Affordable Care Act

Floor Speech

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I got the chance to meet David Weis, a 22-year-old student at Georgetown University, about a week ago. David's story, unfortunately, although it may sound exceptional, is not. He was just about to celebrate his 19th birthday, when 2 days before it, in 2010, he was diagnosed with thyroid and lymphatic cancer--a devastating diagnosis that came just as he was preparing to start college.

As most of his classmates were enjoying the first days of their freshman year at Georgetown University, David was dealing with a rigorous course of treatment for his disease that left him tired, left him confused, and left him anxious about his future. David had an ace up his sleeve, and that was the fact he had insurance. But he only has it as long as he is covered as a student.

David came to the U.S. Capitol last week to testify in favor and in support of the Affordable Care Act, because he knows that with the passage of this bill his diagnosis will not be a death sentence; that he will be able to get the coverage he needs; and that he will be able to pursue his dreams when he graduates rather than have his life decisions dictated by his illness--having to choose a job simply because it provides health care or having to be locked into a career simply because he can't afford going without insurance to cover his cancer.

David's story can be repeated hundreds of thousands of times all across this country by young people in their teens and their twenties and in their thirties who thought they were invincible but who got knocked off their feet by a devastating disease such as cancer and who desperately need health care insurance at the time of that illness in order to get back onto their feet.

Some of the best news that has come out over the past several months, as the enrollment has started to ramp up on the Affordable Care Act, has been the number of young people who have signed up. We have seen that 31 percent of all of the people who have signed up for insurance exchanges all across this country are 34 years or under. This is a real signal that young people are recognizing that, although they may feel as if they are going to live forever, they desperately need insurance, just as everyone else does. So that is why I was so glad to see President Obama yesterday go on the show ``Between Two Ferns,'' with Zach Galifianakis, to talk about the importance of young people signing up.

We all know about the ``Two Ferns'' effect. Previously unknown stars such as Will Ferrell and Bradley Cooper went on ``Two Ferns'' and were catapulted to stardom. I am glad to see the ``Two Ferns'' effect has had the same impact on health care enrollment. Since President Obama went on ``Two Ferns,'' 19,000 people were referred to the Web site of enrollment from the ``Funny or Die'' Web site. By 6 p.m. that day the video had sent 32,000 people to healthcare.gov. HHS officials said traffic on healthcare.gov had risen by 40 percent on Tuesday to over 890,000 visits in 1 day.

It is a signal that when young people, through whatever means is available to them, find out about the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, they are interested and they are signing up. I hope President Obama uses more innovative tools and methods to try to get the word out to young adults in their late teens, twenties, and thirties about the importance of signing up for the Affordable Care Act because it is important. Some 70,000 adolescents and young adults are diagnosed with cancer every single year in this country. There are 151,000 people below the age of 20 living with diabetes right now. So despite the fact that we may think we are going to live forever or think we may not need coverage, young people need it as well. It is affordable.

The President said yesterday on this show: You effectively can get coverage for the cost of a cell phone bill. And it is true. Having a cell phone is pretty important, but being able to get treatment when you get a serious disease is pretty important as well.

In Connecticut the numbers are pretty reasonable. A 22-year-old in Hartford making a $25,000 salary--which is the salary I made in my first job in Hartford--can get a bronze policy for as low as $66 a month through Anthem. A 25-year-old living in Bridgeport making a little more, $30,000, can get a bronze policy for as low as $108 a month. About two-thirds of all young adults across the country who are currently uninsured are eligible for these subsidies.

For all of these young people who were previously going to the marketplace and often having to pay full price, often buying insurance on their own with no ability to negotiate a group discount, this health care law is transformational. Fifty or sixty dollars a month is the price for bronze plans. And this doesn't even count the catastrophic option open to most young people as well.

The good news continues to roll in when it comes to the numbers of people signing up. Yesterday the administration announced that 4.2 million people have enrolled in marketplaces through March 1; 943,000 people enrolled in the short month of February; and 31 percent of all those people are 34 or younger. And, of course, we haven't even gotten to crunch time yet.

I wish this weren't the case, but I know something about how young people think. Too many leave big decisions until the last minute, whether it be studying for a test, writing a term paper, or signing up for health care.

As we have seen in the past on a lot of these enrollment deadlines, like the enrollment deadline for Medicare Part D, the surge comes in the final few weeks of enrollment. So we expect to see the numbers pick up in a significant way through March.

Knowing how people in their twenties and thirties think, I expect we will see a major surge in enrollment from young people as well. But they shouldn't wait until the last minute. It does take more than a few hours to look at the choices and decide which is best. In Connecticut we have three insurance plans offering coverage, but each one of them has three or four different plans. So I hope young adults in their twenties and thirties take more than a few hours or a day to sign up because we want to make sure they get the plan available for them. It is easy to do with a phone call to an enrollment center, a visit in Connecticut to the in-person centers in New Britain and New Haven, and very simple to do on healthcare.gov.

In Connecticut our exchange is going like gangbusters. We had a goal of signing up 80,000 to 100,000 people, and a full 30 days before the deadline we have signed up 152,000 people. Of those individuals in Connecticut, about 25 percent are 25 years or younger. We are on track to double our original estimates in Connecticut.

Connecticut is a State that had a pretty high rate of insured to begin with, so our delta to get to full insurance was relatively small compared to other States. But guess what Connecticut is doing. Connecticut is actually working to implement the law rather than working to undermine the law. We put a lot of time and thought into getting a working Web site, into doing the kind of outreach other States are not doing to get people to sign up. When we have done that, young people and old people across the board have flocked to sign up.

I was glad to see the President do his outreach yesterday to young people all across the country. I was glad to see the spike in interest on healthcare.gov. I am glad to see that 4.2 million people have signed up for health care, as more people all across the country--young people especially--are realizing the Affordable Care Act works.

I yield the floor.

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