{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=08e97599-7dfe-4948-bd9e-7b283f309394", "Barrasso: More Bad News on Obamacare", "2015-09-30", "2015", "2015-09", "Republican", "House", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor highlighting recent alarming headlines about President Obamas health care law.\r\nTranscript of Senator Barrassos remarks:\r\nThe American people have gotten used to hearing bad news about their health care ever since the Democrats passed Obamacare.\r\nIt seems like each and every day theres another headline about another way the health care law is hurting people.\r\nLast Wednesday, there was a remarkable amount of bad news in one day.\r\nThe Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, September 23, the headline Health Insurers Defend Deals. You flip the page over and the bottom half of that page, Cost of a Family Health Plan Tops $17,000. One day, one page.\r\nThe top article about the wave of health insurance company mergers weve been seeing recently.\r\nNow, the president said that his health care law would increase competition among insurance companies.\r\nJust like a lot of other predictions that President Obama made, this one has not come true.\r\nBack in June, the insurance company Aetna announced plans to buy Humana. Then the company, Anthem, decided to buy Cigna.\r\nIf these mergers are approved, it means that the five largest insurance companies in the United States would now be down to three.\r\nThe president said that there would be more competition  well, Americans are about to have much less competition.\r\nIts not only because of these giant insurance company mergers.\r\nObamacare also set up health co-ops in 24 states. These co-ops were supposed to add competition and help keep prices down. Taxpayers put up $2.4 billion to help these companies get started.\r\nWell, over the past few months, whats happened? These co-ops have been dropping like flies.\r\nJust the other day, regulators in New York shut down the largest Obamacare co-op in the country. Why? Because its lost so much money. 215,000 New Yorkers will now have fewer options for where they can buy their Washington-mandated insurance.\r\nThis is the fourth co-op to fail in just the past few months. Another one failed before it ever enrolled a single person. Think about that: government loan, set up a co-op, dont enroll anyone and close shop.\r\nTheres only one co-op of the original 24 that is actually making any money  so it can stay in business.\r\nThe American people know that they are not getting the increased competition that President Obama promised.\r\nThey also know that they arent getting the lower prices that the president promised.\r\nAnother article came out last Wednesday that talked about how much more Americans are paying for their health care.\r\nThis was a September 23rd New York Times, with the headline Health Insurance Deductibles Rising Faster Than Wages. Here it is: unaffordable care. From 2010 to 2015, wages up 10 percent, premiums up 24 percent, deductibles up 67 percent.\r\nThe article describes a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. According to Kaiser, health insurance premiums for a single person have gone up more than twice as fast as peoples earnings since Obamacare became law. And were talking about all the people who get their insurance through work , which is about 150 million Americans. This isnt just a small group of people  this is all the people who get their insurance through work.\r\nDeductibles have gone up almost seven times faster than earnings. Thats an enormous hit to the finances of American families.\r\nThis article talked about how these high deductibles are hurting a woman named Beth Landrum. Shes 52 years old, shes a teacher.\r\nThe article says that about two years ago Beth saw the deductible on her familys plan increase to $3,300 per year. Shes a teacher, shes 52. $3,300 per year deductible under Obamas healthcare law.\r\nA couple of years ago is when a lot of these Obamacare mandates were really starting to bite.\r\nThis woman survived a brain tumor 10 years ago. Here she is  she has insurance, she had a brain tumor 10 years ag, successfully treated.\r\nNow shes putting off having an MRI thats been recommended by her doctor. She says, My doctors really mad at me because I havent had the MRI. They want to see if theres any recurrence of the tumor.\r\nShe says that she and her husband need to save up money to pay for the test. She has the health insurance under Obamacare  and she can no longer afford to get the health care. Coverage without care. The president continues to ignore this fact about his unaffordable health care law.\r\nCant afford to get care, not under Obamacare.\r\nPresident Obama promised that people would save $2,500 per family, per year under his health care law. Average premiums are up nearly $4,000 since the law passed.\r\nDoes the president really believe its affordable?\r\nThis new study by Kaiser only looked at insurance that people get, as I say, through their jobs.\r\nIt didnt look at the deductibles people are paying when they buy their insurance through the Obamacare exchanges.\r\nPresident Obama said that these plans would be cheaper than a cell phone bill. Thats what he said  cheaper than a cell phone. Easier to use than Amazon for shopping on the web, and cheaper than a cell phone.\r\nAccording to this article in the New York Times, thats not how its worked out for a woman named Rebecca Bullard.\r\nRebecca is 27-years-old, and she purchased her plan through her state exchange for $129 per month. To get a plan at that price, she had to accept a deductible of $6,000. But she has Obamacare. The president can say he did her a favor.\r\nThe article says that when she worried that she had cracked a rib recently, she chose to ask friends on social media about what to do rather than go to the doctor. Because of the Obamacare that was not worth very much to her.\r\nThats how concerned she is about paying the out-of-pocket costs that Obamacare brought her. She says, Now I dont even want to go to the doctor.\r\nIs that what the president promised the American people?\r\nDeductibles so high that people dont even want to go to their doctor?\r\nPeople may have coverage, but they cannot afford the care. People are paying more and getting less.\r\nIts not surprising that the Obama administration is starting to worry.\r\nThey have to figure out how to convince people that its worth signing up for this outrageously expensive Obamacare insurance.\r\nThats what the Wall Street Journal said in another article on September 23.\r\nThis was under the headline Insuring More People Seen as Tough.\r\nAccording to this article, the Secretary of Health and Human Services says that this open enrollment is going to be tougher than last year.\r\nWe know its going to be tough for families that are getting hit with higher premiums and other costs.\r\nNow, the Obama administration isnt worried about these people.\r\nWhat the Obama administration is now worried about is that it will be tough to sign up enough customers for this awful law.\r\nBy now, they were supposed to have 21 million people signed up for Obamacare by next year. Right now there arent even 10 million people signed up. Theyre not even half way to where they need to be and where they said they would be.\r\nIf they dont get more young, healthy customers soon, the whole system is likely to collapse.\r\nThats why the Obama administration is worried. Theyre worried about their ability to sustain this law.\r\nTheres a reason people arent signing up. The people who havent signed up yet know that the insurance is not a good value. Its not good for them, personally.\r\nAbout half of the people who still dont have insurance have less than $100 in savings. How is someone with less than $100 in savings supposed to pay a $6,000 deductible? Why wont the president answer these questions? Why wont they Democrats come to this floor and answer these questions? I havent seen a Democrat come address any of these issues or any of these headlines.\r\nPresident Obama promised the American people that his health care law would produce lower costs and more choice.\r\nInstead, hes given people fewer choices, more powerful insurance companies, higher deductibles and higher premiums.\r\nWeve had too many of these alarming headlines, and thats just in one day. Too much bad news about Obamacare. The American people get it, its a bad deal for them.\r\nPresident Obama is a lame duck. He forced through Congress a terrible program.\r\nIts time for Democrats in Congress to sit down with Republicans and start talking about the kind of health care reforms that the American people need, want and deserve.\r\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://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=08e97599-7dfe-4948-bd9e-7b283f309394"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4340891502797604, "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"}