Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this morning I will be joining--at the President's invitation--a bipartisan group of Congressmen and Senators to discuss the need for criminal justice reform in the country. I am actually very glad the President has shown such an interest in this topic, one we have been working on in the Congress for a number of years.

I have said it before and I will say it again, I don't agree with the President on a lot of things, perhaps most things, but I am glad to know he is making this issue a priority. I think it is one of those rare, magical moments where you see things coming together on a bipartisan basis across the political spectrum, where we can actually make some real progress that will benefit the American people and make our criminal justice system fairer and more effective.

Of course, in the Senate, a diverse bipartisan group has shared this concern for a very long time. While I appreciate the President's vocal support and for convening the group to discuss it this morning, I want to make it clear that this legislation has been years in the making. Actually, the impetus for the part I contributed to the bill emanated from a 2007 experiment in Texas in prison reform. That legislation has manifested itself in the Senate and is now called the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. It is a result of a lot of hard work and some compromise, which is the only way things actually get done around here in order to build a bipartisan consensus, and it brings targeted and much needed reforms to the Federal justice system.

I am very glad to be able to join with the junior Senator from Rhode Island, somebody, again, who is probably at the opposite end of the political spectrum from me in terms of ideology, but we have found common ground on this important prison reform component.

Most prisoners will eventually be released into society, which is something we have forgotten. Unfortunately, our prisons have too often become warehouses for human beings, and we have forgotten the reality that many of them will be released back into society. Yet we have done very little to help prepare them to successfully reenter society rather than get into that turnstile that sometimes characterizes our criminal justice system and many end up right back in prison again. We can't save everybody, but I believe we can offer an opportunity for some who want to save themselves to improve themselves and be better prepared to reenter society as productive individuals.

As I said, this reform was based on an experiment in Texas starting back in 2007. People perhaps think of Texas as being tough on crime, and indeed we are, but we finally realized we also have to be smart on crime. Prisons cost money. Every time somebody reoffends and ends up back in the prison system, we have to pay the salaries of prosecutors, public defenders, judges, and others, and that is expensive. If we can find a way to be fiscally more responsible and actually be more effective when it comes to the results, we ought to grab that opportunity. I happen to think it represents the way we ought to legislate here in Washington, DC, that is based on successful experiments in the States.

It is no coincidence that Louis Brandeis once called the States the laboratories of democracy, but it represents the opposite of what we have seen here in Washington, DC, when, for example, in ObamaCare the President decides we are going to take over one-sixth of the U.S. economy and we are going to mandate from Washington a one-size-fits-all approach for 320 million or so Americans. It just doesn't work, as we have documented time and time again on the floor.

I am optimistic we have found an area where we can work with the President and move this legislation forward. I ask that the President roll up his sleeves and work with us, along with the Democrats and both Houses of Congress, so we can make this criminal justice reform a reality.

Mr. President, I mentioned ObamaCare. That is my second topic for today.

This afternoon we will keep a promise we made to the American people that we will vote to repeal ObamaCare. ObamaCare--were this legislation signed into law--could not sustain this mortal wound that is going to be inflicted this afternoon. Are we doing this for partisan reasons? I would say, no, absolutely not. What we are doing is listening to our constituents who told us that they have had one bad experience after another with ObamaCare. They have been forced by the Federal Government to buy coverage that they don't want, don't need, and can't afford. So we proposed to send a bill to the President that would repeal ObamaCare and then replace it with affordable coverage that people actually want. We made it clear to the American people that if they gave us the privilege of leading in the Congress, we would keep this promise, and we will fulfill that promise in the Senate today.

I remember voting at 7 a.m. on Christmas Eve in 2009, when 60 Democrats voted to jam ObamaCare down the throats of the American people. They made promise after promise. The President himself said: If you like what you have, you can keep it. That proved not to be true. The President said a family of four would see an average reduction in their premium cost by $2,500, and that wasn't true.

So as somebody who has spent a little bit of time in law enforcement as a former attorney general in my State, I would call this a deceptive trade practice. This is defrauding the American people, selling them a product based on a set of promises that ends up not being true.

I believe it is time to repeal this bad law and to replace it with something that people want and that they can afford.

My State has been hit hard, as all States have been, including the State of the Presiding Officer, by the effects of ObamaCare. Almost every day we read news accounts of escalating health care costs, including premiums and fewer choices and options and less access for our constituents.

Just recently, the Houston Chronicle reported that next year the Houston-area patients won't have access to any plans on the ObamaCare exchange that cover costs at MD Anderson, the premier cancer-treating facility in America. If we can't buy insurance to cover catastrophic events like cancer at the hospital of our choice, what good is it?

