Health Care Reform
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, with regard to the health care law, the proof has come out today. The administration has been cooking the books. That is not just me saying it. It has come out all across the press. USA Today, just out: ``Obama administration gave bad health exchange numbers.'' Associated Press: ``Oops, administration erred on health law signups.''
Let's take a look at this. The Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday--this is reading from USA Today--it made a mistake in how it calculated enrollments under the Affordable Care Act, including 400,000 dental plans in its figures for medical plans. Those dental plans allow the Obama administration to claim more than 7 million enrollments and 7 million was long considered the magic number, the magic number that would allow the new health insurance exchanges to be sustainable. What does the Secretary of Health and Human Services say? Today she said this mistake is unacceptable. I agree with the Secretary.
This mistake is unacceptable, but it is not a surprise to the American people. We have questioned a long time what numbers the administration was putting out. I think it is fascinating that the administration has continued to lower and lower the numbers as more and more information and research has been done, and they can hide it no longer that they were cooking the books. Earlier today Bloomberg went up to the--with the story based on analysis from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The committee found the Obama administration has included people who purchased this stand-alone dental coverage and now HHS has admitted the duplicity. Let's take a look at this. On May 1 Health and Human Services released exchange enrollment information for a period from October 1, 2013, through April 19, 2014. At the time Health and Human Services said over 8 million people had selected a plan through an exchange, either the State or Federal exchange.
In the report, HHS also disclosed 1.1 million selected to stand-alone dental plans through the Federal exchanges. A footnote in that report said totals for stand-alone dental plans do not include individuals who are enrolled in the marketplace plans that provide integrated medical and dental coverage. So then on May 21, and after previously touting the 8.1 million exchange enrollees, Health and Human Services decided they would stop issuing additional reports. No more monthly ObamaCare exchange enrollment information. September 18, in testimony before the House Oversight Committee, the CMS Administrator, Marilyn Tavenner, testified that there were 7.3 million people enrolled in the health insurance marketplace coverage as of August 15. Remember the magic number for saying this was a sustainable program was still 7 million.
When we take a look at the oversight committee's analysis it shows nearly 400,000 of these enrollees didn't purchase insurance through the exchange for health care, rather stand-alone dental coverage. That takes the total number to under 7 million.
On November 10, earlier this month, Secretary Burwell said there were 7.1 million exchange enrollees as of the end of October. However, she also failed to break out the coverage of those stand-alone dental insurance policies, indicating the true number as of last month, likely closer to 6.7 million or 6.8 million individuals.
The nearly 20 percent drop in the exchange enrollees suggests that once many people learn about the ObamaCare problems, extremely high deductibles, narrow networks, they stop paying. They stop paying their premium in spite of the fact that there continues to be large government subsidies they are receiving. This drop is likely the central reason HHS dramatically lowered its exchange estimates earlier this month saying that by the end of the next year, instead of the 13 million people predicted by the Congressional Budget Office that there would be about only 9.1 million people enrolled.
I have heard from my colleague from Connecticut who came and told an individual story, but the health care law overall remains very unpopular. It is so unpopular that as of earlier this week and all of the polling ever done about the health care law, it is more unpopular now than ever before. Popularity is at an alltime low and unpopularity, disapproval is at an alltime high. Why would that be? There are a number of reasons. One is the front page of the New York Times the other day. November 15, cost of coverage under the care act set to increase. President Obama stood before the American people and said under his plan the cost of insurance policies would go down $2,500 per family. They have not gone down. They headed in the other direction, and again this year the cost of coverage under the health care act is set to increase. It is no surprise people are concerned when the President tells them one thing and something else happens, they question the President.
There are a number of reasons it is not popular. That is just one. The President's solutions of putting many more people on Medicaid under the health care law, a program that has already failed and is failing and continues to be a problem--the front page of the Wall Street Journal, Friday, 14 of November, ``As More Join Medicaid, Health Systems Feel Strain''--stories about people who can't get care, people who are providers who can't afford to provide the care for Medicaid patients because the reimbursement is so low. That is the President's solution--force more people on to Medicaid because the President's focus during all of these discussions has been on coverage. As a doctor I will tell you the focus should be on the word ``care.'' People want care, and they know what they want. They know what they need in health care reform.
They want affordable care, quality care, and choice. That is what a Republican plan will look like to replace and strip out the terrible parts of this health care law. Then for people living all across the country in rural communities--I know in the Presiding Officer's State and in mine, we know what impact the loss of a rural hospital has on that community.
But yet, front page, USA Today, last weekend, November 14 to 16, ``Rural Hospitals in Critical Condition.'' ObamaCare critics say the law is speeding up the demise of the facilities. There is a map of the United States, a list of 43 hospitals that have closed since January of 2010 as a result of the health care law.
You say: Is it as a result of the health care law? I believe it is, because it was Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the architects of the health care law, who said and recently wrote that between now and the year 2020, up to 1,000 hospitals in the United States were likely to close. We know what the impact of the cuts that happen to our seniors on Medicare as a result of the health care law will have to rural hospitals, where a disproportionate number of the patients are seniors on Medicare. The hospitals cannot sustain themselves.
That was part of the original budget numbers as they looked at the health care law, as we debated it on this Senate floor and said: Please do not pass this, Democrats--who one by one by one voted for the health care law--because it is going to impact our rural hospitals.
Now we see 43 hospitals in rural communities all around the country and tell stories of people who could not get care, had to travel such a long distance in that critical hour after a heart attack, were unable to survive. So the health care law continues to be very unpopular across the country. Yes, it is possible for colleagues to come to the floor and tell a story about one individual whose life may have been improved as a result of the health care law. But across the country, there are many people who are finding they cannot keep their doctor, they cannot keep their child's pediatrician, they cannot go to the hospital in their local community because of the specific components of the health care law which have caused so much damage and wreaked havoc in communities all around America.
I continue to hear from people in Wyoming who have lost the insurance that worked for them and they liked. They had to buy other insurance, much more expensive, that covered things they did not need, did not want, and cannot afford. Many now find themselves for the first time without insurance when they had it before. It worked for them and their families.
So that is why all across the country, people are saying: This health care law is not working for me. That is why the signups are down and the belief is that fewer people are going to sign up because for them they do not feel they are getting good value. They see what they are going to have to pay out of pocket for deductibles, what they have to pay out of pocket for copays, what their premiums are. As a result, they are saying: No, thank you.
Even with the subsidies, Health and Human Services has significantly lowered their predictions of how many people will sign up for the health care law this year. That is in spite of the fact that the fines are going up.
Then, on top of all of this, there is a health care MIT economist, Professor Jonathan Gruber, who has made comments that are disparaging of American citizens. He has said not just once but time and time again, as the videos continue to come out of this Gruber miniseries of TV videos, that this health care law was sold to the American people by trying to confuse them. He has questioned their intelligence. It was Nancy Pelosi who said: First you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it.
American people are furious about the way this administration has treated them, has behaved toward them, and has acted upon their willingness to believe an administration and believe a Speaker of the House at a time people wanted health care reform in America. People did not get what they wanted. They did not get what they were promised.
So, today, I come to the floor to say to my colleague who just spoke about the health care law, that perhaps for the folks he mentioned it has worked. We want health care to work for people all across the country so they can get the care they need, from a doctor they choose, at lower cost. That is what they want. So today, the proof comes out, the administration has been cooking the books. As USA Today says, the Obama administration gave bad health exchange numbers and the Associated Press starts its story on this very same topic with one word, ``Oops!''
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
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