Executive Session

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, there has been some confusion about the President's health care law recently, so I come to the floor to try to clear up one point.

Just before the Fourth of July holiday, the Obama administration admitted to the world that its health care law is not working out according to plan. It did it in an unusual way--in a blog post--right before the Fourth of July holiday, but yet it is known to the world. By choosing to delay the law's employer mandate, the President conceded it would place a tremendous burden on America's job creators.

Then, just this past Sunday, the Senate majority leader went on ``Meet the Press,'' on television, and said: ``ObamaCare has been wonderful for America.'' Wonderful for America? Senator Reid's comments demonstrate once again that Democrats in Washington--the people who voted for this law--are not listening to the American people.

I hear it when I return home to Wyoming every weekend. I did this past weekend. I hear it as Members of the Senate do when they talk to friends from home. I heard it today from people from Gillette and Evanston and Cody that this health care law is unraveling. So I just want to make a couple of things clear to everyone.

After 3 1/2 years, we know the Obama health care law is not working. It is a train wreck. If the law was wonderful, it wouldn't increase premiums. It wouldn't shrink paychecks. It wouldn't discourage job creation. If the law was wonderful, we wouldn't put the feared IRS as the enforcer of the health care law. If the law was wonderful, the administration wouldn't have delayed one of its most critical parts. It is clear to me that even President Obama does not share Senator Reid's opinion that the health care law is wonderful.

This law is not wonderful for America. It is obviously terrible for America's job creators. It is also terrible for many people trying to make a living in this country.

There was an article on the front page of the New York Times recently--Wednesday, July 10--with the headline: ``At Restaurant, Delay Is Help on Health Law.'' The delay is a help.

This article--front page, above the fold of the New York Times--looked at a small Maryland restaurant called the Shanty Grille. What is going on at that restaurant makes the case better than any actuarial study, any sort of charts or any economic model ever could because it is a story about real people and their lives. The article talked about how the law was hurting everyone from the owner of the restaurant to the uninsured waiter, to the chef who has insurance. All of them were hurt by this health care law. Because for each of these people and for millions of others similar to them across the country, the reality of health care reform is that it has fallen far short of the President's many promises.

According to this article in the New York Times, the restaurant's owner is on a pace to finally this year turn a profit. It will be the first profit since the economic downturn a number of years ago. Four years after the recession ended, he is finally set to recover and get back into the black. If he has to provide expensive Washington-approved, Washington-mandated health insurance for every employee, though, that profit will quickly evaporate. So that would certainly harm this employer.

What about the employees? Let's talk about the people this is designed to help. It turns out the younger workers at the restaurant actually aren't too interested in having this health insurance coverage. They say they would rather have more money in their paychecks so they could decide how they want to spend it, not how the President thinks they should spend it. So they stand to lose out once the law's individual mandate starts in January because they are going to have to go out and buy insurance which may be much more than they want or need or can afford.

The employees at the restaurant who already have health insurance are worried too. They are concerned they will not be able to keep their current coverage. When the President stopped his disastrous employer mandate, I believe he actually made the right decision, but I have some doubts about his reasoning. I think this was purely for political reasons.

Regardless of how and why the President made the decision, a 1-year delay in this one policy doesn't solve the problem; it only extends the problem.

First, this restaurant and other small businesses can't afford and can't expand or hire more staff because they still face the mandate in 2015. Actually, the final line in this article on the front page of the New York Times, when we carry over and read the end of it, says: We are not going to expand. ``No more expansion.''

Second, many businesses are cutting back workers to part-time status because of the health care law. President Obama has had nothing to say to those Americans looking for full-time work but trapped in a part-time job, and part-time is defined by the health care law, which is different than most Americans think of or define part-time work.

Third, the law still requires all of the employees, as with nearly everyone else in America, that they have to buy pricey health insurance starting January 1. That is a problem for the President and he knows it.

Here is how an article in Politico put it this past weekend. This article is entitled ``ObamaCare's Missing Mandate.'' It says:

The massive coast-to-coast campaign to get people to sign up for ObamaCare is light on mentions of one central element: The widely disliked individual mandate.

The Politico article goes on to say:

Poll after poll has found that Americans don't like being told they have to get insurance or face a penalty. So the groups doing outreach don't plan to draw much attention to it.

The employer mandate has collapsed. The individual mandate is unpopular, so they just don't want to talk about it.

A lot of the people who do have to buy this new Washington-mandated, Washington-approved insurance will have to buy it through the government exchanges. Of course, these may not be ready on time. There are 77 days left for these to be ready. Even if they are up and running by the deadline, we have seen ample evidence that premiums will be much higher than they were before the mandate. That is especially true for young healthy adults who the President expects to pay more in order to help older sicker people pay less. But a lot of younger healthier people are going to have to pay more for that one older sicker person.

These weren't the kinds of reforms Democrats promised when they were forcing this plan through Congress on strictly party-line votes. During the debate, Republicans made suggestions to improve the health care law, but we were shut out of the backrooms where the Democrats struck their deals.

In the end Democrats drafted their law so badly that the negative side effects and unintended consequences were inevitable. The New York Times article shows how some of these side effects are hurting millions of Americans--not just those working at the restaurant, including the restaurant owner, in Maryland.

We all know President Obama likes to hold photo ops with people who he says are helped by the law. It is time for him to meet with people such as the ones featured on the front page of the New York Times--people who are being hurt by his health care law. It is time for the President to sit down with both Democrats and Republicans to truly talk about how we can reform health care in this country. Delaying the employer mandate for 1 year is not enough. It doesn't eliminate the burdens of this costly law.

The House is scheduled to vote this week to delay the individual mandate. The Senate should do the same. It is time for the President and for Senator Reid to listen to the victims of ObamaCare.

President Obama was right to recognize his health care law is not working out. Senator Reid was totally wrong because ObamaCare is not wonderful for America. It is turning into a costly failure. The only appropriate course at this point is to permanently delay implementing the rest of the law and to replace it with reform that works.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source