The Economy

Floor Speech

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, there were two polls that were released this week, one from Gallup and one from Politico. Both polls asked Americans what concerns them the most. Both polls got the same answer: the economy, jobs, and health care.

That response is not too surprising. Unemployment is high. In fact, there are 3 1/2 million Americans who have been unemployed for 6 months or longer. Last month more than 800,000 Americans gave up hope of finding work and dropped out of the labor force entirely. The economy barely grew at all last quarter--one-tenth of 1 percent.

Household income is down by $3,500 since the President took office. Some 6.7 million Americans have fallen into poverty since 2008. Meanwhile, the price of everything from gas to college to health care keeps going up. It is no wonder Americans list jobs and the economy as two of the issues that concern them the most.

It is not surprising that the other top concern of Americans is health care, because over the past 4 years the President and his team have taken an imperfect health care system and made it much worse. Thanks to ObamaCare, millions of Americans have lost their health care plans, plans which in many cases they liked and wanted to keep.

Many of the 8 million exchange signups the President likes to brag about were actually people who were forced into the exchanges after their health care plans were canceled. In fact, according to a recent McKinsey survey, only one-quarter of the people who signed up on the exchanges were previously uninsured. In addition to losing their plans, millions of Americans have also seen their costs increase.

Family health insurance premiums, which the President claimed would fall by $2,500 under his health care law, have actually risen by $3,671, and they are still going up, no end in sight. I would like to read just a few of the headlines from last week. This is from the Fiscal Times. It says, ``Big Increases in ObamaCare Premiums and Deductibles Coming in November;'' from Forbes, ``First ObamaCare Premium Notices for 2015 Show Double Digit Increases;'' from the Los Angeles Times, ``Employer health costs to rise nearly 9% this year, survey finds;'' from Investors Business Daily, ``ObamaCare Deductibles to Rise to $6,600 by 2015;'' from the Associated Press, ``Cost-Control Plan for Health Care Could Cost You.''

There are more, but we get the idea. Prices are not on their way down; they are in fact on their way up. Then of course there is the President's ``if you like your doctor, you'll be able to keep your doctor'' promise. As too many Americans have found out, that was another promise destined to be broken. Over the past 4 years, Americans have not only discovered that in many cases they will no longer be able to see the doctors they have been seeing for years, they have also discovered their choice of a replacement is limited.

The New York Times reported last week:

In the midst of all of the turmoil in health care these days, one thing is becoming clear. No matter what kind of health plan consumers choose, they will find fewer doctors and hospitals in their network or pay much more for the privilege of going to any provider they want.

That is from the New York Times. One quote in that article struck me particularly. It was something Marcus Merz, the CEO of Minnesota insurer PreferredOne, told the Times. This is what he said:

We have to break people away from the choice habit that everyone has. ..... We're all trying to break away from this fixation on open access and broad networks.

Let me repeat that to get the full context of what he is saying. We have to break people away from the choice habit that everyone has. Is this what we wanted out of health care reform? Was that not one of the good things about our health care system, the fact that people are able to, by and large, go to the doctor they chose;

that people could look around for the best doctor in a particular field or find a doctor who they felt comfortable with?

Do we really want a health care future where Americans don't have a choice about the doctor they see?

Limited choice doesn't just mean that Americans might not be able to find a doctor they like. It also means that Americans may not be able to go to a doctor they need.

A Daily Caller article from last week noted:

Cancer centers, with their top-of-the-line physicians and expensive procedures, have been a primary casualty of narrow networks. According to an Associated Press analysis, just four of the top 19 comprehensive cancer centers are covered by all Obamacare exchange plans in their states.

Four of the top 19 cancer centers in the country--that is not what you want from of a health insurance plan if you have cancer.

Given the President's broken promises and the havoc that ObamaCare is wreaking on our health care system, it is no surprise that 83 percent of those Politico surveyed want to modify or repeal the law entirely or that health care was the most frequently cited reason for a negative experience with the government over the past year or that nearly 90 percent of respondents say that ObamaCare will be important in determining how they vote this fall.

There is a lot more that could be said about ObamaCare, such as the damage it is doing to our economy.

VETERANS AFFAIRS

I want to move on to talk about another, very serious instance of government mismanagement--what is going on in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Almost every day a new report surfaces of mistreatment or mismanagement at VA facilities across the country. At least 40 veterans have reportedly died because of delayed or inadequate care.

It is now clear that this is not an isolated problem at a few select locations but a system-wide crisis, and it is a national embarrassment.

Our contract with our servicemen and women is a sacred trust. They pledge their lives in the service of our country and take upon themselves the burden of defending liberty for the rest of us. In return, we promised them benefits, including health care and a college education.

Our men and women in uniform uphold their end of the contract, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. For us to fail to uphold ours is a disgrace and a betrayal of their sacrifice.

Every resource of this administration should be focused on discovering the full scope of this problem and immediately starting to fix it. Yet this administration has shown a startling lack of concern about the widespread mistreatment of veterans in our country.

When it became clear that his health care Web site was a disaster, the President employed an ``all hands on deck'' approach to fixing the problem, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.

In response to the VA disaster, on the other hand, the President has dispatched just a single staffer to oversee the investigation. This is not acceptable. As Commander in Chief our Armed Forces, the President should be leading the charge to fix this problem, but he hasn't even spoken publicly about it for weeks.

Regardless of the President's inaction, Congress must take immediate step to address this crisis. This week the House of Representatives is taking up a version of Senator Rubio's bill, the Department of Veterans Affairs Management Accountability Act, which would allow the VA Secretary to fire or demote senior executives in the department when warranted.

Private organizations can fire employees who fail to fulfill their responsibilities. We ought to be able to fire officials who fail in their obligation to our veterans.

Yet all we have seen from the VA is the resignation of the Under Secretary for Health, Dr. Petzel, who was already planning to retire--hardly the accountability our veterans deserve.

I have introduced a bill to require the VA inspector general to conduct a national investigation into the wait times veterans face. It is essential that we get an idea of the full scope of this problem so we can ensure that it gets fully fixed.

Under my bill the inspector general will have 6 months to investigate and submit a report to Congress. In the meantime, the VA would be forbidden from closing any of its medical facilities.

No facility--not the Hot Springs facility in my State of South Dakota or any other--should be closed unless we make very sure that veterans' care is not going to be affected.

There are other bills this body should be considering as well, including Senator Heller's bipartisan legislation, to reduce the backlog of veterans' disability claims, and I hope the Senate will take them up quickly.

This crisis can't wait. There is every likelihood that right now--right now--veterans around our country are still failing to receive the care they need. I hope the President of the United States will come to his senses and treat this situation with the seriousness it deserves.

If he won't act, Congress must. It is the very least that we owe our veterans.

I yield the floor.

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