Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Later this week we will hit the 1-month anniversary of the launch of President Obama's health insurance exchanges. My question is, what have we learned the past 4 weeks? We know the rollout of the exchanges and the healthcare.gov Web site, Americans would agree, has been disastrous.
Last week the Associated Press ran a headline about what people in my home State of Wyoming had experienced. It said: ``National health insurance site sputters in Wyoming.''
The article goes on to talk about the health care law, the Web site, and says: ``Wyoming Insurance Commissioner Tom Hirsig said Monday that he's personally been unable to register on the Federal Government's Wyoming site despite trying every day.''
The insurance commissioner from the State of Wyoming has been unable to register on the Federal Government's Wyoming site despite trying every day starting October 1. This is the same story we have seen all across the country.
We have also learned over the past 4 weeks that the President's health care law is much more than just a failed Web site. What we know is that there is sticker shock hitting people all across the country as they start shopping and find that higher premiums are what they are facing. They are going to be paying much higher premiums if they are able to buy health insurance, if they are able to get through the exchange.
CBS News had the story of one woman in Florida whose health insurance will cost 11 times what she is currently paying--from $54 a month to $591 a month.
Over the past 4 weeks, another thing we have learned is that many people have received notices in the mail--cancellation notices--from their insurance companies. They are being told that the insurance policies, the coverage they have had, is being cancelled. Only a small number of people have been able to get insurance through the government exchanges so far. We have seen that over the last month.
In testimony today in the House hearing, a person from the administration said they cannot tell us how many people have been unable to get insurance through the exchanges, but we know that hundreds of thousands of people are losing the insurance they had.
Here is what one woman told CBS: ``What I have right now is what I'm happy with, and I just want to know why I can't keep what I have. Why do I have to be forced into something else?''
Like many Americans, this is a person who actually believed President Obama when he promised that if people liked the insurance they had, they could keep it. Now she learned under the President's health care law, it is not only a Web site, it is a broken promise. It turns out if the White House likes your plan, then you can keep it. If the White House doesn't like your plan, then you are out of luck, you can't keep it.
Yesterday the Obama administration finally admitted that millions of people across the country will lose their insurance. We know all of these ways that the President's health care law is more than a failed Web site, so the big question now is what don't we know yet? What is there that the American people don't know about the health care law? How much worse are things going to get before the White House admits the entire law is broken?
We have seen one headline after another about problems with the health care law that the Obama administration knew about and would not admit. There has been one revelation after another about troubles they hid from the American people and did so deliberately. What else is this administration not telling the American people?
The White House may have finally said publicly that millions of people are going to lose the insurance they have but, according to NBC News, the Obama administration has known that for at least 3 years.
When the train first went off the tracks, the White House said its Web site crashed because they said millions of people tried to use the Web site at the same time. According to the Washington Post, the limited testing the administration did before the launch found the site would crash if only a few hundred people used it.
It is fascinating. The Democrats' whole law was based on the idea that Washington, government, is capable of running America's health care system competently. What we have seen is gross incompetence. It turns out that Washington can't even set up a Web site competently, and it looks as if they knew it.
Computer programmers warned about the rush to get the Web site done by October 1. Instead of hitting the pause button, which they should have done, hitting the pause button until it could get things working, the White House pushed on. This is what we learned from some of the contractors who built the Web site. This Web site cost the taxpayers over $400 million so far and the bills are still coming in.
These contractors testified last week in the House that full tests of the site should have started months in advance, but testing didn't happen until the last 2 weeks of September. Who decided to go ahead anyway? President Obama's administration. They are the ones who decided.
Contractors thought if the registration process wasn't going to work, then maybe it would help to set up a way for people to shop for plans and get information without registering. The administration told them to ``deprioritize'' that plan. What a government word, ``deprioritize'' that plan.
Then when the Web site turned out to be a complete disaster, a systems failure, the Obama administration tried to hide how bad it was. It asked the largest health insurer in North Dakota not to tell anybody how many people have signed up for insurance through the exchange--the administration telling the State: Don't open up, don't tell people the truth. Why not? Because as of last week only 14 people had been able to sign up for the companies' plans. The numbers are so embarrassing for the administration they have been trying to cover up. They continued to cover up today when there was testimony and no numbers were given. It is the same reason the administration won't say how many people have signed up nationwide. They know how many people have signed up, but they refuse to tell the American people, the taxpayers, the people who pay the taxes and see their money being wasted by this administration and this government. There are new problems with this health care law every day.
The Web site was supposed to be the easy part, but to me it is the tip of the iceberg. The Web site failures are just the tip of the iceberg.
What else does the White House know about? By now they should know about cancelled coverage because it looks as if millions of Americans have already received notices from their insurance companies that they have lost their insurance, their insurance has been cancelled.
There have been premium increases. People have talked about the fact that their premiums are going up, and there are higher copays and deductibles to deal with. People are losing access to the doctor. Plus there are always the issues of fraud and identity theft.
What else are we going to learn this week when Secretary Sebelius testifies in the House tomorrow? Will she actually open up? Will she give them the truth? Will she give them the real numbers, or will she not admit to what is actually going on and refuse to answer the questions?
How much worse does the Obama administration's incompetence get? What will it take for the President to admit that his health care law has been a train wreck and they will have to delay it for at least a year?
We know he is going to have to do it eventually. There is no way all of these problems are going to get fixed quickly, and he is going to have to delay the individual mandate--the mandate that says every American must buy or have and prove they have health insurance. And who is the enforcer? The IRS--the Internal Revenue Service. The President should just go ahead and do it now and also delay all the other parts of the law, not just the mandate.
It is time for President Obama to really come clean with the American people about what his administration knew and then come to the table to work with Republicans and give people the real health care reform that they need, want, and deserve so people can get the care they want from a doctor they choose at a lower cost.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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