{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=D05AC443-B16D-4C96-91B6-0EC26067E4F5", "Barrasso: Obamacare is Very Near Collapse", "2016-09-06", "2016", "2016-09", "Republican", "House", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso\u2019s remarks.\r\nWASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014 Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor regarding how the president\u2019s health care law is \u201cvery near collapse.\u201d\r\nBarrasso points out that, one by one, insurers are dropping out of Obamacare and leaving Americans with less choice for health insurance.\r\nExcerpts of Senator Barrasso\u2019s remarks:\r\n\u201cI can still remember the president back in 2009, when he gave his speech to Congress, he said, \u2018In 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies.\u2019\r\n\u201cThe president said that \u2018without competition, the price of insurance goes up,\u2019 and he said that \u2018quality goes down.\u2019\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s what President Obama said seven years ago. He said that five options or fewer was such a threat to competition and to quality of care for American families that he needed to create his very own entire Obamacare system.\r\n\u201cSo what\u2019s the situation today? One-third of America will have only one Obamacare insurer in 2017.\r\n\u201cMillions of Americans will have fewer choices in 2017 than when they had in 2016, with a third of the country having only one option for coverage next year.\r\n\u201cThe Obama administration said that these were supposed to be competitive marketplaces.\r\n\u201cWhen there\u2019s only one company selling a product in an area, that\u2019s not competition \u2013 that\u2019s a monopoly.\r\n\u201cWhen you\u2019re down to one choice, basically you have no choice. Except for the people in   Pinal County, Arizona, they actually have no choices.\r\n\u201cNo one wants to sell insurance to the people that live there, none. It is an Obamacare ghost town.\r\n\u201cWhat does President Obama say about that?\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s gotten so bad in some places that the Obamacare exchanges are being called by state insurance commissioners \u2018very near collapse.\u2019\r\n\u201cThe insurance commissioner in Tennessee described the situation in her state as very near collapse.\r\nObamacare Premiums Set to Skyrocket\r\n\u201cPeople in Tennessee who get Obamacare insurance will be paying as much as 62 percent more starting in January.\r\n\u201cIn Illinois, they\u2019re going to be paying 45 percent more next year. In Georgia, 33 percent more.\r\n\u201cThese aren\u2019t just proposed increases; these are increases that have been approved by the insurance commissioners of those states.\r\n\u201cPremiums are going through the roof, Americans are stuck with fewer options \u2013 because the insurance companies just can\u2019t afford to sell on the exchanges due to the rules and regulations and the mandates of the exchanges.\r\n\u201cPeople living in a third of the country won\u2019t have any choice next year \u2013 all they\u2019ll have to deal with is an Obamacare health insurance monopoly, heading to Obamacare no man\u2019s land.\r\n\u201cCompanies are giving up because people don\u2019t want Obamacare insurance, people can\u2019t afford it, they\u2019re not buying it, they say for them it\u2019s not a good deal.\r\nCreating Real Competition\u2014Not Obamacare Monopolies\r\n\u201cObamacare has failed \u2013 and Democrats cannot fix it by making it larger.\r\n\u201cIn one-third of the counties in America, people won\u2019t have a choice for where they buy their health insurance starting November 1st.\r\n\u201cAmerica does have a choice when it comes to fixing our broken health care system.\r\n\u201cWe can choose to get rid of Obamacare \u2013 and to put in place solutions that we know actually will work for people.\r\n\u201cIt means letting people get out from under the burden of all the Washington mandates, and it\u2019s the mandates that are really the cause of these devastating price increases.\r\n\u201cYou want to create real competition, not Obamacare monopolies.\r\n\u201cLetting people choose the coverage, and the cost, that is right for them and their families \u2013 not what Washington says is right for them.\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s time for Democrats to work with us to give the American people the health care that they want, that they need and that they deserve.\u201d\r\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ###", 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=D05AC443-B16D-4C96-91B6-0EC26067E4F5"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8233552798628807, "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"}