“Democrats in Congress and President Obama need to swallow their pride and they need to admit that the problems with the health care law are not limited to a bad website. The problems with the health care law run much deeper, and they’re only going to get
Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s speech.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) spoke about how after two weeks of delays, glitches, and error messages, Americans are still struggling to sign up for Obamacare. Barrasso points out that it’s clear the President’s health care law wasn’t designed well, wasn’t implemented well, and it looks like nobody tested it.
Excerpts of his remarks:
“It has now been two weeks since the launch of the insurance exchanges that were created by President Obama’s health care law.
“After two weeks of delays, error messages, things that the President calls glitches, the American people are united in saying that this is what a train wreck looks like.
“A recent poll by the Associated Press found that only seven percent of Americans say that this rollout has gone either very well or extremely well.
“The Obama Administration continues to say that the problems were just because of too many people trying to check out the website the first day.
“So to the President of the United States, and he and I talked about this directly, face to face at the White House. He said, well we just have a problem with the cash register. I would say that this is a website with major flaws. It goes way beyond the cash register.
“One online database programmer told CBS news that ‘It wasn’t designed well, it wasn’t implemented well, and it looks like nobody tested it.’
“That’s from a computer expert who says he supports the law, but that the website, he said, needs a complete overhaul.
“He told the network: ‘I would be ashamed and embarrassed if my organization delivered something like that.’
“Remember, Mr. President, they spent $400 million of hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
“This guy said he’d be ashamed and embarrassed to deliver something as bad as the Obama health care exchange.
“I think the Obama Administration should be embarrassed about the whole law.
“This health care law wasn’t designed well, wasn’t implemented well, and it looks like nobody tested it.
“The problems that we’ve seen are not just first day glitches.
“The problems have continued, people still can’t sign up easily, it’s still not easy to use as Amazon – remember the President of the United States promised it would be as easy to use as Amazon.com .
“Why are there still problems two weeks later?
“The CEO of Aetna insurance company said yesterday, yesterday, this is now almost two weeks into it said, ‘There’s so much wrong, you just don’t know what’s broken until you get a lot more of it fixed.’
“So, we still have no idea how many people have been able to enroll successfully.
“So what’s the Obama Administration continuing to hide?
“Wolf Blitzer came out last week on CNN and said, ‘If they weren’t fully ready, they should accept the advice Republicans are giving them, delay it for a year, get it ready, and make sure it works.’
“Even Jon Stewart was asking why the Obama Administration gave a one-year delay to big business, but not to the American people.
“I would tell you Mr. President, If you’re the Obama White House, when you’ve lost Jon Stewart, you know things are not going well.
“The problems don’t end with the media, or professional comedians.
“A Democrat member of the House who actually voted for this law called the launch of the exchanges ‘excruciatingly frustrating.’
“Robert Gibbs –who remember, the President Obama’s former press secretary – he said yesterday, ‘I hope they fire some people that were in charge of making sure that this thing was supposed to work.’
“So the biggest cheerleaders for the President’s health care law are now turning against it, the American people do not like it, people are not buying the Administration’s excuses for why it’s failed.
“Well, this is of course bad for the President—but the American people have even bigger problems.
“And that’s what we should really be focused on.
“The White House is worried about how this looks from a PR standpoint, but we should also be talking about the real harm that this health care law is doing to hard-working Americans and their families and their jobs and their paychecks.
“Many of them are going to lose their doctors, doctors who aren’t included in the insurance plans sold in these exchanges.
“Many of them are already seeing that their premiums are going up because of all the Washington mandates.
“Remember the President and the promises from passing this health care law? That’s not what people are seeing today.
“One mother told a TV station in Allentown, Pennsylvania that when she went to sign up on the web site she was told her premium would be almost $950 for her family.
“She said, That’s $765 more than she pays now.
“She told the station, ‘It would take food out of our mouths to be able to afford this coverage.’
“This is what the President of the United States and Democrats in this body have hoisted on the American people.
“People are finding that not just the premiums are going up—but many of their other health care costs will also be higher.
“The Chicago Tribune had this headline on Sunday: ‘Obamacare deductibles may cause sticker shock: Insurance companies are requiring higher out-of-pocket expenses to pay for complying with new rules.’
“Expenses of complying with rules. Not expenses to give you health care. Not expenses to keep you healthy. Not expenses to prevent injury or illness. Expenses to pay for complying with new rules. That’s the Chicago Tribune, the President’s hometown newspaper.
“As if all that weren’t bad enough, the Administration is still insisting its going fine people who don’t have insurance – even though people can’t even sign up in the Obamacare website successfully.
“The Obama Administration was saying that this is a long process, and that people have until the end of March next year to enroll in the exchanges.
“But then even that changed last week.
“Now it turns out people will actually have to sign up six weeks earlier than that, by Valentine’s Day—or pay the tax penalty.
“So what we are looking at is that tax penalty of one percent of your income, or $95, whichever is greater that first year.
“So that could be a sizeable amount of money for some families who thought they were going to get affordable insurance under the President’s health care law because that’s what the President promised them.
“He stood in Congress, he told the American people that. He stood in front of groups all around the country and the American people feel misled and deceived.
“All of this frustration, and expense, and stress, and pain – it was all avoidable.
“Democrats in Congress and President Obama need to swallow their pride and they need to admit that the problems with the health care law are not limited to a bad website.
“The problems with the health care law run much deeper, and they’re only going to get worse.
“We must do something to stop this terrible law from doing more damage to people’s jobs, to care, and our country.
“The President will be held to the promises he’s made as recently as two and a half weeks ago.
“People will be able to, if they like their doctor, they can keep their doctor. The cost will be less than a cell phone bill and what we’re seeing as well, he said, that it will be easier to use than Amazon.com
“This health care law has failed miserably. We needed health care reform so people could get care that they need from a doctor they choose at lower cost. They have not gotten it.
“It’s time to repeal and replace this terrible health care law.”
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