{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://jasonsmith.house.gov//media-center/weekly-capitol-report/capitol-report-obamacare-one-year-later", "Capitol Report: Obamacare One Year Later", "2014-12-01", "2014", "2014-12", "Republican", "House", "MO", "Jason Smith", "S001195", "jasonsmith.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Open enrollment under Obamacare has begun again and even more folks are being forced to participate in the exchanges. We are hearing that more businesses are being forced to lay off employees, individuals are being dropped from their policies and we don\u2019t even know what the true extent of this round\u2019s damage under Obamacare will be.\nSome companies with 100 employees or more after January 1, 2015 will be determined \u201cnoncompliant\u201d under the Obamacare mandate and forced to pay steep fines or lay off employees. For example, a business in Bonne Terre can either lay off 100 of their 180 employees or pay and estimated $700,000 in fines to comply with Obamacare. One option puts 100 people out of a job and the other puts the company $350,000 in the red. Realistically, unless they want the company to go under, they have only one choice, cut employees. They don\u2019t truly have a choice and now 100 people are without jobs. This is what Obamacare is doing. It is unfair, it is wrong, and it is killing our small businesses.\nAs if that is not bad enough, the American people are equally hurt by the individual mandate. A constituent recently wrote to me sharing that he was dropped from his current plan and his new choice is twice as expensive. He wrote, \u201cI just received my personal introduction to Obamacare. It came in the form of my health insurance cancellation effective December 31, 2014. My wife and I are not wealthy. We both work 50+ hours per week. A doubling of health insurance premium and nearly four thousand (or more) additional funds that must be set aside for the deductible mean sacrifices in other places.\u201d This is becoming all too common under Obamacare and it is something that cannot continue.\nThese horror stories we continue to hear apparently do not phase the Obama administration. They knew these were the consequences all along and they purposely hid them from the American people to get the law passed. The recent discovery of Jonathan Gruber\u2019s comments from 2012 concerning the lack of transparency behind the bill reaffirms this. Gruber, the architect behind Obamacare, said himself, \u201clack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass. Look, I wish \u2026 we could make it all transparent, but I\u2019d rather have this law than not.\u201d How much clearer can it get? The Obama administration wanted to get this law passed and willingly deceived the American people to do so. As your Congressman, I absolutely will not stand for this. \u00a0\nIn an economic climate that is already hard on everyone, this law is making it even worse. Last week, the House of Representatives filed a lawsuit challenging the Obama Administration\u2019s unlawful and unfair implementation of Obamacare. We are going to continue fighting to repeal this law and send it to the president\u2019s desk. It does not appear that the president will be the most willing to work with Congress to fix this mess, but something must be done. We will see this lawsuit through and work tirelessly to fix the major portions of the law that are hurting our citizens. I am committed to standing with my colleagues and standing for my constituents to repeal this law.\n\u00a0\n###", 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": ["http://jasonsmith.house.gov//media-center/weekly-capitol-report/capitol-report-obamacare-one-year-later"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.0671002566814423, "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"}