Health Care

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. I come to the floor also to talk about a letter I got from Wyoming from a constituent, Traci, who lives in Rock Springs, WY. She is very concerned about the health care law. It is interesting because she writes after hearing on the news last week a clip of Secretary Sebelius. It is a clip where Secretary Sebelius claims there is no indication that the ACA is responsible for any job loss.

Traci in Rock Springs, WY, sees Secretary Sebelius on television and wants to let the country know--and I am doing that for Traci today--that the Secretary is wrong.

Traci says: ``My life is a prime example. Let me explain just how the ACA has destroyed my life.''

The quote she is referencing is Secretary Sebelius last week said: ``There is absolutely no evidence, and every economist will tell you this, that there is any job loss related to the Affordable Care Act.''

It almost seems like a deliberate deception, an effort by the Secretary to mislead the American people, saying: Who are you going to believe, Secretary Sebelius or your own two eyes when you see what is happening in your own communities?

That is why Traci wrote to me from Rock Springs, WY.

Traci said she works full time. She also maintains a number of part-time jobs. She has a master's degree.

She says: ``Once the ACA was passed, I saw the writing on the wall, and so did the companies I work for.''

Isn't it interesting that Traci in Rock Springs, WY, could see the writing on the wall, the companies she worked for could see the writing on the wall, and yet the Democrats in this body who voted for this law couldn't see the writing on the wall.

She said she had health insurance and that these companies wouldn't have had to provide her with anything because she had insurance--wouldn't have had to provide her with anything. But they didn't know who might and might not have insurance, and they weren't taking the chance that they would have to offer health care to a large number of people. So what these companies basically did, she said, was hire a specific number of individuals full time and thus those of us who remained part-time employees have been cut way back. This is obviously impacting her wages, her take-home pay, the things that matter to her, and it seems that Democrats, including Secretary Sebelius, couldn't care less.

It was interesting. I came to the floor yesterday with an article from the New York Times last week about all of these public jobs, people working for public schools, people working for community colleges, sanitation workers for communities, counties--all of these people having their hours cut, their take-home pay cut, their wages cut, and it is because of the health care law, specifically because of the health care law.

Traci continues:

I can't believe in a country my grandfather came to and lived the American dream is actually actively trying to prevent me from being able to do the work I want to do. The kind of work I am good at. The kind of work that others benefit from. What was the comment last week about how I am being liberated from my job to do what I truly want.

It is astonishing. What she says is: I was doing what I truly wanted.

But yet, according to the Democrats, according to Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House, she is now being liberated from the job to do what she truly wants to do--when we have somebody with a master's degree, someone who loves to teach, and not being able to do what she truly wants to do.

Continuing:

And now this government is actually preventing me from what I want to do, doing what I like to do, doing what I am meant to do.

This is a woman in Wyoming doing what she wants to do, what she likes to do, what she wants to do, and was meant to do as a teacher--because of this health care law.

It is not only in Wyoming. I read a story on the floor yesterday of a school district in Connecticut, Meriden, CT, where the superintendent, who is on a national board of school districts, said: What am I supposed to do? If I am going to provide by law all of these part-time workers--who are working over 31 hours--health insurance, what I am going to have to do is fire five reading teachers. How can I make that decision and that tradeoff?

Instead, they cut their hours to less than 30 hours a week, but yet Kathleen Sebelius says there is absolutely no evidence relating to job loss in the Affordable Care Act.

My friend Traci writes: ``So Obama care--has cost me a lot of jobs, has cost me about half of my income.''

When the President of the United States is saying we need to raise the minimum wage, why is the President of the United States ignoring Traci, her income, her wages, and her take-home pay? Why is his health care law making her life worse?

She said: ``So Obama care--has cost me a lot of jobs, has cost me about half of my income.''

She continues:

And by the way I was one of those taxpayers that don't have any deductions generally to take other than my mortgage, so when you used to get a lot of taxes from me, by decreasing my income in half, your tax revenue is decreasing in half as well. So next time Sec. Sebelius claims that there are no indications of any job loss, you can tell her that I have lost multiple jobs and I am not being ``liberated.''

That is what the American people are facing. That is what the President of the United States denies every day when he refuses to give voice to the suffering that his health care law is causing all across this country in all 50 States. It is time that we work together, get solutions for the health care needs of this country, and not continue under what is happening with the President's health care law--which, case after case after case, is not yet giving the American people what he promised them and is giving them a lot worse. It is hurting their lives, it is hurting their health, and it is hurting their take-home pay.

I yield the floor.

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