As a matter of fact, I remember our former colleague, Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma, who has used up most of his nine lives, but he has experienced cancer at least three times, to my recollection, and he actually was seeking treatment at MD Anderson. He said that as a result of ObamaCare, he could no longer get coverage from the insurance policy he had because MD Anderson wasn't an acceptable provider under the ObamaCare policy.

So today I will provide a very quick snapshot of the thousands of letters I have received, and I am sure they are typical of the letters we have all received from our constituents about the problems they have encountered with ObamaCare.

One of my constituents recently wrote to me to tell me her story, and it is similar to the narrative I have heard from many others. Her insurance plan was canceled last fall because it didn't meet the mandates of ObamaCare. As a result, she had to switch to a more expensive policy, one with a higher monthly payment and an $11,000 deductible. What good is it to have an insurance policy with an $11,000 deductible? How many Americans can self-insure and pay that bill so that they can take advantage of what limited coverage they actually have under such a policy?

She went on to say that she was notified that her plan would once again be terminated for the next year, and her monthly costs would go up again as a result. To top it off, she would end up losing her primary care provider. In other words, the doctor she preferred would no longer be available to her under this new policy that she would be forced to buy at a higher price.

She is like a lot of folks around the country--full of questions and frustrations and seemingly nowhere to turn to find any relief for her spouse, for her children, or for their small business.

This particular constituent implored me and Congress to do something about it. She said: ``Senator Cornyn, this has caused turmoil throughout Texas ..... we are terrorized in our own country by the so-called benefit of the Affordable Care Act.'' Those are her words, not mine. She said her family was terrorized by ObamaCare.

The strong message she conveyed is not all that different from what I have heard from other people. Another constituent raised a similar issue. He is now, for the third time in as many years, searching for yet another health insurance plan after his was canceled. He went on to highlight another theme that is impossible to miss when I talk to folks back home about this topic. He said:

I seem to remember the President saying something about liking your insurance and being able to keep it? For myself and my family it's been just the opposite. We loved our insurance prior to the passage of the act and have since been forced to purchase much more expensive insurance with much higher deductibles.

Well, he is right. And in just a few hours we are going to have a chance to vote on the Johnson amendment to this legislation we are considering, which is an ``If you like it, you can keep it'' amendment, to keep that guarantee. We will see how our friends on the other side of the aisle vote, who forced this flawed legislation down the throats of the American people, based on this experience.

Just like many other Texans, the people I have talked about back home have seen their premiums and their deductibles skyrocket to unaffordable levels. Along with this anemic economy and flat wages, people have found themselves with less and less money in their pockets and found themselves with a decreased and diminished standard of living, which has caused a lot of frustration.

This particular constituent ended his letter to me by asking the Members of Congress to ``do anything within your power to reverse this terrible healthcare trend. ..... I need relief,'' he said.

We have reached a pretty scary time in our Nation's history when we have Americans writing and calling their elected representatives saying they need relief from their own government. The threat is not outside; people are being threatened by their own government and the overreach they see and the negative impact it has on their quality of life and their standard of living.

So we have a duty now--we have a mandate, I believe--to repeal this terrible law and to make it a relic of the past, and we are going to do our duty. We are going to keep our promise to the American people today.

There was an outcry from my constituents back home on another topic that gripped our attention--the horrific videos released showing Planned Parenthood executives callously discussing the harvesting of organs from unborn children. We seem to have forgotten those terrible videos and what they have depicted.

This bill will also do something to defund Planned Parenthood and redirect those funds to the many community health centers that exist in Texas and across the country that day in and day out diligently provide health care to people in my State and around the country. There will be no less money directed toward public health care; it will be redirected away from Planned Parenthood and to the community health centers.

By the way, there are a whole lot more community health centers, so there will actually be improved access for most Americans at community health centers.

By repealing ObamaCare, we are doing more than just delivering on a promise; we are providing a way forward for millions of Americans around this country who have been hurt--not helped but hurt--by ObamaCare. We will do our best to help them find some relief, as one of my constituents whom I just quoted implored.

We look forward to passing this legislation to scrap ObamaCare and to bring this country one step closer to making it history.

Again, this isn't just about repealing ObamaCare; this is about replacing it with coverage that people want and that suits their personal needs at a price they can afford. One would have thought that health care reform would be about making health care more affordable, but, in fact, ObamaCare was just the opposite. It made it more expensive and less affordable, as we have seen and as I have tried to point out in my remarks.

I don't see any other Senator seeking recognition, so I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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