Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, over the last few months, we have witnessed ObamaCare crumbling in my home State of Arizona. Several Obamacare-established co-ops collapsed, including Arizona's Meritus Mutual Health Partners, forcing nearly 63,000 Arizonans scrambling to find new coverage. Last month, UnitedHealth, the Nation's largest health insurer, announced it will exit the Arizona marketplace and leave about 45,000 Arizonans to find new coverage in 2017. Now, as a direct result of the President's failed law, health insurer Humana just announced it, too, will exit the marketplace in 2017 in my home State. All together, over half of Arizona's counties will be left with a single insurer, and another third will be left with just two. In turn, this will cause premiums to skyrocket even higher than last year. While Democrats continue to stand by a failed law, Arizona families are bearing the burden. This is unacceptable.

More than 6 years after ObamaCare was rammed through Congress without a single Republican vote--and I was on the floor on Christmas Eve morning as it was passed on a strict party-line vote--Democrats are still trying to spin their overhaul of America's health care system. We continue to hear from advocates of ObamaCare who make their claims that continue to leave me speechless, such as that insurance markets are stable and premiums are not rising quickly. Unfortunately, as is often the case with advocates of the President's disastrous law, these statements are largely devoid of reality.

ObamaCare's upheaval and disruption to our Nation's health care system is a direct result of the efforts of the White House and Democratic leadership to write this massive bill behind closed doors, with no input from this side of the aisle. The process was anything but bipartisan, as promised on the campaign trail by the then-Presidential candidate, Barack Obama. Instead of crafting health care reform that works for the American people, the administration cut deals with drug companies to get their support, ensuring they would see increased profits and consumers would face increased costs.

Democrats' partisan effort to write and pass ObamaCare without Republican participation flies in the face of how every other major reform in American history was enacted. I have worked with Democrats on many occasions to solve some of the country's most urgent problems. Never in my experience has one party attempted to increase the government's influence in one-sixth of the American economy over the unanimous opposition of the other party.

Unfortunately, Americans are now facing the consequences of this massive overhaul of our health care system. The biggest problem in our health care system, and Americans' most pressing concern, is out-of- control cost increases, but ObamaCare does nothing to address this issue. That is why we continue to see health care costs balloon, while health insurance becomes increasingly expensive and unaffordable for citizens and their employers.

Sadly, as we have seen in recent weeks, the situation is only getting worse. Just last month, a poll by Gallup found that Americans cite health care costs as the most important financial burden facing their families. They name health care costs ahead of other financial burdens, such as low wages, debt, and being able to afford college or a mortgage.

The American people are now experiencing firsthand exactly what Republicans have been warning about ever since ObamaCare was written: The law will ultimately do far more harm than good, and they have every right to question what the future holds. The fact is, the crumbling of ObamaCare should come as no surprise to anyone.

UnitedHealth--which will exit from all but a handful of States in the individual marketplace in 2017--lost $475 million on the ObamaCare exchanges in 2015 and is projected to lose $650 million on the exchanges in 2016. Its exit from ObamaCare exchanges will send an estimated 45,000 citizens of my State, Arizona, scrambling to find new coverage with even fewer options to choose from.

Humana's announcement that it will follow in UnitedHealth's footsteps by exiting Arizona's exchanges should also come as no surprise, given the fact that it continues to incur losses as a result of ObamaCare's onerous regulations. Humana and UnitedHealth's exit means fewer options, less competition, and most certainly higher costs for consumers. This is especially true after Blue Cross Blue Shield, the only remaining provider in several Arizona counties, increased premiums last year by 27 percent merely to recover the $185 million in losses it incurred in the ObamaCare marketplace between 2014 and 2015.

The health insurer has noted that continuing to suffer losses in the marketplace is unsustainable, meaning significant premium increases are on the horizon for 2017. All of this news of insurance companies exiting the marketplace and others increasing premiums is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the consequences of this disastrous law. Since ObamaCare became law, prescription drug costs have continued to skyrocket.

Instead of encouraging innovation and competition, ObamaCare places heavy taxes on manufacturers and prescription drug importers to the tune of $27 billion over 10 years. According to Standard & Poor's, the cost of drugs on the individual insurance market jumped 50 percent in 2015. Just as some are forgoing a visit to the doctor because of higher out-of-pocket costs, we are starting to see more and more individuals with chronic conditions not getting their prescriptions filled because of the increasing cost of drugs.

The fact is, ObamaCare was a failure from the start and Americans are paying the price. The best thing government can do to expand access to health insurance is to institute reforms that will rein in costs and make health care more affordable. I have introduced legislation to replace ObamaCare with real reform that would expand quality access to health care without compromising individual liberty, competition, or innovation.

Regrettably, every Republican effort to meaningfully bring down the cost of health care has been met with rigid opposition by Democrats who are more concerned with protecting President Obama's legacy than making health care accessible and affordable. Every day that goes by, with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continuing to dig in their heels, leads to another day that millions of Americans face higher health care costs, decreased quality of care, and fewer choices.

It is past time for the President of the United States and Democrats in Congress to answer to the thousands of citizens across my State and the Nation who have been let down time and again by this disastrous law.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source