Making Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014--Continued
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I know we have been involved in a very intense debate, long speeches, time consuming, with an opportunity to bring up issues that are very important, particularly as we see that the executive branch of government has made decisions to delay so many aspects of health care reform. It is very appropriate at this time that we delve into the shortcomings of that great change in health care that the health care reform bill exemplifies.
I was here yesterday, hoping to enter into the colloquies that were going on at that time led by Senator Cruz and time ran out, so I am here to state some points I wanted to make at that particular time. I will start by quoting our second President, John Adams:
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
The rhetoric surrounding this vote and the underlying issue has become all too hysterical. I would like us all to step back a little bit from the hysteria and focus on the facts.
We have all taken to calling this legislation ObamaCare. Sometimes even the President does. For some people, attaching the President's name to this issue prevents people from paying attention to the facts. But personalizing this issue should not deter us from looking at those facts.
I am not going to talk about shutting down the Government. So much time and effort is being devoted to discussing a government shutdown that people are not paying attention to the facts that we ought to be looking at. Instead, I would like to set aside the hyperbolic rhetoric for a few minutes and focus on those facts. Let's talk about the real-world effects of this Affordable Care Act.
I will start with a few comments directly from my constituents in Iowa. My colleagues yesterday referred to constituents in their respective States. I am only going to refer to three constituent letters.
The first one:
I just want to share with you another downside caused by the Affordable Care Act. Besides teaching for my School District I also work as an adjunct instructor for various community colleges. Currently I am scheduled to teach four online classes at a community college in the summer. I just received notice that because of the Affordable Care Act I am only allowed to teach two classes because more than that would put me over the 75 percent load of a full-time instructor. So because of ObamaCare I will lose $4,200 of income this summer. It will also affect me at another school I teach at during the regular school year. I know there is not much you can do until the Republicans can regain control of the Senate but I just wanted you to be aware of another example of our current administration's lack of foresight of the impact of this law on the average hard-working American.
The second letter:
As superintendent of schools, I would like to express to you the impact of the Affordable Care Act on our local schools. The increase in cost, due directly to the Affordable Care Act will be approximately $180,000 to offer single health insurance to our non-certified staff. We are a combined school district of 750 students. The affected staff members are essentially, part-time, hourly employees who work 6.5 hours each day, 180 days per year. The only other option is to reduce hours for employees working directly with our highest need students.
Additionally, we are planning on being required to pay an additional $17,500 in additional fees and taxes associated with the Affordable Care Act in the first year.
Schools in Iowa can't pass that increase cost on to consumers, like private industry. We are budget restricted, so any increase in employee cost means an equal dollar amount reduction in staff, classroom materials/supplies, curriculum materials, field trips, all areas that strike pretty close to the child.
This cost increase associated with the Affordable Care Act will most definitely result in reduced educational opportunities and increased class size.
One final letter:
I am a para-educator. I am writing in regards to President Obama's healthcare initiative.
I've been told by my employer that next year my hours will be cut from full time to 29 hours a week because if I work more than 30 hours a week, they will be required by the new healthcare plan to provide me with insurance.
This bothers me a great deal for a number of reasons: it causes stress, instability, and disruption to the special needs students I work with, I get a smaller paycheck, and it's very unfair. In addition, I'm bothered by the lack of foresight that went into making this law. It seems grossly unfair to me. I do my job well, I'm committed and invested in it, and I want to work, but am now being told that I can't work as much because of a law I didn't ask for and that won't benefit me. I'm sure my employer is not the only one that is cutting hours because of the insurance requirement. It seems that the people that this law was intended to help are being hurt instead.
Please consider any actions you can to stop this law.
My constituents are feeling the impact of this law. This is real. It is not some made-up political stunt. It is happening all over this great country of ours.
Let's start with the grocery store chain, Trader Joe's.
After extending health care coverage to many of its part-time employees for years, Trader Joe's has told workers who log fewer than 30 hours a week that they will need to find insurance on the exchanges next year.
