USA Freedom Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BARRASSO. I thank my colleague from Iowa for his kind comments. We have worked on this issue, and I do this as a physician who has taken care of patients in Wyoming for a quarter of a century. I have so many friends and there are so many folks who have had extra challenges in life, and I was happy to stand with Senator Dole and Senator McCain and others in this effort. So I thank my colleague for his comments.

HEALTH CARE

As a physician, I come to the floor today as I have week after week since the President's health care law was passed because I have many concerns about the way this health care law is impacting families in my home State of Wyoming, as well as across the country--people who find out their rates are going up, they are paying higher deductibles, higher copays, higher premiums. They feel the government is in control, Washington is in control rather than them, when Washington decides if the insurance policy they have had and that worked for them is something they will be able to keep, and many times they weren't because the President's law said no, it wasn't good enough for them, even though the families in Wyoming are better able to make the decision about what is better and more important for them. They don't like it when the President tells them they need to buy insurance they don't want or need or can afford, in many ways, with a long list of provisions that Washington mandates be included.

I hear every week, as I did last weekend in Wyoming, from folks who have had work hours cut, resulting in lower take-home pay because of the impact of part of the law that resulted in bipartisan opposition that says the work week is 30 hours. So people who are working part-time have had their hours cut to below 30 hours and have lower take-home pay.

I talked to ER doctors at home and around the country where I have trained and where I have gone to medical school. The Wall Street Journal even wrote about it last month: ``ER visits rise despite the law. Health act isn't cutting volume.'' On the front page the lead paragraph said: ``Early evidence suggests that emergency rooms have become busier since the Affordable Care Act expanded insurance coverage this year, despite the law's goal of reducing unnecessary care in ERs.'' It says: Democrats who designed that law hoped it would do the opposite, but that hasn't been the case.

I heard last weekend in Wyoming the story about all of these fake applications that--actually I guess the Government Accountability Office said let's see how well this works; is the Obama health care law working? So they made up 10 fake applications, sent them in, and they found out that actually a dozen fictitious applicants, online or by phone, using invalid or missing Social Security numbers--this is the Washington Post writing about this, but it was in stories across the country--invalid or missing Social Security numbers, inaccurate citizenship information--all but one of the fake applicants ended up getting subsidized coverage.

So here we are, a health care law that is supposed to provide a number of things, including integrity, and we find out that when the Government Accountability Office says, let's just put in a number of applications and see what happens, it is not working.

The administration set up the Health Insurance Marketplace in ways--we are hearing from the Government Accountability Act--that leave it vulnerable to fraud and a waste of taxpayer money. That is what we are dealing with in this health care law.

I know many Senators are preparing to head home, and they will be traveling around their home States in the month of August. I expect every Senator who goes home will hear from people in their State about very damaging side effects that so many people across America are feeling from the President's health care law. I hear it every weekend, but I hear it when I travel as well. As chairman of the Republican policy committee, one of my responsibilities is to study how policies that come out of Washington, such as the President's health care law, affect people all across America, and that is what I try to look at. So in looking around the country, here is what I found in Louisiana.

Last month, the Shreveport Times in Louisiana had an op-ed written by a Dr. Regina Fakner. The headline was: ``Washington ties doctors' hands''--not the doctor, not the hospital, not the patients--``Washington ties doctors' hands.'' The doctor who wrote this op-ed says she has practiced pediatric medicine in Shreveport since the early 1990s.

We need pediatricians. We need people to take care of children. We need primary care physicians. There is a gross shortage of nurses, of physicians, of additional health care personnel.

She says health care was and is impossible to navigate because it is wrapped in layers of red tape and government regulations. This doctor knows America's health care system needed reform. We needed to do something.

That is what Republicans here in the Senate have been saying too: We need to do something. The American people wanted reform that gave them access to high-quality, affordable care. That is not what people got.

As this doctor writes in the Shreveport Times: ObamaCare only adds to the mess, she said. This is a pediatrician who takes care of lots of children.

She says ``patients and health care providers suffer for it.'' The government does not suffer. The Senate Democrats who voted for it do not suffer. Patients and health care providers are suffering. She puts patients first, which is what doctors do.

The President's health care law has added tens of thousands of pages of redtape and Washington mandates--thousands of pages of redtape and mandates. The doctor says in her op-ed that ``this one-size-fits all approach limits patient freedom, while picking their pockets.'' This is a doctor who talks to her patients every day. She says she has seen for herself in Louisiana how Washington is standing between her and her patients. Nothing should be between a patient and that person's doctor--nothing--not a government bureaucrat, not an insurance company bureaucrat, no one. The doctor-patient relationship is one that is sacred.

This doctor's experience is typical of what I am hearing and what we are hearing from all across the country from doctors.

Every Democrat in the Senate voted to pass this terrible health care law. President Obama says Democrats who voted for the health care law should, as he said, ``forcefully defend and be proud of'' the law.

