{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=f45096f4-10e2-421d-b2e0-331cf4470035", "Barrasso: Obamacare Fails Rural Americans", "2015-10-21", "2015", "2015-10", "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 Obamacares failures in addressing rural health care.\r\nTranscript of Senator Barrassos remarks:\r\nMr. President, I'd like to associate myself with the remarks of the majority leader and point out that in today's New York Times, Wednesday, October 21, the big headline, Insurance out of reach for many despite law. Despite this law, insurance is out of reach for many.\r\nAnd I know that my colleagues who are back home visiting with people around their home states last week, listening to what was on constituents' minds, heard exactly this, the problems of the health care law.\r\nI was at home in Wyoming, and I heard from a lot of people who are very concerned about President Obamas collapsing health care law.\r\nPeople in Wyoming just learned that the insurance company WINHealth will no longer be selling insurance through the Obamacare exchange in our state.\r\nThe company said that it had to stop selling Obamacare plans because there was just no way to make money without big taxpayer subsidies coming from Washington.\r\nThis company was already planning to raise rates significantly next year.\r\nIt turns out that even that wasnt going to be enough money to make it worthwhile.\r\nIn less than two weeks, Obamacare exchanges across the country will start selling insurance for next year.\r\nSo the total number of companies left selling insurance in the exchange for the state of Wyoming will be exactly one.\r\nThere will be no competition at all in the Obamacare exchange.\r\nIf your doctor doesnt take that insurance  you are out of luck.\r\nIf you cant afford it you are out of luck.\r\nIs that what the president promised the American people?\r\nI got an email from one of my constituents  Al Harris in Green River, Wyoming.\r\nHe wrote: HELP!!!!!!\r\nHe says, WINHealth has become the latest casualty of Obamacare.\r\nAl says that at his business, I have about 30 people that now will have no insurance  at least not this insurance. I am scrambling with few options and Im convinced any option will be substantially more expensive.\r\nAl says, This train wreck needs to be stopped. And I agree.\r\nPresident Obama and Democrats in Congress made a mess of the health care system in our country.\r\nThey said they had a better way of doing things.\r\nThey said they knew best how to create competition, and how health care should operate in America.\r\nThey created all of these Washington mandates.\r\nThey required people to buy expensive coverage that was more than many people wanted, needed, or could afford.\r\nThen they created the exchanges where people could buy this new, expensive, Washington-mandated insurance coverage.\r\nAnd now the people of Wyoming are left with one option on the Obamacare exchange.\r\nBuy this insurance from this one company  or the IRS will come knocking at your door to collect a big tax penalty, and Mr. President, the penalty is going up next year.\r\nBecause of the significant failures of Obama administration, rural Americans now have fewer choices.\r\nIts not just in Wyoming.\r\nWe just learned last week that insurance co-ops in Colorado, Oregon and Tennessee are all closing their doors.\r\nWhy?\r\nBecause theyve all lost so much money.\r\nEight of the 23 health care co-ops in the country have collapsed  completely collapsed - in the past few months.\r\nCo-ops have closed in New York, Kentucky  as the majority leader has just said, Louisiana, Nevada, Iowa, and Nebraska.\r\nMany are in rural areas, where people already dont have a lot of choices.\r\nNow, were talking a half million people here losing their coverage, losing their insurance.\r\nRemember that promise the President Obama made  if you like your coverage, you can keep your coverage? Wheres the president now? The president said the health care law is working better than he even thought. Amazing.\r\nObamacare created these co-ops claiming to provide lower-cost insurance  then it saddled them with so many mandates and restrictions that they need massive taxpayer bailouts.\r\nAltogether, these failed co-ops collected nearly $900 million already in taxpayer loans to help get them going. Thats how President Obama put this together.\r\nNow the co-ops have sunk, theyre are sinking  and theyre taking their taxpayer loans with them.\r\nThe ones that are trying to survive have been hiking their rates.\r\nThe co-op in Utah plans to raise premiums by 58 percent starting in January just to be able to stay open. Is that what the president promised when he said rates would drop $2,500 per family?\r\nIn Montana, the rates are set to go up by 43 percent for some co-op plans.\r\nThis wasnt what rural Americans needed.\r\nPresident Obama said that the American people were going to get more choices because of his health care law  instead theyre getting fewer choices.\r\nAnd yet he stands up and boldly says, it's working better than he expected.\r\nObamacare created the illusion of coverage.\r\nNow even this illusion is disappearing.\r\nWhats even worse for rural Americans is that its not just the coverage thats turning out to be an illusion under Obamacare. The care is actually disappearing.\r\nEarlier this month we learned that Mercy Hospital in Independence, Kansas, will be closing down.\r\nThis is the 56th rural hospital to close in the United States since 2010  when Obamacare became law.\r\nAnother 238 hospitals are in danger of closing.\r\nThe added expense, the regulations, and the other destructive side effects of Obamacare are a big reason for this.\r\nThe patients who rely on these hospitals will have to find some other place to go to get their medical care  somewhere farther away from home. \r\nDemocrats in Congress  many who live in big cities  may take for granted that they can get to a hospital quickly.\r\nThats just not the case in rural America.\r\nAs a doctor who practiced medicine for 25 years, I can tell you that the extra time people spend travelling to a hospital can make all the difference in the world between life and death.\r\nFor someone whos had a heart attack, or been in a traffic accident, or for a woman with a high-risk pregnancy, every minute counts.\r\nOnly 20 percent of the U.S. population lives in rural areas  and these areas account for 60 percent of all trauma deaths.\r\nAmericans living in these rural areas didnt need President Obama making it tougher for their rural, local hospital to stay open.\r\nMercy Hospital was the center of medical care in its community for 100 years  and it also provided jobs for nearly 200 people.\r\nIn many parts of the country  like Independence, Kansas, and much of my home state of Wyoming  the local hospital can be the biggest employer in the area.\r\nIf the hospital closes, those people lose their jobs.\r\nThe tax base for the community goes down, which means fewer services like schools, firefighters and public safety. Maybe the local restaurant or florist doesnt have enough business to stay open.\r\nNurses, teachers, and other workers move away, looking for a better chance somewhere else.Its harder for the town to attract new doctors, teachers, or businesses.\r\nThe town suffers.\r\nThats what these communities across America are facing.\r\nWas that what President Obama promised the American people?\r\nIs that how Obamacare was supposed to work?\r\nEzekiel Emanuel was one of the architects of the president's health care law.\r\nHe says that 56 hospitals shutting down is not enough. Hes actually written about this  its astonishing.\r\nHe says that over the next few years, more than 1,000 hospitals will close.\r\nOne thousand American communities, where people will be farther away from medical care. \r\n\"One thousand American towns in danger of fading away because of the lost jobs and lost health care.\r\nWe needed health care reform in this country  thats not in dispute.\r\nWe did not need the disruptive, destructive, and dangerous Obamacare law.\r\nIts been bad for patients, bad for providers like doctors and nurses who take care of those patients, and terrible for taxpayers.\r\nIt has been especially hard on rural communities.\r\nWe have got to do something to stop this corrosive condition causing hospitals to close,insurance co-ops to collapse and health care choices to disappear.\r\nDemocrats in Congress need 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###\r\nhttps://www.barrasso.senate.gov", 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=f45096f4-10e2-421d-b2e0-331cf4470035"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5423642471432686, "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"}