Then there is Five Guys, the national restaurant chain that started here in Washington, DC. The prices of burgers and hot dogs are going to rise to cover
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the President's mandated insurance coverage.
Earlier this year, the medical device manufacturer Smith and Nephew announced they were laying off 100 employees. They cited a new Medical Device Tax, a provision of the Affordable Care Act, as the primary cause.
SeaWorld is reducing hours for thousands of part-time workers, a move that would allow the theme-park owner to avoid offering those employees medical insurance under the Federal Government's health-care overhaul. The company operates 11 theme parks across the United States and has about 22,000 employees--nearly 18,000 of whom are part-time or seasonal workers.
It has more than 4,000 part-time and seasonal workers in Central Florida. Under a new corporate policy, SeaWorld will schedule part-time workers for no more than 28 hours a week, down from a previous limit of 32 hours a week. The new cap is expected to go into effect by November.
With the reduced hours, those employees would not be classified as full-time workers under the Affordable Care Act.
Much has been said on the floor by different Members about the Cleveland Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic said it would cut jobs and slash five to six percent of its $6 billion annual budget to prepare for health reform.
The clinic is Cleveland's largest employer and the second largest in Ohio after Wal-Mart.
It is the largest provider in Ohio of Medicaid health coverage for the poor, the program that will expand to cover uninsured Americans under the Affordable Care Act. The cuts are necessitated by the lower reimbursement they are anticipating.
There is no doubt; the Affordable Care Act is affecting the way business look at their employees.
As one recent report notes, U.S. businesses are hiring at a robust rate. The only problem is that three out of four of the nearly 1 million hires this year are part-time and many of the jobs are low-paid.
Faltering economic growth at home and abroad and concern that the Affordable Care Act will drive up business costs are behind the wariness about taking on full-time staff, executives at staffing and payroll firms say.
Employers say part-timers offer them flexibility. If the economy picks up, they can quickly offer full-time work. If orders dry up, they know costs are under control. It also helps them to curb costs they might face under the Affordable Care Act.
It is not just employers. Let's look at the way major unions view the Affordable Care Act.
Let me quote from a letter from the heads of the Teamsters, Food and Commercial Workers, and UNITE-HERE. This letter was addressed to Representative Pelosi and Senator Reid.
When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat.
Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.
Like millions of other Americans, our members are front-line workers in the American economy. We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. That means the President and the Senator and the Congresswoman. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision.
Now this vision has come back to haunt us.
Time is running out: Congress wrote this law; we voted for you. We have a problem; you need to fix it. The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe. Perverse incentives are already creating nightmare scenarios.
On behalf of the millions of working men and women we represent and the families they support, we can no longer stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.
We continue to stand behind real health care reform, but the law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans including the members of our respective unions. We are looking to you to make sure that these changes are made.
That letter was sent to Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi to explain why things very definitely need to be done to this legislation. Those are not people with known conservative credentials. They are known for their views of being progressives, liberals, and people looking out for the middle class. They find much fault with this Affordable Care Act, and then some wonder why there is so much concern being expressed by Members of the Senate about why this should be defunded. All of this adds up to what is being said by the people who supported the passage of the health care reform act, which is constituents, employers, and even unions.
Let's take this a step further. Let's look at the economic researchers. In March the Federal Reserve said the 2010 health care law is being cited as a reason for layoffs and slowdown in hiring.
Employers in several districts cited unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff.
Here is another one: A recent National Bureau of Economic Research study examined the Affordable Care Act's taxes and its impact on labor. Basically, if we want employment to go back to prerecession levels, we must end the Affordable Care Act. The marginal rate increase due to the phaseout of premium subsidy and other implicit taxes in the Affordable Care Act result in a ``massive 17 percent reduction in the reward to working--akin to erasing a decade of labor productivity growth without the wealth effect--that would be expected to significantly depress the amounts of labor and consumer spending in the economy even if the elasticity of labor supply were small (but not literally zero). The large tax increases are the primary reason why it is unlikely that the labor market activity will return even near to its prerecession levels as long as the ACA's work disincentives remain in place.''