Is the President proud that patients and health care providers such as this pediatrician are suffering because of his health care law and all of its dangerous side effects? Where are the Democrats ready to forcefully defend standing between Louisiana doctors and their patients? Where are they? I do not see them coming to the floor.

Democrats in Washington were so eager to pass the President's health care law that they made a lot of promises, and they were not true. They said people could keep their insurance. That was not true. It seems as though 5 million people received letters saying their insurance had been canceled, in spite of what the President had promised them.

People in Wyoming, people in Louisiana, people all across the country lost the insurance they had because it did not include all the unnecessary coverage the President's health care law mandated.

Democrats said people could keep their doctor. That was not true. People in Wyoming, Louisiana, all across America lost their doctor because the new, narrow provider networks made people lose the doctor they had worked with, who treated them, who treated members of their family, whom they knew and trusted.

The President said the American people would save $2,500 per year, per family on insurance premiums. Democrats in the Senate who voted for the law promised the same. I remember them standing here. I can see one after another saying that. It was not true.

People all across America are paying more than ever because of the health care law. Well, people in Louisiana specifically, where this pediatrician lives and works and takes care of patients, are paying a lot more.

There is an article from the Associated Press newspaper in Lake Charles, LA, last Thursday: ``Health insurance price increases could top 10 percent for thousands in Louisiana.'' That was the headline on the front page above the fold.

According to the article, Blue Cross--that is the largest health insurer in Louisiana--is planning to raise rates by more than 18 percent next year.

Is President Obama ready to forcefully defend these premium increases because of the law? He is the one who said premiums were going to go down. The American people see what has happened. The President did not say, well, they are just not going to kind of go up as fast. He said they were going to go down $2,500 per year, per family. So we are seeing large increases all across the country.

Are the Democrats in the Senate proud that families in Louisiana are getting hit with another 18-percent premium increase in some locations? Higher premiums, higher copays, higher deductibles--all to pay for coverage that people do not want, do not need, cannot afford, but were mandated to have.

People in Louisiana were already paying more because of the President's health care law. There is a recent study which found that health insurance premiums for an average 27-year-old man in Louisiana are over 100 percent higher this year than last year--double, double this year from last year. That is before they were forced into the ObamaCare exchange. Premiums for an average 64-year-old woman are $2,000 more this year than they were last year. These are very expensive side effects for families in Louisiana as a result of the President's health care law.

What does the President have to say about these outrageous rate hikes that he caused because of his health care law? What does he have to say to the people suffering from the costly side effects of the health care law?

Well, the President went to Kansas City, MO, in the last couple days. I think when he travels outside of Washington, the President should actually meet with doctors who live in those communities, doctors such as this woman, this pediatrician, who practices in Louisiana. He should sit down with the women whose children are patients of doctors such as this one, talk to the parents of these children about what the impact of his health care law has been on them.

The President should hear directly--directly--from these people about the devastating side effects of his health care law and how it is hurting them and hurting their families.

Every Democrat in the Senate voted for this health care law--every one of them.

Where are the Democrats willing to forcefully defend these costly and damaging side effects of their health care law? Democrats do not want to defend this terrible law and all of its devastating side effects.

Republicans are going to keep talking about this law. We are going to keep standing for American families who are being hurt by this law. We are going to continue to come to the floor to talk about stories that we hear from back home, what we hear from families in our home States, people who have lost their insurance and end up having to get insurance they do not need or do not want or are never going to use that is much more expensive than what they had before because the insurance that worked for their families the President said was not good enough.

We are going to continue to come and talk about the families who have seen their take-home pay go down because instead of being able to take that money home and working the hours they want, they have had their hours cut, not because they were not needed at work, not because there was not a demand for their services, but because of the health care law that says anybody working over 30 hours a week is then considered full time, and by the President's mandate, they have to be supplied with health insurance at work.

So what happens? Businesses--and it is not just businesses--what we are seeing are school districts, counties, county governments, the whole State of Virginia--the different governing bodies--as to any part-time workers, they are saying: Well, we have to keep them below 30 hours because we cannot afford the insurance for these folks. So these folks are saying: Well, I lose my take-home pay. And the reason is the President's health care law. School districts are having to say: Well, we can keep them above 30 hours and then have to pay for their insurance, but then we are going to have to fire a number of reading teachers, fire the coach, fire the bus driver, fire someone else who works in the school.

That is not a way to help people in a community. That is not good for anybody's health. But those are the side effects of the President's health care law--a bill that so few people actually read before they voted for it because, as Nancy Pelosi famously said: First you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it.

So we are going to continue to talk about patient-centered reforms, reforms that get people the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower cost. We are going to talk about restoring people's freedom, freedom to buy health insurance that works for them and their families because they know what is best for them. It is not Washington controlled; it is local decisions, families making decisions for themselves. And we are going to talk about giving people choices, not Washington mandates. Republicans are going to keep offering real solutions for better health care without all of these tragic side effects.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source