IRS Investigation
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor because for those folks who picked up the Wall Street Journal this morning, this was the headline regarding the health care law: June 19, 2014, ``Large Health Plans Set to Raise Rates.''
The picture emerging from proposed 2015 insurance rates in the 10 States that have completed their filings, as the States have to do--stretching from Rhode Island to Washington State, in all but one of those 10, the largest health insurer in the State is proposing to increase premiums between 8.5 percent and 22.8 percent for next year.
That is not what the President of the United States promised the American people when he forced through a health care law with only Democrats voting for it in the House and in the Senate. What he said is that by the end of his first term, premiums for families would drop by $2,500 per family. That is not what we are seeing: Across the board, the largest insurer in each of those 10 States, anywhere between 8.5 percent to 22 percent for next year. It makes us wonder how that is going to sit with the American public when they are faced with these bills.
Republicans have been coming to this floor to talk about the health care law that Democrats in the Senate voted for, the President signed, and we talked about the many alarming side effects--the alarming side effects Americans have been feeling ever since the law has passed.
People are still trying to understand the law, and they are asking the question: How is this actually helping me? That is what people want to know, is how is the law helping them. Much of what they are hearing is not how it is helping them, but how it is hurting them. Once again, an alarming side effect in the front page of the newspaper this morning.
It seems like just about every day we pick up a newspaper and see headlines about another broken promise by the Democrats who voted for the health care law--Democrats who came to the Senate floor and the floor of the House of Representatives and said this is a good thing.
But then, of course, it was Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, who said: First you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it. As more Americans are finding out what is in it, they continue to be very unhappy with what they are getting.
American families all across the country are finding out that the President's promises didn't come true. They weren't true.
As chairman of the Republican policy committee, I have been looking at the damaging side effects of the health care law around the country and in different States and what I have found meeting people around the country. Here is what I found in North Carolina:
Last Friday there was a headline in the Triangle Business Journal in the Raleigh-Durham, NC, area on the Affordable Care Act: ``ACA forcing majority of [North Carolina] employers to change health care offerings.''
The President said: If you like what you have, you can keep it. The headline in North Carolina is: The law is forcing a majority of employers to change their health care offerings.
The article says:
More than half of North Carolina companies are considering radical changes to the health plans they offer employees----
Not little changes, not little tweaks, radical changes to the health plans they offer employees.
``You might look at raising your deductible to keep premiums lower, or look at what you are covering,'' Hegeman says. ``Or charging more in terms of co-pay, in order to keep premiums lower.''
It quotes one human resources executive says that companies `` ..... might look at raising your deductible to keep premiums lower, or look at what you are covering. ..... ''
Those are all considerations because the President made a lot of promises that are not being able to be kept, and people who actually read the law as it was being proposed knew the President's promises were not going to be able to be kept.
This is a terrifying side effect of the health care law for many people--people who now in North Carolina are worried about these radical changes to their insurance plans. That is what some companies are going to have to do to keep down the costs.
But for many people, the costs keep going up anyway, and we are seeing higher premiums in those 10 States I mentioned in the headlines today, but specifically in North Carolina, here is what WTVD, a television station in Raleigh, reported last month. They did a story entitled, ``Blue Cross missing age sales target for ACA could mean higher bills.'' So higher bills for North Carolina.
It turns out not enough young and healthy people signed up for the insurance in the State's ObamaCare exchange.
The President said: Oh, we will get all these young, healthy people signing up, buying insurance that--in my opinion--they don't need, don't want, can't afford, will never use. The President said: We will get all these healthy people signing up.
It didn't happen. They missed the sales targets in terms of what they expected in terms of the age of those signing up. So the biggest insurer in the State in North Carolina says it may have to raise rates next year.
The news story quoted a woman named Amanda LaRoque. She and her husband own their own business, they pay their own health insurance, and they say their premiums have doubled since they signed up for the Obama health care law. They are now paying $999 a month for two people--almost $1,000 a month for two people.
I remember listening to President Obama and President Bill Clinton having a discussion in New York a couple days before the exchange opened. The President was saying: Easier to use than Amazon, and he said: Cheaper than your cell phone bill.
The plan was going to cost less than your cell phone bill.
This couple in North Carolina says they are paying almost $1,000 a month and their rates are going even higher. So it makes us wonder was the President of the United States again trying to mislead the American people intentionally? Did he not understand the law which was written behind closed doors over there in Harry Reid's office? Did he not care? Does he still not care? But that is what people are seeing and experiencing as a result of the President's health care law.
