Statements On Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss again how ObamaCare is negatively impacting American families.

NBC News is reporting that 5 million Americans have received cancellation notices from health insurers. In my home State of South Dakota, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader is reporting that nearly 3,000 people have lost the plan they had. Yet this administration is merely pursuing political bandaids for the problem created by the President's health care law. The President is trying to fix this problem of canceled plans, but his solution is a politically motivated bandaid in response to pressure from Members of his own party who are nervous about the next election. The unfortunate reality of his bandaid is that it won't work.

Instead of taking responsibility for his failed policies and broken promises, he is changing his mind about how he wants his law to work at the eleventh hour. He is kicking the can to State insurance regulators to determine whether, in 48 days--which is from the date of his announcement on Thursday--they can reverse a train wreck that has been barreling down the tracks for nearly 4 years.

The President's health care law told the entire country that compliance with the President's law must occur on January 1, 2014. In response, industry and State regulators complied. Now, after relentlessly pushing a law that is fundamentally flawed, the President is changing his mind. He is expecting the State insurance commissioners to bail him out, to allow Americans to keep the plans they were promised they could keep.

Since passage of his health care law, the President has continued to tout his law and has continued to make promises to the American people that he knowingly cannot keep. While I agree that Americans should be able to keep the plans they have and like, this eleventh-hour attempt at a fix is an indication that the underpinnings of this law are irreversibly flawed.

The administration is now trying to live up to a promise it made despite the fact that they knew the promise wasn't true. In fact, the President repeated and reiterated that promise as recently as September 26 despite the fact that the administration knew it wasn't true. In 2010 the administration knew that up to 93 million Americans in the private market were in danger of losing their current health care plan. But the deeper problem with the President's fix is that it is merely a bandaid. By this time next year Americans will be in this exact same situation all over again.

The President is not focused on finding a good permanent solution but a good political solution. Putting this bandaid on the problem now may get him and his party past next year's elections. He seems more interested in preserving that power than creating real solutions to the underlying issues. In fact, the President is so concerned about the politics of his actions that he is considering yet again a way to bail out his union friends. As part of the health care law, unions agree to pay a tax to help pay for the cost of expanding coverage. This tax, known as the reinsurance tax, is scheduled to be paid by self-insured plans, including plans administered by unions and many of the largest businesses in America. But the unions are unhappy that they have to pay money into a fund to help fund a benefit for someone other than their dues-paying members. They took their complaints to the administration, and, buried in a regulation issued last month, the administration announced they intend to exempt unions from paying this tax.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal editorial page articulated exactly why the unions should not be exempt from this tax. The editorial, called ``ObamaCare's Union Favor,'' argues that ``the unions ought to consider this tax a civic obligation in solidarity with the (uninsured) working folk they claim to support.'' It further states that ``there's no conceivable rationale--other than politics--for releasing union-only plans from a tax.'' As the editorial pointed out, exempting unions from this tax will only mean increased taxes on nonunionized Americans in self-insured plans since the tax is structured in a way that it must raise a total of $25 billion and isn't structured as a straight percentage like most taxes.

Granting this political deal to unions is why I am introducing the Union Tax Fairness Act. This bill would ensure that unions live up to the commitments they made when they put their political weight behind the health care law. It is political deals such as this that highlight how this law is failing the average American.

This reinsurance fee exemption isn't the only backroom deal the administration is trying to grant unions. Earlier this fall the administration tried to find a way to provide ObamaCare subsidies to ineligible union employees. I introduced a bill called the Union Bailout Prevention Act which was aimed at ensuring the administration could not make that special deal either.

It is clear that this President--President Obama--is trying to fix problems in his health care law by making decisions and exemptions based on favors to his political allies.

Democrats are on the run from the law they once championed. They recognize this law is sagging under its own weight. Last week there were 39 House Democrats who voted against the Obama administration by supporting the Upton bill that provides a better solution to allowing Americans to keep plans they like than what the President proposed. Even former President Bill Clinton said President Obama should keep his word when it comes to allowing Americans to keep the plans they have and like. In this Chamber, several Senate Democrats are running for the exits and looking for a legislative escape hatch of their own.

Unfortunately, the solutions proposed by this administration to fix problems in the health care law are only temporary solutions. Their solutions to problems are either temporary delays--as they did with the employer mandate and the 1-year extension of 2013 plans--or political favors to their friends and allies. Instead, this administration should agree to delay this entire law for all Americans.

Americans are deeply skeptical of the Affordable Care Act. According to last week's Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans now disapprove of the health care law. There is a more recent poll this morning in which ABC News and the Washington Post have that number at 57 percent disapproving.

The time to act is now to ensure Americans can keep the plans they have and like. This ``fix'' won't prevent Americans from losing their coverage, facing sticker shock and premium increases, or losing their doctors. This law is fundamentally broken, and we need to start over and enact real reforms that decrease costs and improve access to care.

As do so many of us in this Chamber, I hear on a daily basis from my constituents in South Dakota about the very real impact this is having on middle-income Americans. This is an email I received last week:

My wife just received our health care insurance policy renewals for 2014 and we are in shock!

Our monthly premiums increased from $400 per month to $1,000, or over $7,000 more per year. My wife age 59 and me age 60 now receive maternity benefits and some other very limited coverage. We lost our prescription drug co-pay and doctor visits co-pay. These expenses will now be included in our $6,300 deductible. I will have no option for any subsidy to offset these increases in premiums.

He goes on to say:

Please, please push for a reversal of this horrible health care plan.

My wife and I are physically ill after receiving this letter from our insurance carrier. Again, the government is destroying our lives and we need you to stop this madness.

This is just one example of many that I have heard from my State of South Dakota and many that my colleagues here in the Senate are hearing from all across this country. It is clear this program, this health insurance law, is not ready for prime time. It is time for us to take a timeout and to go back to the drawing board and construct a plan, an insurance program for this country, legislation that will help reduce the costs for working-class Americans, give them access to better quality of care, and allow them to keep the doctor they choose, which is very much in jeopardy as well as a result of this takeover, literally, of one-sixth of our economy.

There is a better way, as I think countless--millions--Americans are finding out through canceled coverages, sticker shock from skyrocketing premiums, and the new knowledge that they may not be able to keep not only their health insurance plan but also the doctors they like. This is a grim reality for way too many Americans, and it is time for us to step forward and do something about it.

The President's proposal is a bandaid. It is a political solution. It is not a permanent solution; it is temporary. We need long-term fixes put in place that will address the health care concerns people have. The way to do that isn't to have the Federal Government literally assume control of one-sixth of the American economy and all the decisionmaking that takes out of the hands of ordinary, middle-class families--people across this country who are working hard to take care of their families.

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