Sen. Murphy: ‘Outrageous’ Sabotage of Health Care System Behind Skyrocketing Costs for American Families
"You have this very coordinated, very deliberate attack on the American health care system. The Executive Order in January of 2017 directing all federal agencies to start undermining the American health care system, the cut in the open enrollment period in April of 2017. In May, the votes start happening on the floor of the [House] to take insurance away from 23 million. ...In December, the repeal of the individual mandate resulting in premiums going up by double digits. And now this junk plan rule taking away protections from millions of Americans," said Murphy. "And so this is insult to injury for the people in my state and people all across the country because they are watching their health care insurance premiums skyrocket while the windfall of the tax bill accrues to the owners of the insurance companies and the drug companies."
Murphy continued, "If you want to know why premiums are going up at the rate that they are, you don't have to look any further than this campaign of health care sabotage that has been waged by the Trump administration and
The full text of Murphy's speech is available below:
Thank you very much, Mr. President.
This week, people in
Think about that. Think about getting a notice from your insurance company telling you that in one year, your premium is going to double - the cost of getting health insurance is going to double. I feel like it's time to come down and talk about why this is happening, why you're seeing these radical rate hikes being proposed from insurance companies.
So, Mr. President, I want to walk through for my colleagues this very deliberate campaign of sabotage that this administration and congressional
It starts on
On
Next, the President starts to threaten insurance companies, threatening them to pull the subsidies that
Also in 2017, about the same time he starts threatening to reduce these payments, the President cuts in half the open enrollment period. There's no reason to cut in half the open enrollment period other than you just don't want people to get insurance. It's a deliberate sabotage. Cutting in half the enrollment period is simply a mechanism to try to deny people the ability to get health care. There is no practical or logistical benefit to reducing the amount of time that people have to buy health care, just as there's no practical benefit to cutting off all the advertising for the health care exchanges other than you don't want people to sign up.
In July of 2017, the
Open enrollment outreach funding is reduced in August of 2017 by as much as 90 percent, so the helpful people that you used to have trying to figure out whether you qualified for Medicaid or whether you qualified for a subsidy, a tax credit, are no longer available because that money is taken away.
Then the big legislative intervention, the repeal of the individual mandate. The individual mandate is repealed as part of the tax bill, even though CBO (
And finally, the President most recently unveiled what he calls the short-term health insurance plan rule. These are more commonly referred to as junk plans - plans that last up to a year but don't need to comply with federal regulations. For instance, regulations that require insurance companies to actually give you coverage for things like mental illness or maternity care. Or regulations that require insurance companies to protect people with preexisting conditions. All of those super popular benefits in the Affordable Care Act - the ones
And so you have this very coordinated, very deliberate attack on the American health care system. The Executive Order in January of 2017 directing all federal agencies to start undermining the American health care system, the cut in the open enrollment period in April of 2017. In May, the votes start happening on the floor of the [House] to take insurance away from 23 million. One of the bills took insurance away from 30 million. In December, the repeal of the individual mandate resulting in premiums going up by double digits. And now this junk plan rule taking away protections from millions of Americans. The effect of that junk plan rule is also to move healthier patients out of the exchange pools into the junk plans because the junk plans don't have to cover anything so healthy people will go to those plans, which drives up rates for the plans that people with any kind of preexisting condition would be able to access. So you have this very deliberate plan to try to undermine the American health care system. And we are now seeing the consequences.
As I mentioned, the period of rate filings is beginning across the country where insurance companies have to announce what their rate increases are going to be. Now, health care inflation on an annual basis has been holding steady over the years. It certainly never gets above 10 percent. And for a number of years during the early roll out of the Affordable Care Act, that number was at or lower than 5 percent. And so if you're just looking at the amount that we're spending on an annual basis above last year on health care, that number has not recently been more than 5 percent. And yet one insurer in
Nobody can afford a 64 percent increase in health insurance premiums in
If you're in other
So, Mr. President and my colleagues, I and others are going to come down to the floor of the
I will just add one last note, which to many of my constituents in
I just totaled up the projected 2018 tax savings to eight of the biggest insurance companies in the country, and it's over
And when you look at the drug industry where we have a little bit more mature information, you know why. The drug industry by one report released by - I believe - the
And so this is insult to injury for the people in my state and people all across the country because they are watching their health care insurance premiums skyrocket while the windfall of the tax bill accrues to the owners of the insurance companies and the drug companies. What a great time to be in the health care business today. You get a giant tax break and you get to pass along gigantic premium increases to people all across this country. Think about somebody in
That's outrageous. That's outrageous. And yet it's just going to get worse.
So as this spring and summer plays out, I think every single week there's a new state or set of states unveiling rate filings. I'll come down and update this chart just so everybody knows what the numbers are. It starts with rate increases as high, and I'm not saying every single increase is this high, but in
I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of very big numbers on this board. And I want to make sure that everybody understands that if you want to know why premiums are going up at the rate that they are, you don't have to look any further than this campaign of health care sabotage that has been waged by the Trump administration and
I yield the floor.
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