Barrasso: Wyoming & Colorado Families Pay More, Get Less Under Obamacare

July 23, 2014

Contact: Emily Schillinger ~202.224.6441

Barrasso: Wyoming & Colorado Families Pay More, Get Less Under Obamacare

Go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch'v=i07IMAgfdc to watch Sen. Barrasso's speech.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) spoke about how the President's health care law is hurting families in Wyoming and Colorado by increasing their health care costs and making it harder for them to see their doctor.

Excerpts of his remarks:

"I come to the floor today because Democrats in Washington continue to put out misleading information about the President's health care law.

"Last week the Senator from Connecticut came to the floor and he said that Republicans have, in his words, 'gone silent' when it comes to talking about the health care law. He claimed that there is a quiet acceptance that the law is working.

"Well, I just want to correct the record and make it perfectly clear that Republicans have not gone quiet because the health care law is not working.

"The American people are not going quiet either. They're not going quiet when it comes to talking about the devastating side effects that they're feeling from the health care law.

"Now, I hear it from people when I go home to Wyoming every weekend. I heard it last weekend. I heard it last night on a telephone town hall meeting. And when I travel, I hear about it. Even just passing through the airport in Denver on the way home, which I do each week.

"Also as Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, one of my responsibilities is to study how policies that come out of Washington like the President's health care law, how it affects people all across America, including states like Colorado where I change planes each week.

"Well, last week, 'The Denver Post' had an op-ed written by a doctor, Dr. Cindy Tucker. Now, she is an obstetrician, gynecologist, practices medicine in Thornton, Colorado, outside Denver.

"In the editorial, her op-ed was published in the 'Denver Post'--which is, of course, the statewide newspaper in Colorado. And the headline on the column in the 'Denver Post' was 'Red tape isn't health care reform.'

"Now, remember that the amount of regulation that Obamacare has created is a red tape tower of paper over seven-feet tall, so this doctor from one of the suburbs of Colorado, Cindy Tucker, she wants us to know about the health care law from her perspective as a practicing physician, as a Colorado physician and what she has to say is that the prognosis isn't good.

"She writes 'at my practice, I have found that the health care law disrupts the doctor-patient relationship by drowning both of us,' she says, 'in paperwork.' The doctor says that Obamacare authors and the politicians who voted for it-- and, of course, that's the entire Democrat side of the chamber. She writes 'Obamacare's authors and the politicians who voted for it promised that it would provide quality affordable health care to Coloradans.' She says 'yet it does the exact opposite.'

"She says 'For doctors, it makes health care more and more complex and increasingly more impersonal.'

"Not more personal, which is what we want as doctors, as somebody who has practiced medicine for 25 years. What she says is it makes it more impersonal. And she says as for patients, it makes finding a cheap health plan or finding a doctor more difficult. Not less difficult, as the President promised. Not cheaper, but more difficult as the doctor points out.

"Now, to me, that's a very damaging and maybe even life-threatening side effect of the President's health care law.

"Now, President Obama was in Colorado earlier this month. This week, he's doing the same thing in Seattle and in California. Instead of meeting with more campaign donors, which is what the President is doing, the President should meet with doctors and patients and doctors like specifically like this obstetrician-gynecologist in Colorado.

"He should sit down with some of the women who are patients of this doctor, and I think they would like to ask the President about these devastating side effects of his health care law and explain to him about how it's hurting them and hurting their families.

"The disruptive impact that the law is having on care, it's drowning patients and doctors in red tape, that's not the only side effect of the law that's hurting American families.

"A recent Gallup poll earlier this month found that only 8% of Americans are spending less money on health care than they did a year ago. Only 8% of Americans--Gallup poll of all of the country. Only 8% are spending less money on health care than they did a year ago.

"President Obama promised the American people that they would save $2,500 a year per family under his health care law. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, the former Speaker of the House was on 'Meet the Press' at one point and said that everyone's rates would go down.

"Well Democrats in the Senate who voted for the law promised the same thing, and it just didn't happen. People are paying more all across America.

"People are paying more in Washington state and in California where the President is visiting. Why is he there" He's meeting with campaign donors. He's collecting campaign money.

"Now people are paying more all across the country. They are paying more for health care insurance in Wyoming. People are paying more in Colorado where the doctor is who wrote in the 'Denver Post' where she sees patients.

"There is a recent study that found health insurance premiums for an average 40-year-old woman in Colorado are 20% higher this year than last year. That was before she was forced onto the Obamacare exchange.

"President Obama says Democrats who voted for the law should, as he said, forcefully defend and be proud of the health care law. When he was in Colorado a couple of weeks ago, did President Obama forcefully defend these premium increases because of the law?

"When he's traveling this week, is the President going to forcefully defend patients and doctors experiencing the exact opposite of what the Democrats promised?

"Are Democrats in the Senate proud that only 8% of Americans are spending less on health care this year than they did before?

"Costs are going up so fast that last month, state regulators in Colorado decided to add another tax on every insurance policy in the state in order, get this, to bail out the state Obamacare exchange.

"They added an extra tax on every insurance policy in the state in order to bail out the state Obamacare exchange.

"Now, that's not just on people buying the policy in the exchange. They are charging this new tax on every person in Colorado who buys health insurance just to cover those who buy it through the exchange.

"Well, that's a very expensive side effect for the families of Colorado as a result of the President's health care law.

"So this health care law, it's bad for patients, bad for providers, the nurses and the doctors who take care of those patients, and it's terrible for taxpayers. Every Democrat in the Senate voted for this health care law. Where are the Democrats willing to forcefully defend these costly and damaging side effects of their health care law?

"People in Colorado and all across America got letters telling them that their plans were being canceled because of the law. People lost access to their doctors like this OB-GYN physician who wrote her op-ed editorial for 'The Denver Post.'

"Now, she said she has had to stop seeing Medicare patients because of the new red tape in the health care law. So people in Colorado lost their right to choose the health plan that works for them and their families.

"Republicans are not going to quietly accept the terrible side effects of the President's health care law. We're going to keep coming to the floor. We're going to keep standing up for American families that are being hurt by this law.

"We're going to keep offering new solutions, real solutions for better health care without all of these tragic side effects.

"Well, that means patient-centered reforms that get people the care that they need from a doctor they choose at lower costs. It means giving people choices, not Washington mandates. It means allowing people to buy health insurance that works for them and their families because they know what's best for them.

"Democrats who voted for this health care law have failed to answer the real concern of the American people, which was affordable, quality care. American families will not go quiet about the harm the Democrats have done to them with this health care law."