Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, this week President Obama told a group of campaign donors that people who still talk about his health care law are ``not speaking to the real concerns that people have.'' The President still does not seem to understand that Americans do have real concerns about his health care law. They are not partisan concerns, they are practical concerns. The reason Americans are worried is because the law directly impacts their personal lives, their personal health, and their personal pocketbooks.

That is why I have come to the floor week after week to talk about some of the alarming side effects of the President's health care law, and there are many alarming side effects related to the law that people are seeing and dealing with in their everyday lives. I have talked about how this law has increased premiums, how it has cut paychecks for many families, how week after week more people are realizing that they are suffering as a result of the law. They are not helped by the law but are suffering as victims of the President's law.

Today I wish to talk about another costly side effect of the law: the massive amount of taxpayer dollars that continues to be wasted under the law. For example, KMOV, a television station in St. Louis, recently reported about a call center in Missouri that processes paper applications for insurance in the State exchanges. Remember, the applications were supposed to be handled on a Web site, so they should not need a call center handling very many paper applications, but it doesn't seem to matter.

The company got a contract for $1.2 billion. According to the report, there are 1,800 employees. What are these people doing who are taking all of this money? It turns out a lot of them are not doing very much. They are being paid with hard-earned taxpayer dollars and they are not doing very much. One employee said, ``There are some weeks that a data entry person would not process an application''--weeks, and not a single application. They are just sitting there and looking at their computers. The report says some of them are playing Pictionary or 20 Questions and collecting paychecks funded by the taxpayers. Another former employee told the Associated Press: ``It was like stealing money from people.'' It was like stealing money from people.

It is not just happening in Missouri. Another TV station, KOLR, found a call center run by the same company--this one is in Arkansas--and reported that the same thing that is happening in St. Louis, MO, is happening in Arkansas. One employee told the station that he has been there 6 months--6 months and getting paid for full-time work--and has processed a total of 40 applications.

To make matters worse, we have learned of another clear way Washington is wasting taxpayer dollars while implementing the law. Over the weekend the Washington Post reported that Federal health care subsidies may be too high or to low for 1 million people. The headline says: ``Health payouts may be wrong. Subsidies too high or [too] low for 1 million. Government flags errors but can't fix them yet.'' Incredible incompetence on the part of this administration. There is mismanagement like people have never seen before in this country.

The Post reported:

The problem means that potentially hundreds of thousands of people are receiving bigger subsidies than they deserve.

These are the subsidies some people get to help pay for their insurance in the government exchanges. It turns out that the computer system Washington built to make sure it gave the right subsidies--well, guess what. It doesn't work.

When the healthcare.gov Web site crashed last fall, the Obama administration scrambled to patch and duct tape it back together. But according to the article, behind the scenes, important aspects of the Web site remain defective or unfinished.

The article goes on:

The government may be paying incorrect subsidies to more than 1 million Americans in the new federal insurance marketplace and has been unable so far to fix the errors, according to internal documents and three people familiar with the situation.

The problem means that potentially hundreds of thousands of people are receiving bigger subsidies than they deserve.

Apparently the government can't fix it and the Web site can't be fixed. So what do they do? These people are sending in information, and, according to this article, ``piles of unprocessed `proof' documents are sitting in a federal contractor's Kentucky office, and the government continues to pay insurance subsidies that may be too generous .....''

The inability to make certain the government is paying correct subsidies is a legacy of computer troubles that crippled last fall's launch of the Obama health care law.

So again we see more waste of taxpayer dollars and more reasons for Americans to have very real concerns about the law.

Just this past week the President of the United States told donors: Oh, not speaking to the real concerns that people have.

The President of the United States is wrong. The American people have real concerns about these components of the health care law. President Obama said to the Democrats in this very body: Democrats should forcefully defend and be proud of the health care law. I want to see one of the Democrats stand and defend what I have just talked about and be proud of what I just talked about. The President says you should, so where are you right now? Not one of them is here to make that defense or to stand proud about this law.

It is hard to imagine that my colleagues can possibly be proud of a law that pays people to do nothing all day long. Can they possibly be proud of a law that awards large subsidies for people who don't qualify for them? Are the Democrats who voted for this health care law ready to forcefully defend all the taxpayer dollars that continue to be wasted every day?

There is no end in sight and there is no effort to stop this. After all, how does that provide a fair shot for everyone? Isn't that what the promises of the President are? He said: I want a fair shot for everyone. How does all of this actually help with this wasted money? How does that help anybody get better health care? Millions and millions of dollars are being wasted to pay people to sit around and play computer games. Millions more are on Web sites designed in States that have been basically called broken, dysfunctional, crippled--you name it, they are not working.

The FBI is doing an investigation about some of these reports.

How does that give anybody better health care--all these wasted taxpayer dollars.

The people know what they wanted with health care reform. They wanted better access to quality, affordable care. Let's think about what people want with health care reform. They want access, they want affordable care, they want choices--which they have been denied under this President's health care law--and they want quality. That is the kind of fair shot they wanted, but it is not what they got from the President's health care law.

Republicans have offered a patient-centered approach that would solve the biggest problems families face, such as access to care, cost of care, quality of care, and choice. That means ideas such as allowing small businesses to pool together in order to buy insurance more cheaply for their employees. That gives small businesses and the employees working there a fair shot. It means letting people shop for health insurance that actually works for them and their families, not what President Obama says is best for them. If I had to say who has the best chance of knowing what is best for a family, I would say it is likely the family and not President Obama and the Democrats who passed this law. People deserve a fair shot at buying a plan that is best for them and best for their families.

These are just a couple of the solutions Republicans have offered to give Americans real health care reform and a real fair shot--health care reform that gives patients the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower costs, without the ongoing harmful, expensive side effects we are seeing every day with the President's health care law.

Thank you. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quoru

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