Isn't it something to have an organization as respected as this organization say that after all the work that went into the Affordable Care Act, its very existence is a disincentive to productivity and employment?
With all of these concerns from constituents, employers, unions, and even the Federal Reserve, we would think that would cause people to pause. But it is also a legitimate reason for all the discussion we have had this week on what is wrong with the Affordable Care Act and the defunding thereof.
On top of that, we keep hearing concerns about the readiness to move forward with the law at all.
In August the Government Accountability Office noted that testing of the government's ``data service hub'' to support new health insurance market places was more than a month behind schedule. The report said:
Several critical tasks remain to be completed in a short period of time, such as final independent testing of the Hub's security controls, remediating security vul ner a bil i ties identified during testing, and obtaining the security authorization decision for the Hub before opening the exchanges. CMS's current schedule is to complete all of its tasks by October 1, 2013, in time for the expected initial open enrollment period.
It is unclear whether national health insurance plans, which were supposed to give consumers choice and help drive down costs, will be available next year.
Under the health care law, the Office of Personnel Management is supposed to oversee the rates and contracts for at least two national plans in every State. According to news reports, the White House says there will be a national health plan in at least 31 States. Now, that is 31 States, that is not 50 States.
Perhaps the most telling sign that the Affordable Care Act as enacted isn't working is how much the administration has rewritten the law on its own--a highly dubious proposition. The Congressional Research Service recently noted that President Obama has already signed 14 laws that amend, rescind, or otherwise change parts of his health care. He has also taken five independent steps to delay, which he has been able to do on his own. So the Congress has passed or the President has signed into law 14 changes. I say that again for emphasis. Again, the CRS report noted that President Obama--totally separate of Congress--has delayed implementation of parts of the health care law five separate times.
Congress should be focusing our efforts on creating jobs and improving
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the economy. Yet the Affordable Care Act is having the opposite effect. Our economy cannot handle any more job-killing regulations from Washington. It has been 4 years since the end of the recession. For a lot of Americans, it is as if the recession never ended.
While the unemployment rate now stands at 7.3 percent, which is bad enough, that only tells half the story. The fact is that this economy is so sluggish that only 63.2 percent of working-age Americans remain in the workforce. The labor force participation rate is at its lowest in 35 years. The unemployment rate is dropping primarily because people have simply given up finding work.
What we should be doing is supporting policies that lead to economic growth and job creation. We should be supporting things like the Keystone XL Pipeline. The initial permit for this job-creating energy project was submitted over 5 years ago. Despite overwhelming support in the Congress for the pipeline, the President has delayed the project for years to appease the extreme left. We have similar job-killing regulations coming out of the Environmental Protection Agency. We should be working to create an efficient progrowth Tax Code, one that rewards success rather than hinders it. We should be focusing on our long-term fiscal problems. We all know we are on an unsustainable path. Yet the longer we delay and kick the can down the road, the harder the job will become. All of the tax, health care, and fiscal uncertainty is acting like a headwind against our economy.
So I will support funding our government and avoiding a shutdown. I will support any effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I will support any effort to defund the same act. I will support any effort to delay implementation of that same act. I will support the Vitter amendment and any other amendment that puts 8,000 executive branch employees in the exchange. As I have said again and again, the people responsible for this law should have the opportunity to experience it just as the American people will. Perhaps then they, including this Senator, will then finally pay attention to the facts surrounding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. I do so not out of personal animus for the President. I do so not to tear down the so-called signature achievement of the administration. I do so because I am looking at the facts. I do so because I am looking at what is happening in health care and with our economy.
Let's not stop thinking simply because someone uses the word ``ObamaCare.'' Let's not talk about shutting down the government. Let's turn down the hysteria and look at what is really happening with the health care and its impact upon the economy.
Just this week a Member of the Senate described our efforts to stop ObamaCare as ``insanity.'' I disagree. A vote to barrel ahead as though everything is just fine strikes me as far closer to the definition of ``insanity.'' A reasonable person can and should conclude that we should stop moving forward on ObamaCare, and that is how I will be voting this week.
I yield the floor.
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