“Now is the time for the American people to hold the President to his promises. Coverage in the exchanges, as he said, should cost less than your cell phone bill, be as easy and secure as Amazon, and let you keep your doctor. How well those promises hold
Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s speech.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) spoke about what Americans can expect when they try to sign up for the new Obama health care law exchanges that open today. Barrasso warns despite President Obama’s promises, under the exchanges, Americans will see higher costs, fraud and identity theft, customer service failures and could lose their doctor.
Excerpts of his remarks:
“As we are on the floor today, much of the federal government has been shut down. It’s shutdown because of the Democrats’ unwillingness to compromise on keeping the government open and delivering fairness to all Americans.
“While employers got a pass from the President on his health care law, the American people still face a mandate—a mandate that they start signing up for Washington-approved health insurance, and the exchanges open today.
“The House of Representatives took the reasonable and responsible step of keeping the government open, while eliminating the health care law’s unfairness.
“The unfairness that refuses to delay the individual mandate for a year, but does delay the mandate for businesses—and the unfairness refusing to eliminate special exemptions under the health care law for members of Congress weren’t in the health care law at all.
“But yet the President has granted special exemptions that I believe show the unfairness of the approach by the Democrats.
“President Obama saw that other parts of the health care law won’t work, weren’t ready.
“He’s already signed seven different bills repealing and defunding other parts of his law-he should as an interest of fairness deal with these parts that are seen all across the country as very unfair.
“The President has allowed exemptions and changed the law for specific groups.
“He’s delayed the employer mandate for a year.
“The question is why does he oppose delaying the individual mandate for a year as well?
“Why do the bosses get an exemption, but not the workers?
“That’s what someone asked me at a health fair in Lovell, Wyoming over this past weekend.
“The American people already know that the health care law is unaffordable, they know it’s unworkable, they know it’s unpopular.
“Now families are also saying that the health care law is unfair.
“The House has asked us to treat all Americans fairly—but the President and the Majority Leader refuse to do that.
“If you look at their rhetoric over the past week or so, Washington Democrats seemed eager—eager for a government shutdown.
“Well, they got their wish.
“Meanwhile, the Administration is still promising people great benefits from the new government-run health insurance exchanges.
“But today, hardworking Americans get to see which promises are kept, and which have been broken.
“I think what people are going to learn today can be summed up in two words: buyer beware.
“Here’s how the Wall Street Journal put it yesterday in a front page article: ‘Late Snags on eve of health rollout.’
“The article says: the ‘Obama administration officials scrambling to get the health law’s insurance marketplaces ready to open on Tuesday keep hitting technical problems, while government-funded field workers across the country say they aren’t fully prepared to help Americans enroll in the program.’
“The reports out today in the news show system failure across the country as the exchange go live.
“Because remember what the President said in his address to the nation just Saturday, he said they’re opening on Tuesday no matter what.
“Well I think that the people across the country are going to have more than technical problems.
“First of all, people are going to see higher costs—significantly higher costs.
“Just last week, the President promised to give Americans, and I will quote him, ‘high quality, affordable health care’, he said, ‘for less than their cell phone bill.’
“Now remember, the average monthly cell phone bill is $71.
“Well in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the least expensive plan for a 27-year old man, a person can buy will be $271.
“The President said less than $71, why is it over $271a month in Cheyenne, Wyoming? And that’s for a healthy 27-year old.
“So, before the health care law, before the exchanges, they could buy a plan like that for $82. Now, $271—a lot more than a cell phone bill.
“Now, the White House isn’t even disputing anymore that prices will be higher for many people.
“Now the White House is arguing that consumers will spend more, but they’ll get as they say, better insurance.
“The Administration is also saying that prices are going up less than they had previously estimated.
“So they previously estimated that they’re going to go up a lot, now they’re estimating they’re not going to go up quite as much as a lot, but they’re still going to go up.
“So, a smaller increase isn’t what the President promised.
