Burwell Nomination

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today with huge concerns about the Obama health care law. I do it as a physician, as a doctor, who has taken care of families all around the State of Wyoming for a couple of decades; as a past president of our State medical society; as someone committed to preventive care, coordinated care; as the medical director of the Wyoming health fairs to give people low-cost screenings for health care around the State Those continue today. There is one in the small community of Afton, WY, this very Saturday--2 days from today. So the effort continues to actually make sure people can get prevention, early recognition of problems, and actual care.

The President's health care law hasn't done that. The President keeps focusing on the word ``coverage'' instead of what people wanted, which was care. It is interesting today, because in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, front page, today's newspaper, headline: Health-care law plagued by inconsistencies. At least 2 million people, the headline says, enrolled in insurance have problems with data that could affect their coverage. This is an Associated Press article on the front page of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. A huge paperwork headache for the government could also be jeopardizing coverage for some of the people who just got health insurance under the President's health care law.

The President went on television 4 days before the kickoff of the exchanges and said this is going to be easier to use than amazon.com. He said that. It is cheaper than your cell phone bill. And, of course, he said people could keep their doctor if they liked their doctor.

When people see how this rolled out and the problems they have had with it, they now have huge concerns about whether they can actually trust the Federal Government with anything. They see all of the problems coming out of Washington and they are saying, Why should we trust the government, the Washington-based government, with anything?

Let's take a look at some of the States that set up their own exchange. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal: State Exchanges Seek Costly Fix. Five States that launched health exchanges under the Affordable Care Act expect to spend as much as $240 million to fix their sites or switch to the Federal marketplace.

Not one person is going to get care because of that. That is $240 million to fix the bad sites that have already wasted money. How can people in these States of Oregon, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, Nevada--how can they say this is good for them? This health care law--for people who wanted the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower cost find more wasted government money--in Oregon alone, $255 million, money previously spent. The FBI is investigating them now in Oregon because of this. They say they want more money to upgrade the system. Minnesota: $141 million. What are we hearing from Minnesota? We are hearing school districts say we have to pay a lot more, so we are not going to be able to pay for teachers. We are not going to be able to pay for bus drivers. We are going to have to take it away from students to pay for the mistakes of this administration, this government, this law forced down the throats of the American public and voted for by many in this Chamber who never read it. They never read the bill, because they trusted Nancy Pelosi. She said, First you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it.

We don't have to turn the clock back very far to go to the June 4 article posted in Roll Call, the local paper. Headline: Fiscal diagnosis--now, as a physician we do a physical diagnosis, but they are talking about a fiscal diagnosis: Fiscal Diagnosis Only Gets Tougher for Health Care Law. The first paragraph says, For Democratic lawmakers who were hesitant to sign onto this sweeping 2010 health care law, one of the most powerful selling points was that the Affordable Care Act would Ðactually reduce the federal budget deficit .....

Four years later, headline: Fiscal Diagnosis Only Gets Tougher for Health Care Law.

So we can talk about all of those numbers, but I want to talk about people who have actually been hurt by the health care law. There are people who have been helped, but there are many who have been hurt. People in my State--thousands and thousands--have had letters of cancellation. If they have gone onto the Web site and bought insurance, they found they paid a lot more for what they had to buy, because a lot of times it wasn't actually what they needed for themselves or for their family or what was best for them; it included coverage they would never use and don't want but still had to pay for, because the President seems to think he knows better what that family in Wyoming wants or needs than they do. That is not what America was built on--the government telling people what they have to buy, what they have to choose, what they have to have as their health insurance or their care.

It is interesting that even National Public Radio has a story about a couple, a family--because one of my colleagues from Connecticut comes to the floor and says he thinks ObamaCare is working. This couple says it doesn't work--does not work. ``Frustrated By The Affordable Care Act, One Family Opts Out.'' This is a family in Texas, reported on National Public Radio. Rachel's husband wanted to make sure they had insurance. Rachel was skeptical, but Nick, her husband, went on line and started shopping. He had a lot of trouble getting through the glitchy Web site at first, but eventually he found a plan that would work just for his wife. He was concerned about his wife. She was pregnant. So this past January, as soon as the plan began, Nick printed out a list of obstetricians from the plan's Web sites. He said: I handed it to Rachel, fully confident, fully feeling like I had accomplished something for her, I had come through for my wife.

Well, they called obstetricians because she was pregnant. Some would just say, We don't take Obama. One of the best was: ``The doctor takes it here in the actual practice, but whatever hospital you use''--none of those hospitals take ObamaCare.

She said: It was mind numbing, because I was sitting there thinking, I am paying close to $400 a month just for me to have insurance that doesn't even work. What am I paying for?

How could this not be working, her husband said. The United States Government has set this up. It is this whole big deal, he said. They are having commercials everywhere saying we need to use this, and these people are just saying, no, no, no, and it just made me so mad.

So, as the headline says, they opted out.

That is what the President has given the American people; not affordable care, not available care, not quality care, not access to care but a lot of promises not delivered upon. Many people across this country have been hurt by this health care law.

I am going to continue to work on ways to reform health care in America in a way that is good for patients as well as the providers who take care of them, and responsible for the American taxpayers.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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