Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act Of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I am going to take a few minutes to talk about the reconciliation bill that we are discussing and debating on the Senate floor this week, particularly the focus on repealing the Affordable Care Act, or what is called ObamaCare. There are many, many aspects of the bill that we are debating--the individual mandate, the Cadillac tax, the employer mandate. These will all be gone. Essentially, we will start the process of what I believe the vast majority of Americans want, which is real, affordable health care, not what we currently have.

I was recently home in Anchorage, AK. A lot of us get a sense of what our constituents are feeling by going about doing our basic chores and running errands when we are back home. Two weeks ago, in the course of 2 hours of getting gas, at a grocery store, and at Lowe's, I had three different Alaskans come up to me and plead to do something about ObamaCare, how it was wiping out their home income and their small business--three in 2 hours.

Similarly, I was in Fairbanks a few days ago and heard from another small business owner. They made the same plea that many small business owners I have heard from in Alaska have talked about. They have had health insurance for their employees for years where they have taken care of them. Yet the increases in the costs of these plans are such that their companies will not be able to operate. They have this huge dilemma: to continue to cover their employees whom they care a lot about--some of whom have been working for decades--or to dump them into the marketplace, because that is the only way the company can survive.

That is the dilemma that this bill is putting people into. Hardly a day passes where I don't hear from constituents about the problems they are having. Let me give you a couple of examples.

A family in Eagle River, AK, will pay $1,200 a month in premiums with a $10,000 deductible under the new Affordable Care Act. A couple in Anchorage will be paying $3,131 a month in premiums--almost $38,000 a year.

Here is an excerpt from a constituent letter:

The renewal paperwork that I just received estimated our new payment to be just over $1,000/month--doubling our monthly expense. ..... What is a young family to do?

Here is another constituent: ``There is nothing `affordable' about the Affordable Health Care Act.''

Another constituent said:

Insurance rates are killing my small business. ..... We have tried to keep our employees and their families covered but don't see how we can continue to [be in business].

Here is another constituent of mine: ``Please, please help us!!'' They are begging for help.

Teachers, construction workers, small business owners, self-sufficient Alaskans--so many of them--are asking for help because of what this Federal Government did to them.

The numbers don't lie. In Alaska and throughout the country, workers and families are suffering. Small businesses are being squeezed. Job creation is being stymied. Nearly every single promise made by the President of the United States and the supporters of this bill in the Congress has been broken.

Let me remind my colleagues what some of those promises were. Here is one from the President: ``If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan.''

Here is another one from the President: ``If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.''

The law, he told the American people, ``means more choice, more competition, lower costs for millions of Americans.''

He told the American public that premiums would be reduced on average for Americans for their health care plans by $2,500. But again, the numbers we see don't lie. Costs are soaring all over our country. For example, a bronze plan under ObamaCare, the least expensive insurance available on the exchange, costs on average--this is a national average--$420 a month, with an average deductible of $5,653 for an individual and close to $11,600 for a family.

Remember former Speaker of the House and ObamaCare promoter Nancy Pelosi with her line about how important it was to pass ObamaCare so we could all figure out what was in it. She promised that ObamaCare would create ``4 million jobs--400,000 jobs almost immediately.'' That was the former Speaker.

Let's see what the Congressional Budget Office says about that promise. Recently, the CBO projected that ObamaCare will result in 2 million fewer jobs in 2017 and 2.5 million fewer jobs in America by 2024. Obviously, that promise didn't come true. Promise after promise was unfulfilled. It is no wonder the American people have such a low opinion of the Federal Government and the Congress.

What is of the laudable goal of health insurance for the uninsured? It is a very laudable goal, and there is no doubt about it--affordable health insurance for the uninsured. ObamaCare is barely moving the needle. Today there are 35 million people who don't have health insurance. According to the CBO, 10 years from now there is still going to be approximately 27 million people who don't have coverage under this system.

Let me get a little more specific in terms of my State. Probably no other State in the country has been more negatively damaged by ObamaCare than Alaska. Five insurance companies originally offered coverage in our exchanges in Alaska, offering a glimmer of hope of what is really needed in the health care market, which is competition. Today only two are left to provide individual insurance on the health care exchange. Both will be increasing premiums by approximately 40 percent this year. In Anchorage, for the lowest level plan--a bronze plan--premiums are going to go up 46 percent.

There you go--major metropolitan areas in the United States. Look at the far left. That is Anchorage, AK, and at 46 percent in 1 year, it will make it one of the most expensive and the biggest increase in terms of metropolitan areas in the United States.

Let me give you another example. A 40-year-old nonsmoker--individual--who doesn't receive subsidies will pay anywhere from $579 to $678 a month in premiums for a bronze plan with a deductible of either $5,250 for the more expensive premium or $6,850 for the less expensive premium.

Remember, ObamaCare requires Alaskans and Americans to purchase these plans. Remember what it did for the first time in U.S. history. The Congress of the United States told the American people: You must buy a product; you have to or you will be penalized.

