Date: 2013-09-26
Speaker: TOM COBURN (republican)
Chamber: S

and myself. We were in it in committee along with other Members. The fact that I am not embracing a strategy to close down the government is real important. It is because at the end of the day and we open the government. the way the statute is. there is the Affordable Care Act. It is still there. I did not come to Washington to embrace strategies that do not achieve solutions. I came to find solutions to big issues so the next generation can benefit from them. Do not misunderstand me. There is no bigger critic in Washington. DC. than the Senator from North Carolina. As a matter of fact. in the committee. I counted 58 votes on 58 amendments where we voted to kill the health care bill. I think my record stands for being opposed to this legislation. Senator COBURN and I have introduced more health care proposals than the rest of the Congress combinedoptions. replacements. We have stood on this floor hour after hour on the Affordable Care Act and shared with the American people why this was a bad move. We have quoted individuals who lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Their Chief Actuary told us. before we passed this bill in this body. that this will close community hospitals. it would increase premiums. it would deprive people of health care. But the Congress of the United States and the President of the United States signed this law into statute. There is only one way to kill a law once a law is in statute. that is. to pass a bill that is signed by a President that reverses that. To some degree. this is civics 101. It is an understanding of the legislative process. It was not the first time I disagreed with something this body had done. Let me assure you. it will not be the last time. But I also understand the way that we change this. It is not the way we are attempting to do it right now. So what have we seen in the short period that we have gone through this? As we move up to October 1 and these new exchanges are rolled out. we have seen premiums go up. We have seen doctors retire. We have seen health care professionals move from rural America to urban areas. We have seen the health care infrastructure scared to death of what is around the corner. We have seen premiums rise. If there is anything that is wrong. it is the title of the bill. the Affordable Care Act. We have made health care less affordable for more Americans. Let me say that again. This act has made health care less affordable for more Americans. It has tripled. at a minimum. the cost of a health care premium for somebody 30 years or undertripled. at a minimum. This is a group who is targeted for enrollment. They would not enroll when the premium was onethird of the cost it is today. We have heard people say that Members of Congress are trying to protect their own subsidy. Members of Congress are not going to take the subsidy. We passed legislation. but at the end of the day. the public pressure will be such that no one up here will take the subsidy. But if we are going to treat Federal workers one way. then treat all of them the same way. Do not pick and choose whothe ones who work on the Hill. the ones who work in our offices. not ones who are in committees. not ones who work at the FDA. the EPA or whatever. Lets include everybody. If we want an exchange to work. then we have to enroll as many people and we have to have robust competition. The way this is set up we are going to have low enrollment. The way insurers have responded to the exchangesin my State. we have one insurer that has entered the exchange to insure the entire State and one insurer that is representing 10 counties out of 100. That is not competition. That is almost a monopoly. I do not blame the one that is in all by themselves. I blame what we designed. where we did not empower States to actually design things that fit their health care infrastructure and their State. where individuals could buy insurance based upon their age and their income and their health condition. We said. no. if you do not buy this plan. then you are going to pay a penalty. We have heard a lot of debate about the process. but we have not heard as much debate about the specifics of this legislation. It is bad for the American people. Regardless of the outcome of tomorrows votes. this legislation is still going to be in statute. It is still going to be implemented on I hope all of the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people who have responded to the request to calland they dont always know why. except they do not like this health care planwhen tomorrows vote is over. do not go away. The pressure has to be on this institution to make the changes. Most Americans do not know that we are going to start taxingor we are already taxing the manufacturers of medical devices 1.5 percent. They pay a surcharge to fund ObamaCare. We are going to charge. in the exchanges. at 2.3 percent. I believe. a health insurance premium tax for every person who purchases health insurance. We have to ask ourselves: If we are going to tax devices and we are going to tax the insurance premiums. how in the world can the price of health care go down? It cannot. This is common sense and math matched up. It has to force health care costs up. That is. in fact. what every American sees. Even your employers insurance. if you are lucky enough to still have an employer that is providing it. your health care premium is going up next year. If you are in an exchange. your premium cost is going up next year. Who does it benefit? It benefited maybe people who had preexisting conditions and they could not purchase insurance. You know what the first act of the Affordable Care Act was? It was to create a national pool of individuals with preexisting conditions and they would all be offered insurance. What happened? When about 20somepercent of them got enrolled. the fund ran out of money and the one population that this bill was sold to protect. almost 80 percent of them. were left out in the cold with no options. It has failed since the first step. What I hope is that American people will not leave this debate and say we have done our best. We have not done our best. The Nation is betting on us to continue on this. Our children deserve whatever it takes for us to accomplish it. But as I started. let me say to the body. our strategy to get here was flawed. I know it sounded good. but it does not work. The only way to eliminate a bill that is in statute is to pass a bill and have it signed by a President that reverses that statute. I am glad we have had this debate. I am glad the American people are now engaged in it. I do not think this will be the last discussion we have on the Affordable Care Act. I will assure you that as I have been before. I will be again on this floor debating my colleagues as aggressively and fairly as I can about what is wrong with this bill and why it should be reversed and why it should be replaced. I thank my colleague from Alaska. I yield the floor.