{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=4663f351-2fc1-4bf4-9533-605f55706f21", "High Risk Insurance Pool Enrollees Losing Coverage Because of Obamacare", "2013-11-19", "2013", "2013-11", "Republican", "House", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor regarding cancelled insurance policies as a result of Obamacare:\r\n\u201cOver the past few weeks, we\u2019ve seen vivid, painful confirmation of the predictions that many of us made about Obamacare.\r\n\u201cMost notable among them, perhaps, was that the President\u2019s oft-repeated promise \u2018If you like your plan, you keep it,\u2019 just couldn\u2019t be true.\r\n\u201cThis was always what Democrats thought they had to tell the American people in order to muscle Obamacare into law. They knew it wouldn\u2019t work otherwise. They knew the truth would not sell. And that\u2019s all coming out now.\r\n\u201cBut we\u2019re also now learning a lot of other very unsettling things about this law.\r\n\u201cLike the fact that a lot of things that were working well in our health care system are now being thrown out for no good reason.\r\n\u201cBy the same people who brought you the Obamacare website.\r\n\u201cHigh-risk pools are a good example.\r\n\u201cAbout three dozen states set up these kinds of pools to insure Americans with serious medical conditions, such as those suffering from diabetes and heart disease.\r\n\u201cHigh-risk pools have often proven successful and popular among the communities they serve. They currently provide insurance to hundreds of thousands of Americans, including thousands of Kentuckians, nearly all of them with pre-existing conditions\u2026the very people the law was supposed to help.\r\n\u201cThese folks benefit from this coverage and many want to keep it.\r\n\u201cUnfortunately, that will no longer be possible under Obamacare.\r\n\u201cNearly all of them will lose their coverage at the end of the year.\r\n\u201cJust like millions of other Americans across the country, folks who like the coverage they have in these high risk pools \u2014 and remember, I\u2019m talking about some of the most vulnerable people in our society \u2014 are now discovering that they won\u2019t be able to keep it either.\r\n\u201cDespite what the President told us again and again and again.\r\n\u201cAs it turns out, the folks who rammed this law through Congress think people in these high risk pools belong in Obamacare instead.\r\n\u201cThey don\u2019t think it matters whether my constituents want to get dumped into Obamacare or not\u2026they\u2019ve made that decision for them.\r\n\u201cWell, a lot of folks in Kentucky don\u2019t think this is right, and they\u2019re upset.\r\n\u201cAnd not just because they\u2019re losing their plans, and all the hassle and complication that involves. For many of these folks, the plans they\u2019re being forced into have more limited hospital and doctor networks than the plans they currently have. As one state official recently put it, \u2018If you're in the middle of chemotherapy, the last thing you want to do is switch oncologists.\u2019\r\n\u201cWe seem to see these kinds of stories just about every day now.\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s the North Carolina woman with a severe heart condition who said she didn\u2019t know if her cardiologists and her procedures will be covered under Obamacare. Here\u2019s what she said: \u2018It\u2019s\u2026the uncertainty that gets to me.\u2019\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s the breast cancer survivor and her husband who\u2019d been paying about $800 a month for premiums in a high-risk pool. After that policy was cancelled, they expected lower rates under Obamacare. Instead, they found their premium and deductibles could actually be going up.\r\n\u201cThis is scary stuff. But these are the real-life consequences of Obamacare. This is no longer some theoretical policy discussion.\r\n\u201cAnd I would suggest that, as we contemplate the future of this law, our Democrat friends should start paying closer attention to stories like these.\r\n\u201cBecause it\u2019s not enough to have a messaging strategy and to play the old Washington game of trying to weather the P.R. storm until folks move on. These stories we\u2019re hearing from our constituents are heartbreaking. This isn\u2019t some hassle to move past. It\u2019s a problem to solve. It\u2019s what we were sent here for. And it\u2019s what real health care reform should be about \u2014 about helping folks, not hurting them.\r\n\u201cSo we don\u2019t need to get past this news cycle, as some of the White House spinners seem to think. What we need to get past is a White House mentality that told us last week that passing a bill to codify the very promise the President made to sell the bill would \u2018gut\u2019 Obamacare\u2026We need to get past a mentality that caused the President to issue a veto threat on a law that would let him keep his promise to the American people about keeping the health care plans they have and like.\r\n\u201cI mean, it\u2019s almost comical watching the contortions the administration is making trying to explain this fiasco away. Over the weekend we learned through a White House leak to The Washington Post that the President\u2019s new definition of success for the Obamacare website is four out of five users making it through the checkout line. Who thinks that\u2019s acceptable? I don\u2019t. And I can\u2019t think of anybody outside the White House compound who will.\r\n\u201cAnd frankly, if this is the President\u2019s way of restoring credibility on this law, by leaking out that the website won\u2019t even work for one out of five users just a few days after vowing it would soon be running like a top\u2026well, he\u2019s got work to do. And the bar for clarity, honesty, and \u2018success\u2019 under Obamacare has sunk to new lows.\r\n\u201cLook: if you\u2019re being treated for cancer and about to be dumped into Obamacare \u2013 the last thing you want to hear is that leaving one out of five people behind is now considered an Obamacare win. We\u2019re talking about people\u2019s lives here.\r\n\u201cThis kind of mindset\u2026whether we\u2019re talking about a website or anything else \u2026 it\u2019s deeply worrying.\r\n\u201cBut then again, this has always been the problem with blind faith in massive government programs. It\u2019s the old idea that we shouldn\u2019t let the evidence get in the way of a good theory. That\u2019s the mindset the supporters of this law are stuck in right now \u2014 just blindly adhering to the hope that this thing will work against all the evidence. It\u2019s pretty distressing. And it\u2019s going to have to change if we\u2019re going to get anywhere.\r\n\u201cThe real question right now should be obvious: what\u2019s the Administration\u2019s plan to turn all this around?\r\n\u201cWe know they have a press plan \u2013 but what\u2019s the policy plan?\r\n\u201cDoes the administration have anything of substance to tell folks who are losing their plans? Does it have anything to tell folks in these high risk pools who could be losing their doctors? Does anyone over there know?\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve said this before, and I\u2019ll say it again. These are people\u2019s lives we\u2019re talking about. So it\u2019s time for a reality check. The defenders of Obamacare have a choice: stand up for your constituents, or defend a law that\u2019s falling apart before our very eyes \u2013 a law that threatens to drag down the quality and affordability of care for millions of Americans who need it, including those most in need.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=4663f351-2fc1-4bf4-9533-605f55706f21"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0784438345581293, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}