Obamacare

Floor Speech

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Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, every one of us can stand here and tell thousands of stories. Mine will come from a gentleman by the name of Clint W., who is a small business owner. He received notice that he wasn't grandfathered, was being cancelled as of the first of the year. His premiums went from $320 to $1,200. His deductible went from $5,000 to $12,700. He says he can't afford it, and he canceled the policy so that he could save money for future medical expenses, and he is going to stay canceled for as long as he possibly can.

What struck me about this--I didn't get a lot of letters from poor people. I didn't get a lot of letters or contacts from rich people. My contacts came from middle-class America, which is what this country is. We are a middle-class country, by and large, with a small sliver of rich people at one end and some people who are deserving of our help at the other end, but those who are primarily affected by this are the middle class of America.

My good friends on the other side tried to claim they are the party that represents the middle class of America. I don't know whether they are getting the same letters we are, but if they are, they realize they have done something horrible. They didn't do a plan to help the disadvantaged, whom the Republican Party has always helped. What they have done is a social experiment that is collectivism or socialism at its worst. It is obvious it is a failure. These things don't work.

The American people, over 200 years, built a very successful insurance system and health care system in America. In 3 years this has been destroyed. There are 44 days left to make this work. If this isn't done right, there is going to be a collapse on January 1 and the American people are going to know exactly who caused it.

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