That brings me to the penalties. Because of the prohibitive costs, some in Alaska and many across the country have chosen to go without coverage and pay the yearly fine under ObamaCare. But that fine is also very expensive. Alaskans and Americans are asking: What is the point? What is the point of having health insurance that has been forced on them by their Federal Government and that they can't afford? Others are foregoing seeing their doctors altogether.

A recent Gallup poll found that in 2014 one in three Americans says they have put off getting medical treatment they or their family members need because with these numbers it is too expensive. They are not going to the doctor. Again, what is the point? You have health insurance, but you can't go see your doctor because it is too expensive. That number, by the way--one in three--is among the highest number in the Gallup poll's 14-year history of posing this question.

As the costs rise, the numbers will continue to rise. Not surprisingly, given all of these numbers, given that number, a recent poll found that despite 6 years of being under ObamaCare, where our citizens of the United States were supposed to finally be comfortable with it, to understand it, to have it working, still 52 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of it--only 44 percent, favorable.

For Alaskans, this is only going to get worse. The so-called Cadillac tax--one of the numerous taxes embedded in ObamaCare--is going to kick in for 2018. It will be devastating for individual Alaskans, for union members, and for small businesses across Alaska. It has been estimated that as many as 90 percent of Alaska businesses will be faced with the increased Cadillac tax. That is a tax of an additional 40 percent on these benefits. Many small businesses in Alaska will not be able to afford this. An employer with 20 employees, under the Cadillac tax will pay an estimated $28,000 a year more in taxes--just for the Cadillac tax on a small business. That can be the difference between make or break for that business.

Who is going to get hurt by this? Small businesses, but more importantly, their employees, their workers will. Those extra costs are going to trickle down to the workers, likely in the form of reduced benefits and reduced wages and more problems with their health insurance plan.

As I mentioned, it is not just small businesses. Hard-working Alaskans covered under union plans will also very likely be hit by the Cadillac tax, requiring them to pay much more, and so will State and local government employer plans.

For all of these reasons, one of my campaign promises was to vote to repeal ObamaCare. I certainly plan to do it today when we take up this reconciliation measure. I certainly hope it is going to pass.

When this legislation gets to the President's desk, what will happen then? Well, he is likely going to veto it again. I hope he looks at these numbers and recognizes what a mistake this bill was and agrees with us to work together to replace it, but he is likely going to veto it, and in doing so will likely mislead Americans again by claiming that ObamaCare is working. It is not working.

Let me give you another example of how it is not working. UnitedHealth, one of the Nation's biggest insurance companies, recently announced that because of its huge losses, it may pull out of ObamaCare altogether. If United pulls out, then others are likely to follow.

Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, one of the only health insurers left in Alaska offering coverage on the exchange, said that it can't continue to sustain losses under the exchange.

As bad laws often do, ObamaCare contains the seed of its own destruction. But for the sake of millions of Americans and thousands of Alaskans who have been sold a false bill of goods, we can't simply wait to see it self-destruct. This was not the health care that was promised to Americans, and we can't let it get worse. We need to act, and that is why I am joining with my colleagues today to repeal this law. We need to look at replacing it with one that includes provisions that are missing, such as tort reform. We need a system that encourages purchasing insurance across State lines, encourages patient-centered care, and allows the kind of doctor-patient relationship that has been the hallmark of American care for many years.

Contrary to what some on the other side of the aisle have claimed, there have been many alternatives proposed to ObamaCare. The plan in the Senate has been introduced by Senators HATCH and BURR and Congressman Fred Upton on the House side. Their legislation includes many of these important reforms. It will allow people to actually get involved in their own health care and not watch this train wreck in terms of health care becoming unaffordable for Americans throughout all of the different States.

When selling the law to the public, President Obama talked about the fierce urgency of now. That is exactly what I am hearing from my constituents when they write: Please, please help us. What is a young family to do? The fierce urgency of now is now.

Finally, I wish to comment on a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have been lamenting that this reconciliation vote we are going to take today is going to be along party lines. They have been lamenting that this might be some kind of partisan vote.

As the Presiding Officer knows, this is a bit rich and a bit ironic. It is very important to remember that 6 years ago, almost to the day, this legislation passed in the Senate and the House by a party-line vote--a partisan vote--so to hear their concerns now rings a little hollow. That was not a wise move back then.

One important lesson of U.S. history is that most, if not all, major pieces of legislation in the Congress on important social issues have been passed with bipartisan majorities, which helps to make legislation sustainable. That happens when the American people back that kind of legislation.

The American people have never backed this legislation, but democracy has an interesting way of working--not always quickly, but eventually. This law is not popular. It was never supported by the American people, and they are noticing. As a matter of fact, of the 60 U.S. Senators who voted for this law 6 years ago, 30 are no longer in this Chamber. That is democracy working.

We are going to take that vote again today. I am hoping some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join us in repealing a law that doesn't work and is dramatically harming Americans so we can move on to a health care plan that helps us, helps families, and prevents constituents from writing to their Members of the Senate and begging for help, which is what is going on right now because of this bill.

I yield the floor.

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