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Floor Speech

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Mr. HAGERTY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the unaffordability of healthcare, a crisis created and perpetuated by my Democrat colleagues across the aisle.

Fifteen years ago, without a single Republican vote, congressional Democrats authored and signed into law the so-called Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.

Ever since, congressional Democrats, without Republican support, have continued to prop up this failed system with tax credits and bogus incentives to hide a broken foundation. Congressional Democrats even expanded these tax credits under the guise of the pandemic--again, on a wholly partisan basis--not once but twice, which included setting a deadline for their expiration this year.

Now they are expecting the American public to believe that Republicans are culpable--culpable--for what the Democrats have done. They have clearly broken the system.

When ObamaCare passed in 2010, Democrats promised the American people that this legislation would make insurance affordable. Sadly, this promise has gone unfulfilled. I have heard from constituents across my home State of Tennessee who are grappling with the realities of this broken system.

In 2014, the premium for a benchmark plan was $197. That is 2014. In 2026, that premium is expected to be $711. That is an increase of 260 percent.

As if this wasn't enough evidence, take the story from a constituent in East Tennessee who is self-employed. He and wife own and operate a consulting firm. For his family of three, their insurance premium for the exact same plan they had this year will increase from $1,400 a month to $2,200 a month; no new coverage, no additional family members, just higher cost from an inefficient and fraud-ridden system that is collapsing under its own weight.

This is not affordable health insurance. If health insurance were truly affordable, then Tennesseans like the one I just mentioned would not be forced to rely on taxpayer subsidies just to afford their monthly premium, not to mention out-of-pocket costs, copays, and coinsurance.

Beyond affordability, the Democrats promised to ``fix'' the healthcare system without adding to the national deficit. Their reforms were supposed to lower the deficit by more than $100 billion. Instead, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, ObamaCare has cost taxpayers an additional $1.3 trillion. The deficit has continued to grow, with healthcare spending being a driver of that deficit.

Welcome to socialism, my friends.

ObamaCare was supposed to ``end abuses by insurance companies'' and create what they call a ``robust and competitive'' marketplace.

Well, ObamaCare has been nothing but a profit-making machine for insurance companies. ObamaCare has funded tens of billions of dollars, especially in pandemic-era subsidies, directly to insurance companies. And we have seen insurance companies' profits balloon to historic levels.

Now, let's talk about the fraud that prevails in the ObamaCare system. We will never have a competitive marketplace when that marketplace is riddled with fraud.

As a test for the ease and the extent of the fraud that plagues ObamaCare, the GAO created applications for fictitious individuals--all using invalid information--and submitted these fake applications to the Federal ObamaCare exchanges for enrollment. The results--shocking.

Of the 24 invalid applications that were submitted, 23 of them--that is more than 95 percent of the applications--were wrongly approved for subsidized health insurance. Get that. Over 95 percent of these fraudulent applications were approved to be subsidized in ObamaCare.

As of this September, 18 of the 20 fake enrollees for 2025 are still covered. Not only did the ObamaCare exchange not identify these fraudulent identities, but insurers didn't either. Why? Well, perhaps it is because those 18 applicants paid more than $10,000 per month to the insurance companies for these nonexistent patients. The money wasn't paid to the patients. The money was paid directly to the insurance companies to the tune of $10,000 each. No wonder the insurance companies aren't complaining. No costs, no services provided; it all falls to the bottom-line profitability of the insurers when this happens.

The solution to this floundering system, created by the Democrats without a single Republican vote, is certainly not what Democrats have proposed today. They want to continue wasting Americans' hard-earned dollars.

Earlier today on the Senate floor there was a stark difference of views. On one side, Senate Democrats proposed a 3-year extension along with the repeal of anti-fraud provisions that we passed during the Working Families Tax Cut. More fraud, more waste, more ill-obtained profits for insurers. This unserious, partisan proposal would cost a whopping $83 billion. It would not lower premiums for 93 percent of Americans by a single cent. I opposed that effort.

Instead, Republicans are offering real solutions, solutions that will lower benchmark premiums by 11 percent, save $30 billion by appropriating cost-sharing reductions, and empower patients to make their own healthcare decisions.

There are further Republican solutions being debated right now, solutions that add serious fraud protections and ensure that wealthy Americans are not receiving taxpayer subsidies, solutions that ensure no Federal funds are used for abortions; that ensure illegal immigrants aren't accessing these credits to free-ride and overwhelm the American healthcare system.

I hope my Democratic colleagues will stop playing their political games and begin to work with Republicans to actually lower the cost of healthcare for the American people.

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