“He said families would pay $2,500 less a year. That’s what the President promised—it’s not what’s happening.
“Prices in the exchanges are up all across the country.
“In California, the cheapest plan at the ‘silver’ level will cost a 40-year old in Los Angeles $240 a month.
“That same person, because of something in the law called community ratings, that same person buying the same plan, in Sacramento, California would pay $330 a month.
“As I see the astonishing looks out the faces in this Chamber, they can’t believe it. They say how can it be true? Well maybe perhaps they should have read the law, read the bill, before they voted to pass it.
“38 percent more in Sacramento than in LA, for the same identical policy, for the same 40-year old person.
“So in addition to the higher cost of insurance premiums, there are also higher out-of-pocket costs, there are higher co-payments, higher deductibles.
“All things that are going to make people look at this and say cheaper than your cell phone bill? Not a chance.
“All of that means more money out of the wallets of hard-working Americans, and more sticker shock.
“The second thing that people are learning today as they sign up in the exchanges is that many of them will actually lose their doctor.
“I practiced medicine for 25 years. I know how important it is for patients and having a long-term relationship with their caregivers.
“The exchanges, the mandates coming out of this President’s health care law, break that bond.
“That’s because insurance companies needed to find ways to keep rates from going even higher.
“So what they’ve done, is limited the doctors and limited the hospitals that patients can visit.
“In New Hampshire, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield is excluding 10 of the 28 hospitals in the state from the exchange.
“A young mother may not be able to keep seeing the pediatrician who she knows and trusts with her children’s care.
“Now, that wasn’t supposed to happen.
“The President promised that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
“Today many Americans are finding out that that’s just not the case.
“On Sunday, a few days ago, Howard Dean, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, he has admitted that one of the unintended consequence of the law is that small businesses, he said, are going to dump their employees into the exchange.
“The people who work at those small businesses don’t get to keep the insurance that they had – and they may not get to keep the doctor that they had either.
“A third thing that people are going to start to see today as the exchanges open for business is that there’s a definite risk of fraud and identity theft.
“How can that be? Well, the Administration has hired so-called ‘navigators,’ people to help enroll consumers in the exchanges.
“It turns out that these workers aren’t well trained, or even subject to consistent background checks.
“Even the Obama Administration has been warning that con artists will take advantage of confusion over the law to steal people’s identities.
“As I said earlier, buyer beware.
“Security may also be inadequate in the giant government ‘data hub.’
“Now these are the huge databases of detailed personal information about everyone in the exchanges.
“The information will be available to people in many different government agencies.
“The Administration promises that the Data Hub will work, but they will not talk about what they’ve done to ensure that it is secure.
“Finally, we know that today there are going to be a lot of customer service system failures.
“President Obama said that buying insurance through the exchanges, he said, would be like shopping at Amazon.com.
“Well, it’s shaping up to be much less consistent than that.
“Instead of simply clicking a few buttons online, many people are spending hours following up with phone calls, emails, and faxes. Faxes!
“As recently as two weeks ago, government software couldn’t reliably tell people the correct price for their insurance.
“Late last week, the Administration delayed enrollment of some of its small-business exchanges.
Washington DC said last week that parts of its exchange also weren’t ready.
“In the state of Oregon, state officials say that software problems will force them to delay their website. People there will have to find other ways to get help signing up.
“That is not how Amazon.com works – that is not what the President promised.
“Now, it didn’t have to be this way.
“The American people knew what they wanted from health care reform. They wanted lower costs, and more accessible quality care.
“President Obama could have drafted a law that actually addressed Americans’ concerns.
“Instead, he forced through a law making health care more complicated, more uncertain, more expensive.
“Now is the time for the American people to hold the President to his promises.
“Coverage in the exchanges, as he said, should cost less than your cell phone bill, be as easy and secure as Amazon, and let you keep your doctor.
“How well those promises hold up will be the real legacy of the Obama health care law.”
###