything about him in his speech tonight?
“Will the president point to him in the gallery as somebody that the president claims to have helped by making insurance so expensive and so unaffordable that it was much better to just pay the penalty than deal with what the mandates of the president’s health care law call into play?
“Is he going to talk about how the deductibles and the out-of-pocket costs have gotten so high for Americans all across the country?
“This article talks also about Clint Murphy, from Sulphur Springs, Texas.
“Now, Clint Murphy expects that he’ll have to pay a penalty of about $ 1,800 for being uninsured this year.
“The article says, ‘In his view, paying that penalty is worth it, if he can avoid buying the president’s law health insurance policy that costs $2,900 or more.’
“This man in Texas went on to say, ‘I don’t see the logic behind that, and I’m just not going to do it.’
“Is President Obama going to talk about these people who think it’s better to pay the steep IRS penalty than to buy his expensive and – in many ways – useless insurance?
“There are millions of Americans in this same situation, as Clint Murphy, as Tim — Clint Murphy, as Tim Fescoe and other people who are mentioned in a story in The New York Times.
“And if The New York Times is writing about it, you — they are supporters of the health care law, even they are pointing to the damage that this very unpopular law continues to do to the American people.
“According to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, about seven million Americans were finding it cheaper to pay the tax penalty than to pay for this unusable insurance.
“Of those people who don’t get subsidies, not eligible for subsidies, 95 percent would pay — all those people – would pay less for the tax penalty than for the Obamacare bronze plan, which is the cheapest level plan that there is.
“So, for people who don’t get a subsidy from Washington, 95 percent of them would pay less by paying the tax penalty than they would for an Obamacare bronze level plan with high deductibles and high co-pays, so high that the people who look at it say it is unusable.
“Now, remember again, these bronze plans are the cheapest option, the cheapest option, and they — people are just saying no.
“Because even the cheapest option under Obamacare is more expensive than dropping insurance and paying the penalty. Bronze plans are the ones most likely to have $5,000 to $6,000 deductible — per individual on the plan.
“Do we expect President Obama to talk about any of these things tonight? Or any of these people who have been harmed by this law?
“After the president gives his State of the Union address, much has been made that he’s going on a tour of America. He’s going to visit Baton Rouge Louisiana and Omaha Nebraska.
“What the president may not know, and certainly won’t mention, is how much Obamacare premiums have increased in those states he’s going to visit.
“In Louisiana, prices for the benchmark silver plan on the Obamacare exchange went up by almost 9 percent this year.
“In Nebraska, the same benchmark silver plan rates went up almost 12 percent this past year.
“That’s for people who are willing to actually shop around and switch their insurance from last year to hold down the costs.
“Remember when the president said, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan?
“Well, if you only want a 9 percent or a 12 percent increase, you can’t keep your plan, you’ve got to shop around and try to switch to a different plan. Maybe even change your doctors or the hospitals you go to. That’s the only way you can find rates of insurance that still go up a lot but don’t go up even higher by staying with what you have.
“The president probably won’t mention that when he goes to Louisiana and Nebraska.
“He probably won’t mention either that the Obamacare co-ops in both of the states that he’s visiting collapsed last year. Fundamentally collapsed.
“Tens of thousands of people lost their insurance that they had in those states. And now taxpayers are on the hook for over a $100 million.
“The law has not come anywhere near what President Obama promised the people of Louisiana or the people of Nebraska or the people of America, all across the country.
“The American people know that Obamacare was not what they wanted.
“They know that it’s never been the right answer for the problems in our health care system.
“That’s why majorities in both houses of Congress voted recently to repeal key parts of the Obama health care law.
“We passed that legislation, and we sent it to the president’s desk.
“When President Obama vetoed that bill, he rejected the judgment of the American people.
“In his speech tonight, I expect the president to continue to pretend – pretend – that there are no problems at all with American health care under his law.
“Republicans are going to keep offering solutions to fix health care in America.
“Almost six years ago, President Obama sat down with members of Congress to try to sell us on his health care law.
“I told the president at the time that low-cost catastrophic plans could be a good option for people as long as they could use health care savings accounts to help pay their day-to-day medical bills.
“The president had no interest in that idea, or any of the Republican ideas we brought forward that day.
“So now, under his law, people are left with the equivalent of catastrophic coverage – and they’re paying far too much for it, because of all the law’s mandates.
“On top of that, the law cut back on health savings accounts – the law specifically cut back on that – so people all across the country have fewer options to help them pay for their care.
“Republicans are going to continue to bring up better ideas.
“We’ll talk about real solutions that give people more options – not more mandates.
“We’ll talk about the ideas that will help people get the care they need from a doctor they want at lower cost , not just as the president talks about coverage , coverage that most Americans find they cannot use. Not just coverage they can’t use.
“Tonight, President Obama is probably going to make a lot of promises.
“When he does, I think everybody should remember Clint Murphy from Sulphur Springs, Texas, who doesn’t see the logic in paying overpriced Obamacare insurance.
“They should remember all of the broken promises from the health care law – and all of the hard-working Americans who’ve been hurt by the Obama health care law.
“Even though President Obama won’t admit it tonight, America can do much better.
“If the president won’t say it, then it will be up to Congress to lead on this issue.
“That’s exactly what Republicans intend to do.
“President Obama’s speech tonight will be looking to define his legacy.
“Tonight – and for the rest of this year – Republicans will be offering solutions for the American people.”
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