But this couple is not the only one paying more because of the health care law. According to a new analysis by the Manhattan Institute, people all over the country are going to have to pay more--much more--than what the President told them, much more than they ever anticipated.
The Manhattan Institute found that for an average 64-year-old woman in North Carolina, her premiums would have been $210 a month in 2013, before the ObamaCare mandates and everything else kicked in. In 2014, 1 year later and all the mandates, buying insurance through the ObamaCare exchange her premiums almost triple to $623 a month. She is paying almost $5,000 a year more this year than last year because of the President's health care law that the Democrats voted for in the House and in the Senate. The President said it would lower premiums by $2,500 a year. Yet she is seeing her premiums go up by $5,000 a year.
For a 27-year-old man, he would have paid an average of $80 a month in 2013. Under the President's health care law, $217 a month--an extra $1,600 a year than last year. That is not what the President promised him.
President Obama then goes and gives a speech not that long ago and said: Democrats who voted for this law--and there are a lot of Members of this body that fit this description. Democrats who voted for this law should forcefully defend and be proud of it--forcefully defend and be proud, the President of the United States said just a couple weeks ago. Is there a Senator in this body who is willing to stand and forcefully defend the fact that people in North Carolina are paying double or triple for insurance? Is there anyone who wants to defend this expensive side effect of the health care law?
I know some people have been helped by the law. Some people are paying less for insurance than they would have before, but many people are paying much more. That is because the people who pay less are getting a subsidy from Washington to help hide the rate hikes that everybody else is facing.
President Ronald Reagan once said, ``Government doesn't solve problems; it subsidizes them.'' That is exactly what is going on with the President's health care law. The Democrats who voted for this health care law did not solve the problem with our health care system. They just threw more money at it to hide the fact that the law actually made things worse. People wanted reform that gave them access to quality care, that gave them affordable care. No one wanted more expensive coverage.
I will talk about one more example. That is the devastating side effect of smaller paychecks some families will be facing because of the Democrats' health care law. Another side effect, smaller paychecks.
The law says employers--including State governments, including local governments, school districts, communities, counties--have to cover people who work 30 hours a week or more and treat them as full-time employees. They have to cover those people with insurance and treat them as full-time employees. That is what the law considers full-time employees.
There was another story in Raleigh, NC, on WTVD. It said State agencies--we are not talking about for-profit businesses. State agencies are looking at cutting the hours of part-time workers to keep them under that 30-hour limit.
The North Carolina Agriculture Department has about 240 part-time employees who are now working more than 30 hours--less than 40, more than 30--240 of these folks at the North Carolina Agriculture Department.
How about the North Carolina Department of Transportation? They have almost 600 people in exactly the same situation. So North Carolina is going to have to look very closely at what to do with those individuals. If the hours are cut back to under 30 hours, that can mean smaller paychecks.
One expert at Duke University told the TV station he expects the State will see 300,000 full-time workers be moved to part time. Local governments, State governments, private employers, they are all having to make these same decisions. Why? Because of the health care law.
Those 300,000 workers moved to part time by the definition--not what the man or woman on the street thinks of as the definition of full time, but what the health care law defines it as. That is a big hit to people's paychecks, and it is another very harmful side effect in the health care law.
It didn't have to be that way. Republicans have offered solutions for patient-centered health care reform such as increasing the ability of small businesses to get together, join together, negotiate for better rates, expand health savings accounts, allow people to buy insurance that works best for them and their family and shop in other States to do it, and not have to buy this whole big list of insurance the President says they need when it is not what their family needs. It is not what they need for their kids, for their families, for their spouses, not what they want, not what they can afford, because the President essentially thinks he knows better than American families about their own personal situation. Republicans have offered ideas that would give people the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower costs--not lower costs as a subsidy for some people, but lower costs for everybody. That is what we are working on, lower cost of care.
Republicans are going to keep coming to the floor. We are going to keep offering real solutions for better health care without all of these terrible side effects, because we know the list is there, one side effect after another. They are costly, harmful, some are irreversible, and nothing that the American people wanted.
On the front-page headline today is ``Large Health Plans Set to Raise Rates.'' Insurance rates in 10 States that have completed their filings, stretching from Rhode Island to Washington State, all but one of them, the largest health insurer in the State is proposing to increase premiums between 8.5 and 22 percent for next year. The American people will once again realize that the Democrats and the President who voted for this health care law have broken their trust, broken their promises to the American people, and the American people deserve better.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
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