{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=A11BF60B-6FAF-4559-B1AD-6E92ED4ABC05", "Thune: Even Democrats Admit Obamacare Has Failed", "2025-12-08", "2025", "2025-12", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Clickhereto watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cMr. President, I would like to read a few quotes from some of my Democrat colleagues from the past couple of months.\n\n\u201cThis is from November 6, and I quote: \u2018We did fail to bring down the cost of healthcare.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis is from September 30, and I quote: \u2018Now, right now, we have a broken health care system. Nobody can afford health care.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis one, Mr. President, is from December 3, and I quote again: \u2018I think we all agree there\u2019s brokenness to the whole system.\u2019\n\n\u201cAgain, from December 3, and I quote: \u2018As much as we disagree on things, I just want to note the underlying agreement that this system needs a lot of reform.\u2019\n\n\u201cNow, all, as I said, Mr. President, of these are quotes from my Democrat colleagues in just the past couple of months.\n\n\u201cEvery quote is an implicit [admission] that Obamacare has failed.\n\n\u201cBack in 2009, of course, Democrats were arguing that Obamacare was going to fix health care.\n\n\u201cThis was a quote from that time: \u2018[A]n historic bill that will finally reform our broken health care system and help millions of our families and small businesses get the coverage they need at a price they can afford. It is about time.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat, again, a senior senator, Democrat senator, from back in 2009, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cOr in the words of the Democrat leader, and I quote again, \u2018Who would have thought that we could finally get a handle on the thing that is driving our budget deficit to great heights, which is health care costs, and at the same time do so much good by covering so many people?\u2019\n\n\u201cNow, contrast that with the words of the Democrat leader today, Mr. President, and I quote again: \u2018[T]he healthcare crisis is so deep and so real.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018[T]he healthcare crisis is so deep and so real.\u2019\n\n\u201cIn other words, Mr. President, Democrats\u2019 great scheme to fix health care, Obamacare, has failed.\n\n\u201cSo what are Democrats proposing to do this week, Mr. President?\n\n\u201cIntroduce reforms?\n\n\u201cPerhaps try a different approach?\n\n\u201cWell, no, that would be wrong, Mr. President, if you assumed that.\n\n\u201cThey have announced plans to throw good money after bad.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019ve proposed a clean, three-year extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.\n\n\u201cClean, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cNo reforms.\n\n\u201cNo revisions.\n\n\u201cJust billions of additional taxpayer dollars to prop up part of a program that has utterly failed to reduce health care costs.\n\n\u201cMr. President, since 2013, premiums for Obamacare enrollees have risen 221 percent.\n\n\u201cTwo hundred and twenty-one percent.\n\n\u201cIn other words, this program is doing the very opposite of lowering health care costs.\n\n\u201cAnd as if soaring premiums weren\u2019t a big enough problem, the exchanges are rife with potential for waste, fraud, and abuse.\n\n\u201cA damning report from the Government Accountability Office released last week found that the exchanges continue to enroll fake individuals, are improperly paying out subsidies, and are failing to ensure payment accuracy, potentially putting taxpayers on the hook for millions or billions in improper payments.\n\n\u201cAnd so I might just show you, this is what the GAO found \u2013 the Government Accountability Office, Mr. President \u2013 and this just came out literally just this last week. This was a finding \u2026 on their part.\n\n\u201cThat \u2018Obamacare subsidies granted without documentation to 90% of fake accounts.\u2019\n\n\u201cSo in other words, what the Government Accountability Office did is they ran an audit of the exchanges in which these insurance policies change hands, and found that 90 percent \u2013 90 percent \u2013 of these fake accounts, Mr. President, were granted subsidies without documentation.\n\n\u201cThink about that.\n\n\u201c90 percent of this investigation, these accounts they checked \u2013 they created fake accounts to see if, in fact, they would get a government subsidy \u2013 and they did.\n\n\u201c90 percent failure rate in this program.\n\n\u201cAnd so we have spiraling health care costs, a program incredibly vulnerable \u2013 as this has evidenced \u2013 vulnerable to fraud and abuse, and, again, Democrats are proposing that we do absolutely nothing.\n\n\u201cNo reforms, no revisions, no safeguards \u2013 just billions more in taxpayer dollars.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Republicans have made it very clear that we would like to work with Democrats to address the affordability of health care and find solutions that actually reduce costs.\n\n\u201cBut as Democrats have made clear with this \u2018clean\u2019 bill, they\u2019re not really after health care solutions.\n\n\u201cThey seem to be okay with a 90 percent fraud rate.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re after a political issue to attempt to batter Republicans with during this next election year.\n\n\u201cAnd if that means a proposal to throw more money at a program they know very well, very well, is failing \u2013 it\u2019s documented \u2013 then that\u2019s what they\u2019re going to go with.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll quote again, Mr. President: \u2018As much as we disagree on things, I just want to note the underlying agreement that this system needs a lot of reform.\u2019\n\n\u201cAgain, the words, Mr. President, of a Democrat senator.\n\n\u201cAnd she\u2019s right.\n\n\u201cThis system does need reform \u2013 and a lot of it.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s too bad Democrats aren\u2019t interested in making any.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "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.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=A11BF60B-6FAF-4559-B1AD-6E92ED4ABC05"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4510599430650473, "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"}